I was asked to write The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, Grades 3–5, I was thrilled to follow Jim Burke’s design and the standard his first two books set. He envisioned this series and blazed the trail, with the help of teachers, curriculum supervisors, and superintendents who he has worked with around the country.
Jim’s words in his orientation are applicable to the elementary setting, too:
As is true for all of us, administrators have come to the job of leading with their sense of what their role is or should be; past experience, along with their training and education, has given them this orientation. Now administrators and teachers such as yourself find their role being redefined, the demands on them and their time being dramatically restructured, often in ways that cause some sense of disorientation, as if all your previous experience, all your knowledge, was suddenly suspect, leaving you to navigate this new era without a working compass. Eventually, as we know, we get our bearings, find the star by which we might chart our course, and realize that much of what we already know and value does still, in fact, apply to the task at hand, that it certainly need not be tossed overboard.
So, in other words “we don’t toss out the baby with the bathwater.” This book is for you, whether you are an administrator or teacher, district curriculum supervisor, a professor or a student teacher training to join in the education field. The goal is to understand and make better use of the standards themselves, and to plan for how to implement them in the classroom using best instructional practices.
Key features include the following:
A one-page overview of all the anchor standards. Designed for quick reference or selfassessment, this one-page document offers a one-stop place to see all the English Language Arts Common Core Standards. In addition to using this to quickly check the Common Core anchor standards, grade-level teachers or the whole faculty might use them to evaluate which standards they know and are addressing effectively and which ones they need to learn and teach.
Side-by-side anchor standards translation. The CCSS College Readiness anchor standards for each category—reading, foundational skills, writing, speaking and listening, and language—appear in a two-page spread with the original Common Core anchor standards on the left and, on the right, their matching translations in language that is more accessible to those on the run or new to literacy instruction.
A new user-friendly format for each standard. Instead of the two reading standard domains—literature and informational text—spread throughout the CCSS document, here you will find the first reading standard for grades 3–5 and the two different domains all on one page. This allows you to use The Common Core Companion to see at a glance what Reading Standard 1 looks like in grades 3–5 across literature and informational texts. The design makes it easy to look at how the standard plays out across grade levels, so you can plan with teachers just how to increase complexity as students move from grade to grade.
Parallel translation/what the student does. Each standard opens to a two-page spread that has the original Common Core standards on the left and a parallel translation of each standard mirrored on the right-hand page in more accessible language (referred to as the “Gist”) so you can concentrate on how to teach in ways that meet the CCSS instead of how to understand them. These Gist pages align themselves with the original Common Core, so you can move between the two without turning a page as you think about what they mean and how to teach them. Also, beneath each translation of a standard appears a list of They Consider. These are brief practical questions that will help students “crack open” the thinking and comprehension skills being asked of them. Ultimately, students pose these questions for themselves—both unconsciously and deliberately—as they engage in the endeavor. But because metacognition is something children grow into, you can use these questions as comprehension questions to pose to students after you model how to approach them. The goal is to provide ample practice with these questions so that students internalize them, and own them as readers, writers, and thinkers. So be sure to incorporate them into the fabric of your instruction each and every day, having students talking, listening, and writing off of them.
Instructional techniques/what the teacher does. In the “What the Teacher Does” pages you will find a great many suggestions. Although I don’t always say “Put your students in groups” or “Put your students in pairs,” I can’t emphasize enough that the goal is to demonstrate less, and have students do — more. Periodically you will see references to online resources that provide graphic organizers, visuals, book lists, and other tools that support the teaching of the standard.
Preparing to teach templates. These templates serve as reminders, too, that teachers should be considering all these kinds of work every day when they plan. This page is divided into five sections—a place for you to plan, make notes, and so on. Examples of how it might look are shown in the beginning of the book. The sections are as follows:
• Preparing the Classroom: Where you can consider room arrangement (e.g., Will the students be working in groups? Do you have an area where you can meet with a group of students? A place for large group activities?) and the physical tools and materials you will need. For example, chart paper, graphic organizers, or multiple copies of material.
• Preparing the Mindset: Here is where you brainstorm ways to intellectually ready and engage your students for the standard.
• Preparing the Texts to Use: A place to think about books (or book bundles), magazines, short passages or mentor texts, online resources, and so on that you could use for this standard.
• Preparing to Differentiate: This is for you to think about your learners who need additional support. You might consider texts that are accessible, different supplies, differentiation. You may choose to differentiate and include how you will extend the lesson for students working at the upper level.
• Connections to Other Standards: A place to draw your own connections between the standard in question and other standards.
As you use these pages, they should become a resource for future lessons and a record of instruction. They are also beneficial for collaboration with colleagues.
Academic vocabulary: Key words and phrases. Each standard comes with a unique glossary since words used in more than one standard have a unique meaning in each. Any word or phrase that seemed a source of possible confusion is defined in detail.
Planning to teach templates. This is another template for you to record your notes and your planning. This page is divided into three sections: Whole Class, Small Group, and Individual Practice/Conferring. These templates serve as reminders that you should be considering these kinds of work every day when you plan.
Online resources. The intent was to keep this book lean; however, actually seeing examples of charts, student work, and books helps tremendously—both with planning and delivering instruction. Access to organizers, rubrics, and so on is also important. Therefore, you can go to www.corwin.com/thecommoncorecompanion as an online resource for many of the examples I provide in “What the Teacher Does” and additional resources that you can view and download for your own classroom.
How to Use This Book
Every school, district, instructional team, or teacher will pick up The Common Core Companion and have different ideas about how to use it as a tool. And of course there is no one right way to use it. Here are some possible ways, which you should adapt, adopt, or avoid as you see fit:
• Provide all teachers on a grade-level team or school with a copy to establish a common text to work from throughout your Common Core planning work and instructional design work.
• Use it in tandem with the K-2 version by Sharon Taberski to dig into the standards in a whole-school initiative.
• Use it along with the K-2, 6–8, and 9–12 volumes for district-level planning and professional development work.
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