ELA Common Core Standards

Next, I observed the standards, differentiated instruction, and the phonemic and phonics lessons in the class. The essential questions and standards are listed in the front of the classroom but are never referred to. I think that differentiation is a big part of this class, especially because of the number of students with individualized education plans. During lessons, the entire class will meet around the rug for instructions and introductions. After the class is given instructions, most students will work independently and there will be one or two groups that work with Ms. Dunlap or her teacher’s aide for guided practice. The majority of the lessons include hands-on activities, such as cutting examples of noun and verbs out of a magazine, using blocks to measure student’s heights, and songs that emphasize parts of speech. While I observed I also saw some phonemic awareness lessons. These are lessons that focus on individual sounds of letters and the structure of the words and letters. I think that this class had a wide variety of reading levels. Some students did very well, but others could not write their names yet. The class met on the rug for phonemic lessons, and Ms. Dunlap would use a book that had tons of activities. The book includes different activities that make students find the sounds in words, substitute sounds to make new words, blend sounds to form words, and to take apart words to find the sounds. Ms. Dunlap

The word curriculum can mean something different to different people, even to different teachers who use the term almost daily (Manning & Butcher, 2012). However, it boils down to curriculum being what a student learns, both in terms of core subject content, as well as though social activity and elective/activity courses. However, there has often been a disconnect between different states and districts over what exactly should be in the curriculum for various grades and what is needed to prepare students for life beyond school, as well as providing little basis for comparing the US to other countries. That’s where Common Core State Standards (CCSS) come in. According to Teaching in the Middle School (2012), the Common Core standards were created in an attempt to provide curriculum standards that are “rigorous, internationally benchmarked, and aligned with college and work expectations”. Since its implementation in 2009, 42 US states and the District of Columbia have integrated the standards into their curriculums. (Core Standards, 2015)

Louisiana Department of Education states, “The Common Core State Standards are fundamental descriptions of reading, writing, and math skills that focus on the ability to think independently.” (LDOE) Common Core State Standards hold students across the country to the same high bar and allow Louisiana students to see how they perform compared to students across America. “State school chiefs and governors recognized the value of consistent, real-world learning goals and launched this effort to ensure all students, regardless of where they live, are graduating high school prepared for college, career, and life.” (Corestandard.org) Prior to adopting these standards, Louisiana students were learning material that was sometimes even a full year behind several high-performing states. The Common Core State Standard asks students to engage in independent thinking skills such as comparing and contrasting and analyzing characters. Nearing the end of the school year, “Students are tested annually English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies in 3rd through 8th grades. The assessments measure whether each student has gained the knowledge and skills in the subject for their grade.” Students learning will be measured by the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers). Students in grades 3rd through 8th grades will be assessed on the full range of the Common Core State Standards to ensure they are “on track” or “ready” for college and

2.Given the central focus, describe how the standards and learning objectives within learning segment promotes children’s active learning and multimodal nature of learning language and literacy development in an interdisciplinary context.

Adopted by forty-two out states in 2010, the Common Core State Standard Initiative strives to provide an educational structure which details what English language arts and mathematics should be taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The initiative is the federal government’s attempt to ensure all students who graduate from high school are adequately prepared to enter a two or four year college or the workforce. Despite their intentions, the Common Core has caused much controversy in the education community. The thought behind Common Core is very valid and has the potential to help students, however changes must be made to unrealistic standards and wordy statements. Common Core must first be rewritten so that the language is clear and can be easily understood by the general public. Next ask experts on childhood development and elementary school teachers to review the standards and rewrite standards they see as unneeded or irrelevant as well as unrealistic.

As a student, I always enjoyed math. In high school I took all of the offered math classes, including Calculus. The first math class I took in college was a breeze, and I thought that this one would be no different. What could I learn about elementary school math that I did not already know? Contrary to my expectation, the first day of class, I learned things about math that had never been brought to my attention. This paper will discuss what I have learned about subtraction, about students, about the Common Core State Standards, and how my concept map has changed since my first draft.

Read children’s books (in English and Spanish) and prepared assessments using the Common Core Literacy standards. Prepared assessments according to LightSail requirements, in an accurately and timely manner. Read assessments in English and translated them to Spanish ensuring that all translations were accurate.

In the news lately, there has been a controversy regarding the Common Core State Standards in Louisiana. This controversy has been going on for the last several months and there have been different ideas said by different groups of people. The parties that have been involved in the controversy include parents, teachers, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Education Superintendent John White, the Board of Education and Secondary Education (BESE), and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The controversy over Common Core has to do with the lawsuits that have been filed, certain tests that should or should not be taken, and the legality and suspension of state contracts regarding the state’s education.

What is Common Core? According to the Common Core organization website, the Common Core is a set of high-quality standards in Math and English. The goals laid in place by the Common Core govern what information a student should know, and what skills they should be able to perform at the end of each grade. With no regard to student background, or where they came from, the standards were constructed to ensure that all students enter the real-world with proper knowledge and skills in which are essential to succeed. In 2009, state school chiefs and governors that recognized the value and need for collaborated and coinciding goals across the nation coordinated a state-led effort to create the Common Core State Standards.

In 2009, states around the country began adopting the Common Core State Standards. These standards were put in place to ensure that each child was on the same academic level by high school graduation. As the global marketplace becomes increasingly more competitive, the United States hopes that Common Core will enable the coming generations to be better prepared. As of right now, my working thesis is Common Core is overall unsuccessful in its effort, and discontinuing or, at the least, replacing it would improve the testing scores /academic progresses, mental health, and attitude towards school of the children in the United States. My two articles, “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys (Yet!): Motivating boys in the age of the Common Core,” by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and Michael W. Smith (2014), and “Why Massachusetts Gave Up on Common Core,” by Mary Clare Reim (2015), both provide evidence on Common Core to support my thesis.

While in a perfect world the government offices at all levels would coincide perfectly, without conflict, we live in a much more realistic world than that. There have been, are, and will continue to be many conflicts amongst the federal and state governments. Texas, in particular, has dealt with many political issues and laws involving, but not limited to, social, environmental and educational issues.

Common Core State Standards is being heard throughout the education world. Many cringe when the words are spoken and many fight to support what the words stand for. Common Core was introduced in 2009 by state leaders. Common Core State Standards were developed to prepare children for the business world or the reality after grade school. “The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, also known as ELA” (About the Standards, n.d.). The goals for the standards outline what students should know before leaving his or her current grade level. “The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live” (About the Standards, n.d.). This is an ambitious goal, but with much support can be accomplished. According to Common Core State Standards Initiative (n.d.) The Common Core has been adopted by forty-two states already and is accompanied by District of Columbia and Department of Defense Education Activity. Common Core was developed to improve the academics in society’s schools. Academics in the past years have not been successful and the United States has fallen behind international education. “One root cause has been an uneven patchwork of academic standards that vary from state to state and do not agree on what students should know and be able to do at each

The Common Core State Standards are a state attempt to create strong educational standards. The standard are created to ensure that students in the country are learning and grasping the information that are given in the classrooms for them to succeed academically. The Common Core plan included governors and education commissioners form forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. They wanted to make sure the standards are relevant, logical and sequential. For content all subjects must have critical-thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills. Some positive aspects of this policy is that it prepares our students for a competitive global jobs. It can provide national connections in education. Designed to shape the best standards so that all states will be taking a step ahead in education. These standards had been created after extensive research by professional educators for excellence in education. The CCS focus on what students expectations of learning, and achievements. Educators do not need to worry that the standards will make their jobs look redundant because they are in charge of creating lessons to teach their students the content and skills that the CCS demands. The teachers do not feel that the standards are one-size-fits-all. Some negative aspects of the policy are that is a program created by solely the government. The CCS is a program put together on idyllic situations in education by individuals who have subsidy and students ahead of the learning

With that being said, EDU 350 offers countless materials to encourage teacher candidates to develop an interdisciplinary mindset, focused specifically around teaching the English Language Arts. Teacher candidates’ content knowledge is developed through the reading of two textbooks, Making Sense of Phonics by Beck and Language Arts: Patterns of Practice by Thompkins. The information collected from these resources are applied to both the development and execution of lesson plans, specifically the final Interdisciplinary Standards Based Unit. The SBU is the way that teacher candidates display their understanding of the content knowledge taught within the class. The SBU must incorporate an ELA strategy in every lesson, different reading comprehension strategies, technology, global perspectives, multiple content areas, and the integration of four expository and four narrative texts. Each of these components were discussed at length every week, so that the teacher education students would be comfortable implementing them into their final thematic unit

According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, their curriculum “provide[s] clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career and life” (“Preparing America’s Students for Success”). However, Kim Burke, who owns a tutoring company in North Carolina, states, “‘There’s not a person alive who can read Common Core from page to page and understand it’” (Bonner). The Common Core State Standards are supposed to be clear and understandable, but teachers, students and parents alike can not understand them and what they are ask of the student. Common Core was launched in 2009, in hope to create a common curriculum across the United States and to compete with other nations that have one curriculum. Since 2009, Common