It's About Time

In writing, the Common Core State Standards call for students to be able to write over extended time periods as well as over shorter periods of a day or two or a single sitting. Looking over the proposed standardized tests, it is clear that the only writing that will be tested is that which occurs in a single sitting or over a couple of days. Does this mean that teachers should neglect the longer research based writing assignments in favor of  more short term assignments? No, and here's why. Longer projects of a week or more are crucial for helping your students to build stamina and to perfect their writing skills. 

At the same time it is important to expose your students to the short term writing that will be expected for the tests. Students should be doing single sitting writing assignments nearly every day. This will give them the confidence to "just dive in" and to edit and proof read as they go. In addition, students should be completing two day writing assignments several times each month. It is important that these shorter writing assignments not consist of nothing but a free response to a writing prompt as has been common in the past. Students will need to be able to write a nonfiction essay referring to two or more sources within both a single sitting and two days.

The other question concerning time and the Common Core has to do with math. The standards require that students be fluent with math facts. This should not mean that we should return to the old style timed math sheets. The Common Core assessments are not going to have anything similar to a 25 facts in three minutes format. Accuracy is valued over speed. The problem with timed tests is that they can lead students to rush and make mistakes. In some cases, they can even lead to math anxiety.

To Ace the Common Core Assessments, Move Beyond Just Covering the Standards

With the Common Core Standards, there is the problem of "covering" the standards while failing to achieve the deeper learning that will lead to improved performance. A teacher might put one or more standards at the top of their lesson plans and post the standards in the classroom. This can lead to disappointing results. It is important to pay attention to the actual assessments in order to achieve success.

For example, the Common Core Standards require students to be proficient in grammar and punctuation. This is similar to existing standards, so it is tempting to simply recycle old grammar lessons with the idea that you are covering the new standards. But the new grammar standards will not be tested in isolation. Grammar will be tested through actual student writing, not on stand alone questions. If you are relying on old style worksheets and textbooks that have students practice grammar in isolation, your end of the year results are not going to be pretty. It is essential that your students practice the use of grammar and punctuation in the context of actual writing.

What About Creative Writing?

We know that the Common Core State Standards require students to be able to write real or imagined narratives. How does this play out in the light of the upcoming Common Core tests?

I have looked over a wide variety of writing and language tests that are aligned to the Common Core Standards. I do this so you don't have to. It is important to note that I used only official sources as opposed to commercial programs. I have seen too many commercial sites that have slapped the Common Core aligned label on their offerings without making any real changes.

The Tennessee tests for this school year are the most different from what we have been used to having our students do. The only writing tasks they will require are summarizing and writing from nonfiction sources.

The PARCC and the Smarter Balanced practice tests and sample items do include questions that require students to create and/or revise writing using the narrative structure. However, that majority of the writing tested, over three fourths, is nonfiction writing from multiple sources.

This will require a shift away from traditional writing instruction that, especially in the early grades, has focused on teaching children how to write imaginative stories. Most of your writing instruction should focus on informative texts. At the same time, don't neglect narrative writing. Focus on quality. Students are expected to be able to heighten interest by including dialogue and vivid descriptions.

A Very Different Type of Writing

The Common Core State Standards and their related tests are going to call for a very different type of writing from our students. Students will be required to produce nonfiction writing based on information from two or more texts. In the past, students have been expected to write a narrative or opinion in response to an open ended prompt. This is not going to be what is required on the Common Core aligned assessments.

I am concerned that I am seeing a lot of old style writing prompts be relabeled as "aligned to the new Common Core Standards". Remember, if the writing does not require citing a text, it is not going to be similar to what your students will be required to do on the Common Core tests. For your students to do well on the new tests, you will need to focus on two types of writing: writing summaries of a text and writing about a subject citing information from two or more texts.

Writing Summaries

The new Common Core state assessments will require every student K-12 to be able to write a summary. This will be different from past tests in a number of important ways. Students will be required to summarize a nonfiction text. This text will be either a science or a social studies passage. The text will be written at the high end of the the grade level spectrum. And, here's the kicker, the writing tests will be given in February to allow time for the tests to be hand scored. This means that your students will need to be reading at the high end of their grade level several months before the end of the school year. This is going to require you to seriously speed up your time schedule.

There are a number of good online resources on teaching summarization.

If your students are going to be able to read these higher level texts, they are going to need to have their phonics skills down perfectly. This means that they will need to know all the major phonics patterns, not just some of them. They will need to be able to apply these patterns when sounding out multiple syllable words, and they will need to be able to read with fluency.

Hidden Standard: Keyboarding Secrets

Keyboarding may not be an official Common Core standard, however, if you want your students to do well on the Common Core assessments keyboarding is essential.

There are a number of free online tutorials and games that are perfect for children. Check out this video from the BBC:

Common Core Month

It's Common Core month on the Teaching Channel.

Common Core Writing Rubrics

Most school have developed writing rubrics for scoring student essays and guiding writing instruction. The most popular basis for writing rubrics, especially in elementary school, has been the Six Traits model. Sometimes this has been expanded to Six Plus One Traits to include presentation. While this has been an effective model for many years, you will need to move beyond this if you want your students to do well on the Common Core writing tests.

Here is a sample writing rubric based on the Common Core Sate Standards:

 There are a number of differences. The most important one deals with the use of resources. This is not covered by Six Traits, but it is required in the Common Core. Students will need to be able to cite sources in their writing. Another difference will be the focus on nonfiction writing.

A number of Common Core aligned rubrics can be found here.

When a Student's I-pad Freezes

If you have a personal i-pad, you may be confused by the title of this post. May happy i-pad users have never had their i-pad freeze. But a class set is different. Children, as we all know, do not always treat technology correctly or even gently. Also, with between 20 and 30 (or more) students using and i-pad, there are that many more opportunities for something to go wrong. A frozen i-pad is not that difficult to fix; You just need to know how.

Of course, this applies to all tablets, not just i-pads.