The 4th week of school is over, and debate is about to start in my classroom — and yet, we’ve already had two debates. Here’s the thing: to build argumentative ballers over the course of the year, I’m experimenting with a new idea this year: start slow. And so I’ve actually started debates this year […]
Instruction
A Non-Freaked Out, Focused Approach to the Common Core — Part 7 — Teach Character
The Common Core does a pretty good job of laying out some key cognitive skills students need to have to be ready for a career or college. Yes, for you CCSS doubters out there, I said it — I think the standards are good. Granted, I like boiling their goodness down and distilling it into […]
The Only 100 Words You Need to Read Today
Dominating life or the CCSS with your students is all about starting. Edublogs and opinions abound; none of them can try something bold in your classroom. That’s all I’m writing this week. Instead of reading anything else online today, go and do something that needs doing. Plan that one daring step that’s been nagging at […]
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 […]