Print bookPrint book

Common Core Literacy Overview Lesson

Site: REMC 8 / Kent ISD Moodle VLE
Course: Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning
Book: Common Core Literacy Overview Lesson
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Saturday, April 27, 2024, 1:19 AM

Description

Book on tools and ideas for implementing CC literacy

Table of contents

Literacy in the Common Core Overview

image

Many people may be feeling like the guy in the picture when thinking about teaching literacy skills directly in their courses. The Common Core Standards have a dedicated section for literacy standards for science, socials studies, and technical course, and they are fairly rigorous. I don't think many would argue that reading, writing, and research should be addressed as much as possible with our students, but I think many are apprehensive about how to incorporate that into their curriculum. This session will inform you about the expectations and provide you with tools to help you make that transition.

Shifts in Common Core

  • Literacy explicitly embedded in all content areas
    • Reading and Writing
    • Complexity increases w/ grade level
  • Focus on informational text/ text complexity range
  • Increased focus on text-based evidence, supporting and explaining answers.

*This takes work and lots of scaffolding

Summary of Reading and Writing Standards

Reading
  • I.D. main ideas
  • Provide textual evidence
  • Summarize
  • Use context clues
  • Evaluate content in diverse formats
  • Research (gather relevant info/ evidence and synthesizing logically)
  • Analyzing texts for validity and sufficiency of evidence
 		Writing
  • Argumentative and Informative/ explanatory text
    • Organize/ sequencing
    • Logical, thorough support
  • Formal style/ audience
  • Content-specific vocab
  • Concluding statements
  • Research projects
    • Gather/ check validity
    • Avoid plagiarism
  • Plan, edit, revise
  • Publish w/ technology


((link to Doc w/ more details by grade level))

Research/ Reading Tools

No matter what you teach, research and reading skills are embedded in your course, and Common Core has made that more explicit. Fortunately, there are some excellent tools that can help you address these massive, somewhat intimidating tasks.

*I recommend communicating with your colleagues to determine what is the best option for your building or district. That will help with consistency for students and teachers.

Annotation/ Note-taking Tools (there are too many to list. Here are some that I think would be most functional and user-friendly)
  • Bounceapp.com (copy and past a link to the site and then make notes. Send or store link of annotations wherever you want. No sign-in)
  • You could also guide students to one of these web research tools. (note that these all require logins, but they allow users to store and organize all research in one place)
  • Evernote is one of several quality note-taking applications that could work. Click the link for details about how.
  • Students could also set up everything in Word or Google Docs> They would have to copy and paste links/ text, then make notes in the doc and not in-text like they could in the other tools.
    • Highlight, add notes in diff. color or add comments
    • Teacher could create template if desire, like this: link

Source Gathering/ Evaluation/ Credibility Tools

Formative Assessment Tools

These can be very helpful in gauging student skills or understanding on an individual and/or group basis. Teachers can ask questions on the fly and gather responses or pre-make quizzes for students to take. The teacher creates a room, and students just enter the room number. Then the teacher can run reports and use the data in various ways.This could be used for things like identifying main ideas, determining meaning of words, and more. Here are some of the more popular options currently available:
  • Infuse Learning
    • Use on any device
    • Allows for drawing of answers and link sharing
    • Built-in text-to-speech feature
  • Socrative
    • Use on any device
    • Has some gaming elements not found on Infuse Learning
  • Nearpod
    • Run presentation with polls, quizzes, etc. built in. Students interact via their devices
    • Only available on iPads now
  • Subtext
    • iPad app that makes a digital text like a social media tool
    • Can create assignments and quizzes and use directly w/ Edmodo

Finding Texts for Reading

The first key to addressing reading in your grade or content area is to find accessible, relevant, and engaging texts. If students aren't interested or motivated, nothing you do will help much. Here are some sources by grade band that offer a wide variety of subjects at accessible reading levels. These are just a starting point. Many more exist.

Grades K-4
Grades 5-8
9-12/ General

Teachers can select texts or let students select from given source. Use Google advanced search or Twurdy.com to find search results organized by reading level.


Using Google Tools for Facilitating

Google Docs
  • Post text or other media in a doc and demo reading/ writing/ analysis skills
    • Model on projector and/or invite students to comment, edit, highlight, reply to each other
    • Link to Sample
  • Model your writing (thinking, format, etc.). Then update it from anywhere!
  • Form collaborative groups for peer review/ feedback (link to how)

Google Presentations
  • Add shapes for brainstorming ideas (click in shape to type)
  • Create several slides for individuals or groups (reading or writing skills)
    • Invite students to view/ comment on others
    • Click Tools > Research to find/ add content

*Easy to address collaboration and technology components with these
*Create a shortlink (link to how) or put link on website for student access

Using Pre-made Resources for Writing

There are many resources that make the task of setting up and teaching the writing process much easier. Although some of them are somewhat formulaic, they can be useful for providing a framework for writing tasks.

The Read, Write, Think site
This has many pre-made resources to help facilitate literacy activities. Site Link: http://www.readwritethink.org/

Hints
Templates/ Rubrics

Other Helpful Links/ Possibilities