WRITING FOR THE COMMON CORE PBA Inquiry WHAT
WRITING FOR THE COMMON CORE PBA Inquiry
WHAT I’VE HEARD • Students: • are good at generating ideas from their own lives and writing narratives • need to read texts with more discipline • need to develop the skill of understanding the prompt • need to produce stronger writing: • strengthening their use of evidence • explaining the evidence effectively
WHAT I’VE HEARD • Teachers: • have walked students through the PBA practice assessments • have modeled aspects of good writing • have scaffolded how to approach the prompt • have taught some elements of writing
WHERE ARE YOU IN YOUR OWN THINKING? Start there….
I AM WONDERING… HAVE DONE THESE THINGS: • Annotated all readings with a purpose? • Provided frames for thinking? • Deconstructed the prompt? • Written the essay yourself? • Helped students internalize a formula?
ACTIVITY #1 1. Restate the prompt you have been given in your own words. 2. Share with a partner.
QUESTIONS TO CLARIFY HOW YOU MIGHT TEACH: How do we get students to read the sources like investigators? Part 1 What are they doing when reading? Part 1 How do they connect sources with their ideas? Part 1 Activity, Part 1 -3 Questions and Part 2 Performance Task 125 minutes
READ THE PROMPT/ASSIGNMENT
ACTIVITY #2 1. Read the essay/article and then use sentence starters.
NARRATIVE RUBRIC 1. What do you notice? 2. What are three areas
TRANSITION TO ANOTHER PBA
ACTIVITY #3 1. Read the prompt/assignment. 2. Restate what it says. 3. One is a narrative and one an argument, what common skills do you see?
HAVING THOUGHT… Re-think your graphic organizer approach: • Which one works best?
DELINEATING THE PROCESS WITH PICTURES
WRITING IS NOT WRITING Thinking
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON WRITING “If students are to make knowledge their own, they must struggle with the details, wrestle with the facts, and rework raw information and dimly understood concepts into language they can communicate to someone else. In short, if students are to learn, they must write. ” 16
WHY WE LEARN FROM WRITING v. Writing about text is effective because it encourages deeper thinking about ideas v. Inspires the reformulation of thinking v. Requires translation into one’s own words v. Requires the organization and integration of ideas v. Problem Solving 17
COMMON CORE WRITING DEFINED: “The Common Core standards in writing called for sustained, focused attention on a small set of educational priorities empirically linked to readiness for college and workforce training programs: v. Writing effectively and thoughtfully on substantive topics v. Developing, organizing, and expressing… audience/purpose v. Using various process and tools, including technology… v. Using writing as a tool to conduct research… v. Making insightful, reciprocal connections between ones reading and writing.
ARGUMENTATION The common core state standards begin with theoretical premise that texts (and other forms of language) are a form of argument. 20
ARGUMENTATION Implications: v. Teachers will be expected to teach students to discern the arguments underlying a text or presentation. v. Need for a greater emphasis on trying to figure out author perspective, tone, position. v. Much greater emphasis on the use of evidence. v. Greater emphasis on making one’s own arguments (persuasion is only one aspect of this). 21
IN THE AGE OF COMMON CORE… What teachers do… What students do… Give permission to students to have their own reaction and draw their own connections. Present opportunities to write from multiple sources about a single topic. Give opportunities to analyze, synthesize ideas across many texts to draw an opinion or conclusion. Find ways to push towards a style of writing where the voice comes from drawing on powerful, meaningful evidence. Provide sufficient, specific, and relevant support to answer questions Elaborate on pertinent information that helps the reader construct mental images; cite evidence from the text. Use clear, precise words that provide a natural, reasonable, and consistent tone; paraphrase the text.
BASIC WRITING PROCESS Prewriting Publishing Drafting Editing Revising
GRADUAL RELEASE
WRITING IS THINKING ON PAPER Well…
WRITING SAMPLES Work Backward
ARUGMENTATIVE RUBRIC
ACTIVITY #3 1. Read the student writing. 2. Try to write the prompt from which the students worked. 3. Evaluate writing using the rubric.
ACTIVITY #3 CONTINUED 1. Use the rubric to evaluate the writing… 2. What do your find yourself gravitating toward in the writing? 3. Will what you are noticing impact the score?
ACTIVITY #3 CONTINUED Assignment: A proposal has been made to the school board by parents and teachers. They are proposing a “Shut Down Your Screen Week. ” It would be good for students. This is not a simple issue so students are asked to read three articles before they decide. They are to write an essay, in the form of a letter to teachers, explaining their thinking. Focusing Question: Should your school participate in the national “Shut Down Your Screen Week? ” Be sure to use evidence from the texts, as well as your own knowledge, so support and develop your thinking.
DEVELOPING A WRITING/THINKING MUSCLE Planning Instruction
HOW DO WE TEACH THIS FORMULA? Depends on where you are in writing process. This means that the habit of mind had been firmly embedded into the students thinking. 1. Deconstruct prompts. Write prompts and assign the argument for each reading. 2. Annotate specific arguments in text. Pairing easy readings with harder prompts and vice versa. 3. Pre-write ideas with sentence starters. Repeat with transition words. 4. Plan the organization so they will internalize/visualize on the test. Teach transitional words and phrases. 5. Read student writing, review good and bad examples with the rubric. Long Term – Argument Debate/Writers Workshop Model
HAVE A PLAN
RESOURCES TO RE-THINK WRITING IN CONTEXT http: //www. teachingthecore. com/non-freaked-out-common-core-argumentdebate/ http: //www. readwritethink. org/classroom-resources/studentinteractives/persuasion-30034. html
IN COMMON A great resource
APPENDIX C SAMPLES HAD PROBLEMS One hundred pages of three dozen pieces of student work: v Samples were not written expressly to CCSS v Samples were too small and not diverse enough
IN COMMON’S SOLUTION Students Achievement Partners and Vermont Writing Collaborative: v Collected, compiled, and annotated student writing v Provide commentary on a vibrant array of samples – planned, drafter, revised, edited, and published by students: on-demand range of writing
THANK YOU Concept English
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