But first, I have to address my own personal interests.  I am incredibly interested in the common core and its updated developments.  Why?  Because as I’ve stated in various other posts, I think there are some really great things happening right now in education.  As we weed through political influences, society’s expectations, and quantifying concepts that are uniquely unquantifiable, I think we are beginning to pay attention to individual students.  The perspectives of educators is narrowing in from seeing classrooms of students as a unit to seeing classrooms of students as individuals; that, I believe, is the great shift happening right now.

So, yes, I am a supporter of what is happening, which explains my excitement about shifting pedagogies and educational paradigms.  It also explains my very serious sense of urgency about implementation and my anxiety about getting clear messages out to my readers–I want to do my part in helping you to be as informed as possible as soon as information becomes available.

Speakers at the conference yesterday included Stan Heffner, State Superintendent for Ohio’s Public Schools, Michael Cohen, from Achieve, Steve Dacking and Eric Gordon, superintendents of Reynoldsburg Schools and Cleveland Schools respectively, Debe Terhar, Ohio State Board of Education, Deb Tully, Ohio Federation of Teachers, and Melissa Cardenas, from the Ohio Board of Regents.  The following are themes from throughout the conversation:

The Importance of the Common Core to Ohio’s Students

• Both Heffner and Cardenas pointed out 41% of Ohio’s college freshmen must take remedial coursework.
• Heffner discussed the difference between “proficient” on Ohio Graduation Tests (which requires students to get only 33% of answers correct on the reading OGT and only 32% correct on math).  This also connected to a later discussion about how cut-scores (for proficiency) are currently defined on Ohio tests versus how they will be defined on PARCC assessments.  Currently, curriculum directors and educational leaders meet to determine cut-scores on a yearly basis by looking at the scores of Ohio’s students.  In the future, proficiency scores will be determined by synthesizing data from assessments both nationally and internationally, which allows for comparing Ohio’s students’ scores with students on a more broad scale.
• The phrase “college and career ready” and expectations of students to meet that level of readiness was a theme of the day, as it should be given CCR standards are the driving force behind shifting to the common core.
• In pursuit of college and career readiness, the breakdown in expected amounts of informational (70% by 12th grade) versus literary texts (30% by 12th grade) students should be reading was reiterated.

Shifting Paradigms

• Speakers from throughout the morning addressed the changes in the way we approach teaching, which can be summarized by the quip “Teachers are not dispensers of learning; teachers need to be facilitators of learning.”  This theme included mention of the traditional versus new classroom, the sage on the stage versus guide on the side styles of teaching, new technologies, and changing expectations in teacher preparation programs, which should now be heavily-based on teaching educators to implement pedagogies appropriate for common core expectations.
• In a sentiment echoed by nearly all speakers, Debe Terhar of the Ohio Board of Education begged attendees, “Please don’t wait to implement common core.”  Deb Tully, OFT, said she has heard teachers say they are waiting for the assessment to be developed to make changes in their classrooms.  Effectively, she said, this is exactly what we’re already doing–teaching to a test.  By waiting until the assessment is available, we are maintaining instead of moving forward.
• Heffner said that implementing the common core now, while the Ohio Achievement Assessments and Ohio Graduation Tests are in place will not hurt students:  ”If I’m asking more of students, how can I hurt them on existing tests that ask less of students.”
• A shift that really, really concerns me as both a previous ELA teacher and a grade level team leader is the shift from non-text-dependent to text-dependent questioning.  This is to happen throughout the subject areas, and as I’ve discussed before, it is vastly different than the way we have approached reading and understanding texts in the past.  Cohen stressed the new assessments will evaluate a student’s ability to use what he or she reads, not to answer unrelated questions.  His presentation shows this shift in question:

Notice the difference in the kind of questions–We,  maybe I should speak for myself only, I am guilty of primarily asking those non-text dependent questions, but the CCSS and the associated assessments will look for those text dependent ones.  I see this as being one of the big challenges in our shifting mindsets.  (Check out the continuing conversation about changes in teaching reading from 2/17)

(Update 2/21:  @edtechgirl wrote an excellent blog addressing the question of text dependent vs. non-text dependent questions.)

The PARCC Assessments

• As I’ve posted before, the PARCC assessments are divided into four tests throughout the school year.  The first two, a diagnostic and performance task assessment, are optional and not required.  (Though, I see serious potential in using both optional assessments as part of an RtI framework!!)  The third assessment, offered 3/4 of the way through the year, and the end-of-year assessment, given at the end of May, will result in combined summative scores that will count for districts.  In the past, my complaint about PARCC was its failure to offer a computer adaptive test, the likes of which Smarter Balanced has planned to implement since the beginning, but PARCC is now moving toward a computer-adaptive test for the first diagnostic.  In terms of RtI, again, this would be a wonderful opportunity for districts who have been using various other screening tools (CBMs, MAP, STAR, etc.) in the past.

Interesting Developments for Education in Ohio

• If you didn’t catch the Dispatch article today, Heffner mentioned the combination of both the Department of Education and the Ohio Board of Regents into one building.  Who would’ve thunk??
• Heffner also said the IIS system currently under development is slated to replace EMIS, an announcement that received a round of applause from attendees.
• Switching from OAA to PARCC assessments will save the state money, said Heffner.  He said we should see a 40% savings because we aren’t paying for people to score the assessments.  This money, he said, should be used to improve the technological capacity and infrastructure throughout the state.
• Multiple speakers pointed out we will see our achievement scores plummet in the first year of implementing the new assessments.  When asked about getting a positive, informed message out to the public, Heffner said the Department of Education would need to take a leading role in providing districts with the communication support.

Lingering Questions and Concerns

In my readings and common core work, I keep hearing the same issues, concerns, and arguments, and I feel like these issues are constantly lingering but never addressed:

• How does the common core handle students with disabilities?  A principal asked this very question yesterday, and received a somewhat short response from a panel member who basically said we need to hold our students to higher standards.  While this is true in our idealized “all kids can achieve” society, we need to look realistically at how to make this happen.  I think teachers are incredibly anxious about having performance evaluations based 50% on standardized achievement of students, and despite the political implications of these evaluations, the issue at the core of this concern is how do we help struggling students?  How do I get an ESL student to read a book at grade-level complexity?  How do I get a student with little to no motivation to attend school enough to reach college and career readiness?  These are real issues, and falling back on the “all kids can achieve” ideology does not provide practical guidance for teachers.
• What will happen to school funding when scores plummet?  Though Heffner said ODE would work to start communicating an informed message to our voting public, educators and policy makers in Ohio already know how challenging the climate is in getting levies, income tax renewals, and bond issues to pass.  If anything, naysayers are looking for reasons to voice their opposition for increased taxes, and plummeting achievement scores (clearly communicated proactive message or not) will provide fuel for that fire.
• How will cut scores on PARCC be comparable to cut scores on Smarter Balanced?  I also think this is an incredibly important issue, and one I have only heard addressed briefly in the Education Week assessment seminar in December.  I am concerned about this.  What will the ultimate approach to comparing these scores entail?  Will the logical conclusion be that one consortium will “win” and all common core states will eventually join the same assessment?  Will educators be forced to switch from one to the other?  How will this happen?
• What do we do about our struggling students?  How do we hold them to the high expectations inherent in the core standards while having realistic expectations of their abilities?
• How do we disseminate information and provide appropriate training that will prepare our teachers for shifting pedagogies?  While at the ETech conference, I heard many times, “Oh, this technology is great, but what do I do with it?”  A similar complaint can be made about the multitude of resources (both true to CCSS expectations as well as far removed from them!) pouring forth in support of common core implementation, which Kathleen Porter-Magee discusses here.   The work that is currently going on with the core standards is unreachable to the individual teacher, and without some serious (and timely) support in HOW to implement, policy is going to continue to outrace practitioner.

Related Links:

Videos and Presentations from the EdExcellence Conference

I joined Twitter last year after the Innovative Learning Environments conference in Columbus, and I think it has become an excellent resource.  Having participated in a few #edchats, which I will admit were incredibly difficult to follow using my Tweet Deck application, I find Twitter is most valuable in connecting me to 1) Some of the best minds in education, 2) Some of the best blogs in education, and 3) Updated information around topics of personal interest (#commoncore, for example, or #engchat).  While I don’t “reply” to the tweets of others as often as I probably should to build my network and deepen my already existing connections, I do try to check Twitter either online or on my phone at least once a day.  I can tell pretty quickly when something big is happening in education because those I follow on my Twitter feed will start tweeting similar topics, either in reference to an article or to an idea (#SOPA was a big topic on my feed, recently published research about RTTT and CCSS readiness has also been popular lately).

At the last ORC ELA Supervisors meeting, we began discussing Twitter and I heard people say, “I’m on Twitter, but who do I follow?”  I think finding people to follow is a good first step to becoming acclimated with Twitter.  After that, posting Tweets that add to conversations, such as links to articles, blogs, research documents, and/or tweets that make profound personal statements are some of the best ways for YOU to get recognized and may get you some followers of your own.

To get you started in following others, here’s my list of recommendations, which you can also view by following me (@christinahank) and clicking “Following”:

CCSSO (@ccsso) : Council of Chief State School Officers (recognize that from the Common Core?)

Erik Robelen (@ewrobelen):  Reporter for Education Week

CCSSnetwork (@CCSSnetwork):  Retweets the tweets of others that are pertinent to the Common Core–Retweets (RT) allow you to find other people to follow

Kathleen Porter-Magee (@kportermagee):  Common Core blogger with Fordham Institute

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu):  ”The Innovative Educator” blogger; I may not always agree with her, but I love her perspective

Dr. Dea Conrad-Curry (@doctordea):  Educator, blogger, teacher of teachers.  Excellent resource for common core reflections

PARCC Place (@PARCCPlace):  Updated information about what’s happening with the PARCC assessments for those states in the consortia

Peter DeWitt (@PeterMDeWitt):  Blogger for Education Week

Ewan McIntosh (@ewanmcintosh):  Education speaker, innovative thinker

Daniel Pink (@DanielPink):  Author, education speaker

David Wees (@davidwees):  Education speaker, educator

Huffington Post’s Education News (@Education_Alert):  Keep current on what is going on in education news

NCTE (@ncte):  Teach English?  Follow NCTE

Shanker Blog (@Shankerblog):  Education think tank and research blog.  Love the analysis they do!

Rachel Levy (@RachelAnneLevy):  I’m going to call her a prolific Tweeter I love following her education work and blog

Arne Duncan (@arneduncan):  Because, why not?

Join the Future (@jointhefutureOH):  Based in Columbus, Ohio, Join the Future will keep you current on local education issues in Ohio

Fordham Institute (@educationgadfly):  Education think tank–again, we may not always agree, but it’s nice to be informed about other perspectives

Will Richardson (@willrich45):  I’ve heard he will be speaking again at the Innovative Learning Environments Conference in August in Columbus??

Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch):  Author, education activist

That’s only the start of the 103 people, organizations, and news groups I follow on Twitter.  I can’t tell you how much I have learned just from this one resource.  Instantaneously, I have access to some of the greatest brains and institutions, and what’s even more incredible is my ability to have a “conversation” with these people through hashtags and @ replies.

Jump into Twitter, find me, and start building your network.

Related Articles:

“Be Better at Twitter” by Megan Garber

Some schools, in response, are nervous about the technical requirements.  In cash-strapped districts throughout Ohio, technology coordinators anxiously await guidance: what do we need to buy?  Do we expand our bandwidth?  How do we prepare our technical capabilities to handle these assessments?

PARCC and Smarter Balanced are working with the State Education Technology Directors Association to create a technology needs assessment tool for use by states and local districts in preparation for 2014-15 implementation.  Set to be released in March (hopefully), the tool will provide guidance for purchasing.

Bill Tucker talks about these developments in “The Country’s Most Ambitious Digital Learning Project“

For my annotated/highlighted version (through Diigo–which is wonderful, by the way!), click here.

*Update (1/31):  Check out that timeliness!  Just received this in my email.  Pearson has won the bid to work with SETDA in creating the assessment tool.

States wanting to leave the common core:  

In Indiana, legislators recently voted down a bill that would have removed the state from adopting common core standards.  The bill argued that common core standards are a “step down” from what Indiana is already doing under its current standards, a sentiment echoed by Sandra Stosky, who helped write the current standards:

‘They are not the best standards out there,’ she said. ‘They are not as good as what Indiana had.’

I have heard echoes of this idea elsewhere as well.  In a common core group, I recently saw a teacher post the following:

I don’t really see much of a difference between individual state standards and the common core ones, but I’m glad it will be nationwide.

The common core isn’t so common, though:

What we have, then, are educators who may not see the difference between the education paradigm of yesterday and the shifting paradigms of the common core.  The words in the standards may seem similar to the words of the old standards, but the pedagogy is very different.  Kathleen Porter-Magee further describes the difference between where states think their standards are already similar and how these similarities are actually insignificant and “overly simplistic” in addressing the expectations of the common core:

For starters, these crosswalk comparisons too often lose the forest for the trees, focusing on narrow and sometimes insignificant differences between state and Common Core standards, rather than working to identify major differences in prioritization and focus. As one example, a Crosswalk done by the Oregon State Department of Education compared the following second grade standards:

Common Core	Oregon Standard
Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.	EL.02.LI.05 Make and confirm predictions about what will happen next.EL.02.LI.06 Describe cause-and-effect of specific events.EL.02.LI.06 Describe cause-and-effect of specific events.EL.02.SL.07 Ask for clarification and explanation of stories and ideas.

The summary analysis found that

• Oregon’s call for predictions and cause/effect only.
• CCSS calls for students to focus on key details.

Nowhere in this overly simplistic analysis does the state even mention the focus in the CCSS on engaging in close reading of grade appropriate texts. And yet, the importance of ensuring that allstudents engage in reading sufficiently rigorous texts is at the heart of the Common Core standards—and represents a significant shift for classrooms across the country.

While I am not always in agreement with Kathleen, I think her analysis is spot on in this case.  The common core is an intricate web of new pedagogy, and when it is simplified into simple semantics, the value of the inherent new thinking within the standards is lost completely.

Shifting paradigms of teaching:

Yesterday, Cathleen Gewertz, with Education Week, described a meeting in Florida of Chief Academic Officers who met to discuss how to provide professional development for common core implementation that really addressed these pedagogical shifts.  Together, they engaged in deep thinking about what it means to read critically and how the common core emphasis on this kind of reading will change the way we teach reading in our classrooms:

Instead of quickly feeding students the answers to the questions they will inevitably have, teachers are going to have to learn a whole new way of working: to “tolerate silences” and take a “let’s-find-out” approach, channeling students back to the text for answers, Pook said. This will raise “confidence and stamina issues” for teachers, he said. “We’ll have to hold teachers back and push them back to the text,” he said.

One district official captured a key shift in the kinds of questions teachers will have to learn how to ask. He pointed to one of the questions, which asked, “What words did Freedman use to characterize what happened next?” He noted that many of his teachers would say they already do this.

“They’ll say, ‘Yeah, I always ask what happened next,’ ” he said. “But that’s not the question. The question was, ‘What words did Freedman use?’ “

Herein lies our shifting paradigm, one that goes unnoticed when we find ourselves subscribing to the idea that the common core is similar to what we already do.

Making sure our PD fits:

When we’re thinking about PD and what we need to be doing to implement common core standards, it is essential that we understand our end goal, which is not to continue doing the same thing we have always done (what’s that cliche about insanity and expecting different results?); our end goal is to change the way we teach, to raise 21st century learners, to shift our mindsets about education away from rows of students sitting silently and actively zoning out while teachers attempt to pour knowledge into them.  PD that reinforces the similarities of the common core fails to recognize the essential differences of the common core.  This is an idea reinforced by Kathleen Porter-Magee:

This is our chance not just to raise the expectations for all students, but also to rethink the way to approach state standards implementation. Let’s seize the opportunity and make sure we’re getting it right.

Related Articles:

2/1:  Indiana wasn’t swayed by the vote in favor of the common core standards; reps still managed to pass a bill requiring cursive writing to remain in the standards.

2/17:  The debate on shifting paradigms in reading continues.

Check out the videos here:  Engage NY Video Series

The U.S. Department of Education released its evaluation of Race to the Top in Ohio and other states.

The Fordham Institute summarized major points in the report.

It’s nice to stay informed about what the state and federal government defines as next steps for the state.

While it feels satisfying to have a somewhat solid grasp on what is happening in education in terms of curriculum, sometimes I feel like I am on common core overload.  There is so much going on!  There are new revelations every day!  I can’t finish a blog post on deconstructing standards before I start working on a blog post about text complexity.  I can’t finish the text complexity post before I’m on to text types and purposes.  In the interest of keeping all you informed as well as in the interest of continuing to curate resources and information for those who follow my posts, I feel a responsibility to keep posting as I learn.  Go, go, go; learn, learn, learn.  Again, there is so much going on!

And then, I post a link to Twitter and get this response from a teacher:  ”@ChristinaHank What is #commoncore?”

*Insert the sound of a screeching halt right here*

I am so thankful to the person who asked that question because it reminded me to step back and look at the big picture.  There are so many teachers, so many school districts that still have not begun having conversations about common core implementation.  Here I am delving into the intricacies of the standards, and while I find that useful both for my own learning as well as for myself as a resource to others, many teachers are still on the tarmac waiting to find out from which runway they are set to take off.   They could care less at this particular moment about the use of the word “mandated” in reference to texts in CCSS (another blog post I am working on); they need practical, relavent resources that answer the question, “What can I do right now?!”

So, let us take a step back from the common core and talk about what teachers and schools can be doing right now to begin implementing the common core.  I need to simplify my approach to helping you by laying out the resources you can be using right now.

Step 1:  Introduce Yourself and Your Staff to the Common Core.

• This post features PPT presentations from the Ohio Department of Education.  These can be viewed/shown without any necessary editing.
• Core Standards:  Guide yourself and/or your staff to the standards
• Get informed about the PARCC Assessment with the most updated information through this analysis I did of the SB/PARCC Assessment webinar through Education Week

Step 2:  Guide Yourself and Your Staff Through Deconstruction.

• The best way to get familiar with the standards is to dig in.  In this post, I take readers through the process of deconstruction and examined by Chappuis, Stiggins, Chappuis, and Arter (2011).
• Deconstruction would make for excellent professional learning opportunities this summer, and would provide teachers with a more intense understanding of what they should be focusing on in their lessons.
• Speaking of lessons, begin using and encouraging your staff to use learning targets as the “objectives” for their lesson plans next school year.

Step 3:  Use Your Time and Your Staff’s Training Time to Look at Text Complexity While Reflecting On the Use of Learning Targets and Deconstructed Standards.

• For ELA teachers, begin considering text types and purposes as they are described in the common core.
• Take a couple/few of the books already in use and evaluate their level of complexity based on common core’s outline for complexity of texts.

Whether you have started implementing or are elbows deep in deconstruction, I encourage you to take a deep breath, stop swimming in the intricacies of the common core (though, I would love for you to keep visiting my blog as a resource!), and simplify your process.  The best approach to strong implementation is not in throwing yourself or your staff into the deep end of the pool, but instead to wade in from the shallow side.  Simplify, simplify, simplify.

photo credit: cleber via photopin cc

“Common Assessments:  More Details Emerge”

Reminder–Ohio has joined the PARCC consortium.

The need for choosing appropriately challenging grade level texts stems from research showing that although college and workplace text difficulty has risen in recent decades, the level of difficulty in the textbooks we use in our classrooms has steadily declined.  When looking solely at Lexile scores (a quantitative measure of text difficulty based on a mathematical formula), I have heard varying discrepancy levels stating high school texts are anywhere from 100-300 Lexile levels below appropriate grade level complexity.  What does this mean for our students?  It means based on quantitative measures alone (more about other measures in a few minutes), we are currently graduating students who lack the skills to read and comprehend college and workplace level texts because what they are reading in high school isn’t challenging enough.

As we continue our move toward implementing CCSS, it is important for teachers to begin evaluating the complexity of texts we use in our classroom.

Before I continue, I need to take a moment to remind everyone that teaching literacy is not solely the job of the English teacher.  To establish some accountability for all content teachers as reading instructors, the CCSS go so far as to set literacy standards for other content areas.  So, even as I discuss text complexity in terms of ELA, if you assign reading in your class, checking text complexity is your responsibility also.

The CCSS evaluate a text’s difficulty by analyzing three components of the text:  1) Quantitative Measures, 2) Qualitative Measures, and 3) Reader and Task Considerations.

Credit: Lexile.com

Quantitative Measures

To measure a text’s quantitative value, one would use one of the many already-created scales for readability such as Fry readability or a Lexile score.  To search for a book’s Lexile score by keyword or title, use the Lexile book search tool. The image model above is slightly misleading in its representation of the equality of each complexity component.  It looks as though qualitative, quantitative, and reader and task considerations each get equal weight in the evaluation of a text’s complexity, but from my reading of both Appendix A and other resources (see this published research by Hiebert), the quantitative measure seems to be the least reliable piece.  Appendix A explicitly recognizes that a text with very complex qualitative measures (such as The Grapes of Wrath) might have a low quantitative score because it uses shorter words, more dialogue (naturally more simplistic language), and dialect (which will, again, throw the readability score off).  Quantitative measures, then, are not very reliable.  They may serve as a starting point for discussion, but we need to use our professional judgment and rely more so on the qualitative measures.

Appendix A does, however, include references to grade-level-appropriate Lexile scores:

Again, as you will note, by the end of grade 12, the expected quantitative measure of complexity has increased by 120 Lexile levels.  The discrepancy between current quantitative values and expected CCSS quantitative values begins with the 3rd grade, meaning we all need to check the complexity of our texts beginning with the 2-3 grades.

Qualitative Measures

A seemingly more reliable measure of complexity (to me, at least) is the quality of the text.  There is a little more common sense and professional opinion involved in measure the qualitative worth of a text.  A book with multiple plot lines is more complex than a book with one plot line.  A book with multiple narrators and changing perspectives is more complex than one with a single narrator/perspective.  Fall of the House of Usher is more difficult than Gift of the Magi.  Texts that are non-sequential or books that require the reader to fill in more of the background information (think Hemingway) are more challenging than sequential/linear texts that are straightforward.

The Kansas Department of Education has developed some excellent rubrics for evaluating the qualitative complexity of both informational and literary texts, which you can access and download directly or through the Ohio Resource Center.  They also have blank evaluation templates and a sample evaluation for Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

Reader and Task Considerations

The third measure for evaluating complexity (Appendix A) is to consider the reader and the task.  What is the intended learning?  How can I maintain this student’s engagement?  Appendix A cites a reading study that identified the following important factors to consider in accounting for the reader and task:

The reader brings to the act of reading his or her cognitive capabilities (attention, memory, critical analytic ability, inferencing, visualization); motivation (a purpose for reading, interest in the content, self-efficacy as a reader); knowledge (vocabulary and topic knowledge, linguistic and discourse knowledge, knowledge of Common Core State Standards for english language arts & literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects comprehension strategies); and experiences.

The Kansas Department of Education also has a list of questions for educators to reflect on as they consider the reader and task in text complexity. (Available directly or through the Ohio Resource Center)

In terms of reader and task, I bet we are all thinking the same thing…”What do I do with the student who is reading significantly below grade level?  How am I supposed to make him/her read grade level appropriate texts?”  Well, Appendix A somewhat addresses that by basically saying teachers need to ensure students are constantly making strides toward increasingly more difficult texts:

Students reading well above and well below grade-band level need additional support. Students for whom texts within their text complexity grade band (or even from the next higher band) present insufficient challenge must be given the attention and resources necessary to develop their reading ability at an appropriately advanced pace. On the other hand, students who struggle greatly to read texts within (or even below) their text complexity grade band must be given the support needed to enable them to read at a grade-appropriate level of complexity

The CCSS expectation of struggling students is also addressed in the “Application to Students with Disabilities,” which says:

Some students with the most significant cognitive disabilities will require substantial supports and accommodations to have meaningful access to certain standards in both instruction and assessment, based on their communication and academic needs. These supports and accommodations should ensure that students receive access to multiple means of learning and opportunities to demonstrate knowledge, but retain the rigor and high expectations of the Common Core State Standards. [emphasis added]

Without a clear definition of the expectations for students with disabilities and struggling readers, I think the best approach will be to wait until we have better guidance from the testing companies to determine a strategy.  For now, though, significant scaffolding and working toward grade-level texts should be in the forefront of our approach.

An Approach to Scaffolding

The ORC ELA Supervisors Network recently met to discuss the issues of text complexity and scaffolding in the CCSS.  Tara Boyer, Literacy Coach at Newark City Schools, gave an informative presentation about the process underwent by middle school teachers in her district this summer to evaluate and choose grade level appropriate texts for grades 6, 7, and 8.  She then walked us through the planning stages for scaffolding and addressing the needs of all learners.  I highly recommend checking out the presentation and the templates she provided.

Related Links

CCSS Text Types

Kansas Department of Education–for many valuable CCSS resources, including the complexity rubrics

Given my own issues with the site, I want to pass along information I’ve been working on today.  Consider it a holiday gift–no winding your way through the resources available at the core standards site; I have formed the question, completed the research, packaged it up, and am handing it over to you tied with a neat bow.

The Question:  How do various types of literature fit into the strands of “Reading: Literature” and “Reading: Informational Texts”?

The Answer:

Reading:  Literature

Grades K-5

STORIES–

• Children’s adventure stories
• Folktales
• Legends
• Fables
• Fantasy
• Realistic fiction
• Myth

DRAMAS–

• Staged dialoge
• Brief familiar scenes

POETRY–

• Nursery rhymes
• Narrative poems
• Limericks
• Free verse

Grades 6-12
STORIES–

• Adventure stories
• Historical fiction
• Mysteries
• Myths
• Science fiction
• Realistic fiction
• Allegories
• Parodies
• Satire
• Graphic novels

DRAMAS–

• One-act and multi-act plays–both in written form and on film

POETRY–

• Narrative poems
• Lyrical poems
• Free verse
• Poems
• Sonnets
• Odes
• Ballads
• Epics

Reading:  Informational Texts

Grades K-5

• Biographies
• Autobiographies
• Books about history, social studies, science, and the arts
• Technical texts, including directions, forms, and information displayed in graphs, charts, or maps
• Digital sources on a range of topics

Grades 6-12

• Exposition
• Argument
• Functional texts:  personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, biographies, memoirs, journalism*
  • *Check out this related resource from the Ohio Resource Center that features a detailed explanation of informational texts and includes ten lessons on using newspapers as informational texts!
• Historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts (including digital sources) written for a broad audience

I have to admit–I was incredibly excited to see “graphic novels” listed as a type of literature!!

Related Articles:

Andrew Miller offers suggestions for using graphic novels  in the classroom.