In this video, I walk through how I went about preparing for and carrying out our second in-class debate of the school year. Why spend time debating? Debates are very CCSS friendly — they make argumentative writing (W.CCR.1) a lot easier, they require collaboration (SL.CCR.1), evaluation (SL.CCR.3), clarity (SL.CCR.4), and it’s super awesome when they […]
A First Day of School Activity that Teaches Argumentation
Next Tuesday, when our Michigan students come for their beautiful, post-Labor Day first day of school, I’m going to bust out something hot. In our school, we have to set goals for ourselves that can be measured with data. My goals are focused around W.CCR.1 and R.CCR.10 — writing argumentatively from a variety of complex […]
How to Craft a Bomb-Diggety Resource Request
Depending on your district, funds for professional development resources may be short. And since you’re dedicated enough to be reading a blog for educators, you probably just go out and drop the cash for the latest and greatest (mega overpriced) PD book. Am I wrong? In both of the schools I’ve spent most of my teaching time (an urban […]
Where have I been all your life? + Updates
In case you didn’t notice, last week we, the incredibly awesome, burgeoning community at Teaching the Core officially dominated the Common Core anchor standards. And then, tragically, the almost daily, always magical posting stopped. So what happened? I wrote about all 32 anchor standards, for crying out loud! I was spent. I needed some time […]
Common Core L.CCR.6 Explained
L.CCR.6 — that’s the 6th (and last!) College and Career Readiness anchor standard within the Language strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — says: Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in […]