The quality of instruction is the most important factor in helping students meet the Common Core Standards. That's why Owocki's "Common Core Lesson Book" empowers teachers with a comprehensive framework for implementation that enhances existing curriculum and extends it to meet Common Core goals.

As she did for reading in the bestselling "Common Core Lesson Book, " Owocki empowers teachers with information and proven practices. She breaks the writing anchor standards into manageable chunks, emphasizing differentiation, engagement, and writing for authentic purposes.

The practices you will find in this book have been used effectively by many teachers. Here they are altered and redesigned with special attention to the CCSS-in a way that maintains the potential for teacher control and decision making in the best interest of learners. -Gretchen Owocki Whether it's developing arguments, writing informational texts, or pulling evidence from literary and informational texts to support their claims, the Common Core asks students to do the hard work of higher-level writing across the content areas. To help with the hard work of teaching, The Common Core Writing Book, 6-8 presents a comprehensive framework of strategies and lessons for enhancing or building a middle school writing curriculum. Within each section, you will find a set of instructional practices-demonstrations, collaborative engagements, and independent applications- that allow students to gradually take control of complex thinking and activity. Gretchen Owocki covers not only the English Language Arts standards, but all the writing standards for literacy in social studies, science, and technical subjects. She identifies those lessons that work best in content-area classrooms, offers suggestions for cross-disciplinary collaboration, and provides common language for teachers across the disciplines. She shares resources and supports such as: decision trees that help you differentiate by matching students to lessons assessment tools to determine writers' needs instructional strategies, including minilessons dozens of reproducibles, including mentor texts, graphic organizers, and planning templates for writers. "Effective teaching," writes Gretchen, "is about taking note of learners' knowledge, engagement, and responses to instruction-and shaping instruction around what is observed." With her Common Core Writing Book, 6-8 you'll have a robust set of meaningful, authentic lessons and tools for not only teaching well but creating and sustaining engagement so that your writers continue to improve across the year.

A GPS for connecting standards to lessons Translating the Common Core State Standards into an effective curriculum is at the top of many educators’ to-do list, and this book shows you how. This text familiarizes teachers and curriculum designers with the key points of the ELA core standards and demonstrates how to design effective curriculum units to align with them. The author provides practical and accessible tools for developing a map and for making the important connections among all unit map components, including differentiated instruction. Also included are: A rationale for each of the ELA common core standards An overview of the key benefits Reproducible templates and examples of unit curriculum maps

Schools nationwide are transitioning to the Common Core--our advice to you: Don't go it alone! Our new book, Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, K-5, shows you that teaching the Common Core State Standards in the elementary grades doesn't have to be intimidating! This easy-to-use guide provides model lesson plans for teaching the standards in reading, writing, speaking/listening, and language. Get engaging lesson plans that are grade-appropriate, easy to implement and include ready-to-use reproducible handouts, assessments, resources, and ideas to help you modify the lesson for both struggling and advanced learners. Our Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans are designed to fit seamlessly into your K-5 curriculum. You get practical tips for revamping your existing lessons to meet the standards. Students learn how to read informational texts, write opinion-based essays, and improve their speaking and listening skills. Grammar mini-lessons and foundational skills mini-lessons will help you teach language conventions, phonics, fluency, and more! We take the guesswork out of Common Core lesson plans with this practical, easy-to-use guide. All lesson plans are grade-appropriate, and every lesson plan includes... Common Core State Standards covered in the lesson Overview of objectives and focus of the lesson Background knowledge required and time required A detailed, step-by-step agenda for the lesson, plus a materials list Differentiation ideas to adapt the lesson for different kinds of learners Assessment ideas, including rubrics and scoring guides A place for your notes: what worked; what can improve Bonus! We show you how to extend the lessons into longer units to suit your particular grade's curriculum, and even help you create more of your own lessons!

"Working effectively with the standards requires the critical understanding that the teacher-not the standard or the program-is the most important variable affecting adolescents' achievement." -Gretchen Owocki The Common Core Reading Book, 6-8 makes the reading goals of the standards doable for teachers in every content area. It also keeps the focus on instruction that's meaningful to adolescents and that supports deep engagement with literacy and your subject-area content. "I wanted to honor the intent of the standards," writes author Gretchen Owocki, "and at the same time respect the fact that students are eleven, twelve, and thirteen years old only once in their lives." Gretchen has matched sensible, step-by-step teaching strategies to the 10 reading anchor standards, giving you instructional choices that you can match to your students' needs, your goals for their development as readers, and your content-area's key texts. Whether you are a skilled teacher of reading or new to it, Gretchen pays special attention to the needs of literacy teachers and subject-area teachers alike with tools you'll use every day: a precise description of what each standard asks from adolescents instructional decision trees that simplify lesson planning clearly presented instructional strategies that release responsibility to students "students who..."suggestions for tailoring support to meet kids' individual needs. For close reading, citing textual evidence, evaluating arguments, analyzing visual media, or anything the Common Core reading standards ask for, rely on The Common Core Reading Book, 6-8. You'll find a framework sturdy enough to teach with, flexible enough to plan from, and so respectful of you and your students that it will soon become core to your teaching. Begin reading now with our sample chapter.

With the click of a mouse, anyone has access to the standards. So aligning our instruction should be a snap. If only it were that simple . . . Jim Burke anticipated the challenges and developed the Common Core Companion series for K-12. In his next smart move, he deferred to the talents of Sharon Taberski to be author of the K-2 volume. What makes Sharon Taberski’s Common Core Companion "that version of the standards you wish you had"? It’s the way Sharon translates each and every standard for reading, writing, speaking and listening, language, and foundational skills into the day-to-day "what you do": lesson ideas, best literacy practices, grouping configurations, adaptations for ELLs, anchor charts, and so much more. It’s all here, page by page: The standards for literature and informational texts put side by side for easier planning More than a dozen teaching ideas for each standard Recommendations on how to cultivate the habits of mind that are critical to meeting the standards, including interpersonal skills, collaboration, and perseverance A glossary of academic language for each standard Teaching suggestions for how to support ELL students Developmental debriefs to signal how you may need to adapt expectations to meet students where they’re at An online bank of graphic organizers, student reproducibles, sample classroom charts, rubrics, and photos Reproducible planning templates for each standard to help you map out lessons, select books, generate key questions, and more With more than 30 years of classroom experience in the primary grades and years of consulting in schools nationwide, Sharon Taberski has a depth of knowledge about what both students and teachers in this country need in order to cultivate the win-win of high expectations and high engagement in K-2. She is a nationally recognized educator, author, and presenter, and a leader in the field of early reading instruction. Her professional books and teaching materials have revolutionized the way primary teachers approach reading and remain classics in the field.

The first books to present specific guidance for teaching the Common Core State Standards Forty-three states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands have signed on to adopt the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The need for curriculum guides to assist teachers in helping students meet these standards has become imperative. Created by teachers, for teachers, the research-based curriculum maps in this book present a comprehensive, coherent sequence of thematic units for teaching the skills outlined in the CCSS for English language arts in Grades K-5. The maps address every standard in the CCSS, yet are flexible and adaptable to accommodate diverse teaching styles. Each grade is broken down into six units that include focus standards, suggested works, sample activities and assessments, lesson plans, and more Teachers can use the maps to plan their year and craft their own more detailed lesson plans Any teacher, school, or district that chooses to follow the Common Core maps can be confident that they are adhering to the standards.

The ideal? Newly minted high school graduates all across the nation, each one a complex text genius, a writer and analytic thinker beyond compare. All on to glorious colleges and careers, thanks to the Common Core. The reality? The 1.3 million students who fail to graduate from high school each year and the hundreds of thousands more who either gave up or lost interest long ago . . . The reality is why Common Core CPR is needed. Urgently. Because if we continue to insist that all students meet expectations that are well beyond their abilities and mindsets, these kids will only decline faster. We must be brave enough-and trained enough-to cast aside what we know harms students and apply with renewed vigor the teaching methods we know work. Releah Lent and Barry Gilmore rise to the challenge, and there are no two authors better equipped to do so. They embrace what is best about the standards-their emphasis on active, authentic learning-and then explicitly show teachers how to connect these ideal outcomes to practical classroom strategies, detailing the day-to-day teaching that can coax reluctant learners into engagement and achievement. You'll learn how to: Consider choice and relevance in every assignment Plan and spot opportunities for success Scaffold students' comprehension of complex fiction and nonfiction texts Model close reading through thoughtful questioning Teach students to use evidence in reading, writing, speaking, and reflection . . . And so much more It's not the big sweeping formulas for achievement that will win the day; it's the incremental growth that teachers need to make happen: that one book, that one writing assignment, to help a student turn a corner. "If we can get that one transformational moment to occur, and follow it up by designing more opportunities for success, that's the ideal," say Lent and Gilmore.

This book explains what the standards say, what they mean, and how to teach them. The book is organized by the Anchor Standards in the following categories: Reading Literature Informational Text Foundational Reading Skills (This is a departure from the 6-12 standards that we will have to consider in design/format) Writing Speaking and Listening Language