So you’re eager to challenge your students, Common Core style, with some challenging, complex texts. Or you’re having students debate, but you’d like to get a Flip camera to record them for feedback. Or you’d like some paper. (I’ve taught in that school, too.) The problem is schools have budgets, and, too often, they don’t […]
How Administrators Can Wage War on Bad PD
So I shared a bit ago about how one of the bad guys that’s driving teachers nuts these days is bad PD. Okay, driving them nuts is an understatement. Just ask a teacher. And while leading some PD a couple weeks ago in the fine states of Oklahoma and Missouri, I started thinking really hard […]
I’m Not Kidding. This is the Best I Got.
Welcome to the best posts and videos here on the Teaching the Core blog. I have over 150 posts that will help you understand, evaluate, and implement literacy, Common Core and otherwise, in your classroom. It’s pretty difficult to filter through and figure out what you should read, so I decided to do the hard work and […]
A Non-Freaked Out, Focused Approach to the Common Core — Part 6 — Write Like Crazy
One of the biggest bang-for-your-buck Common Core standards is W.CCR.10, which basically says, “Write frequently for many reasons.” And the amazing thing about writing is that it achieves so many things simultaneously. For example, in the “Writing to Read” meta-analysis report, researchers found positive effect sizes for all kinds of writing, ranging from the mundane […]
Waging War on the Bad Guys
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of traveling to two beautiful towns — Harrah, Oklahoma and Lebanon, Missouri — and speaking to two beautiful groups of teachers about the non-freaked out approach to the Common Core that we in the Teaching the Core movement have been working on over the past year. On my […]