Resources for Student-Centered Instruction in a Time of Common Core Standards - Previous Revision

"The Council is focusing its resources on supporting teachers and teams
as they make their own professional decisions -- informed by reflection
and research -- about how best to foster literacy learning. "
NCTE President Keith Gilyard 

CCSS Instructional Shifts and NCTE Resources

Instructional Shifts

NCTE offers books, online courses and events, journal articles, and more to support your focus on keeping students at the center of instruction. Click on the digital edition of the flyer (to the right) or the instructional shifts below to learn more about these resources:

• Teach close reading and powerful writing.
• All students need practice with complex texts.
• Teach content-rich nonfiction and informational texts.
• Literacy is a shared responsibility.

View videos featuring educators sharing their insights on how to frame instruction, keep teachers as decision-makers, and put students at the center of learning while planning for the Core.

“It is our hope that these teaching and learning vignettes and the corresponding materials will serve as a reflection of the language of learning that already fills your classrooms... Step into these classrooms, reflect on them, and use their successes and challenges to further your own thinking about what bridges you can build between the CCSS and your own instruction.”

—Sarah Brown Wessling, 2010 National Teacher of the Year and author of Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards: English Language Arts, Grades 9-12

Teaching Vignettes:

• Learn more about text complexity and using texts to scaffold instruction in this high school classroom (vignette, chart).
• Visit a middle school classroom where students make authentic connections with the outside world through a Social Justice Photo Journal project (vignette, chart).
• Teach and assess for deeper understanding of theme in this elementary classroom (vignette, chart).
• Engage students in one-to-one conferences as well as whole-class discussions in preschool and elementary classrooms. (vignette, chart).

All vignettes are taken from the NCTE Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards book series. 

NCTE and Common Core Standards 

Open Letters from NCTE Regarding the Common Core Standards:

• February 9, 2012; Keith Gilyard, NCTE President
• March 10, 2010; Jeff Williams, chair, NCTE Review Team for the Common Core State Standards for K-12 English Language Arts
• September 21, 2009; Kylene Beers, NCTE President
• August 17, 2009; Kylene Beers, NCTE President
• July 28, 2009; Kylene Beers, NCTE President

Reports from NCTE's Review Team in Response to Standards Drafts:

• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009

View and download the final version of the Common Core State Standards.

Related NCTE Position Statements

• Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, February 2011, from Council of WPA, NCTE, and NWP
• The NCTE Definition of 21st Century Literacies
• NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment 
• NCTE Principles of Professional Development
• NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts

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