Companion Resources for Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards: English Language Arts, Grades 9-12

This site offers companion materials for the book Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards: English Language Arts, Grades 9-12 by Sarah Brown Wessling with Danielle Lillge and Crystal VanKooten. (Click here to purchase a copy.)

 Resources include:

• reproducible materials from the book
• links to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) website, as well as to other standards-related sites
• links to NCTE position statements, guidelines, and publications

Section I: Observing the CCSS

Chapter 1: Demystifying the Common Core State Standards

Figure 1.1  Structural relationships of the CCSS (PDF) 

Web 1.2  Updates on CCSS assessments from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium   

Web 1.3  Visit the Teaching and Learning Forum in the NCTE Connected Community to discuss the CCSS with other teachers and to share your experiences.

Web 1.4  Examples of text complexity (see page 58 of this PDF)

Web 1.5  The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium

Section II: Contextualizing

Chapter 2: Everything's a Conversation: Reading Away Isolation

Figure 2.1 Reading complexity circles (PDF)

Figure 2.2 Pathways to planning and enacting instruction (PDF)

 

Web 2.1  Appendix B of the CCSS, Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks (large PDF)  

Chapter 3: Using Viewing to Elicit Complex Thinking   

Chapter 4: Integrating Active Listening and Speaking Strategies

Figure 4.1  Viewing grid (PDF)

Chapter 5: Writing Is a Thinking Process Shared with Others

Web 5.1 Appendix C of the CCSS, Samples of Student Writing (large PDF)

Section III: Building

Chapter 6: Individual Considerations: Keeping Students at the Center

Figure 6.1 Reading the CCSS with an example (PDF)

Figure 6.2 Planning with students at the center (PDF)

Figure 6.3 Questions for planning with students at the center (PDF)

Figure 6.4 Questions for planning template (PDF)

Figure 6.5 Unit plan template (PDF)

Figure 6.6 Year/course unit planning template (PDF)

Web 6.1 Resources on summative assessment:

Glossary of assessment terminology

A ReadWriteThink lesson that incorporates student assessment

The NCTE book Authentic Assessments for the English Classroom

 

Chapter 7: Working Collaboratively to Enact the CCSS

Web 7.1 Resources for building school-wide literacy initiatives:

The NCTE book Taking Initiative on Writing: A Guide for Instructional Leaders

A recording of the NCTE Web seminar "On Teaching Content: Building a Schoolwide Culture"

Information about the National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE)

Chapter 5, "Develop and Implement a Schoolwide Literacy Action Plan," from the ASCD publication Taking Action on Adolescent Literacy by Judith L. Irvin, Julie Meltzer and Melinda S. Dukes


Web 7.2 Teachers as Readers: Forming Book Groups as Professionals (NCTE Guideline)

Web 7.3 Online forum: Learn about the NCTE Connected Community

Figure 7.1 Grade-level distinctions planning template (PDF)

Figure 7.2 Grade-level distinctions example (PDF)

Web 7.4 ReadWriteThink.org

Chapter 8: Becoming a Teacher Advocate

  

Appendix B: NCTE Principles

NCTE Principles Regarding Teachers as Decision-Makers

Features of Literacy Programs: A Decision-Making Matrix (NCTE Commission on Reading, 2005) PDF

Resolution on Scripted Curricula (2008)

Resolution on Affirming the Role of Teachers and Students in Developing Curriculum (2010)

NCTE Principles Regarding Reading Instruction

On Reading, Learning to Read, and Effective Reading Instruction: An Overview of What We Know and How We Know It (NCTE Commission on Reading)

NCTE Principles Regarding the Teaching of Writing

NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing (Writing Study Group of the NCTE Executive Committee, 2004)

NCTE Principles Regarding Speaking and Listening

Guideline on the Essentials of English (1982)

NCTE Principles Regarding Teaching English Language Learners

NCTE Position Paper on the Role of English Teachers in Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) (NCTE ELL Task Force, 2006)

NCTE Principles Regarding 21st Century Literacies

21st Century Curriculum and Assessment Framework (2008)

NCTE Principles Regarding Assessment

Standards for the Assessment of Reading and Writing, Revised Edition (Joint IRA-NCTE Task Force on Assessment, 2009)