R.CCR.8 — that’s the eighth College/Career Readiness anchor standard within the Reading strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — reads as follows: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence. This is a […]
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5 Ways to Make Rigorous Arguments Fun
“Argument,” mentions Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), “is the soul of an education” (p. 24). Why? According to Neil Postman, argument forces the arguer to consider the strengths and weaknesses of multiple perspectives (p. 24, CCSS Appendix A). In other words, arguing helps you see the complex nature of things; it […]
Happy 4th of July!
My 4th of July will be spent doing the following: Contemplating whether this ridonkulous heat wave is being caused by global warming Installing a broken door, fire alarms, bathroom trim, a dining room light, some doorknobs, and an IKEA couch in our new home Playing with my girls (wife and daughter; daughter #2 is due in […]
Common Core R.CCR.7 Explained
R.CCR.7 — that’s the seventh College/Career Readiness anchor standard within the Reading strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — reads as follows: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. This is essentially the research standard within the reading anchor standards, […]
Why I Support the Common Core
I’d bet a Galapagos Tortoise that no one decides to become a teacher based solely on the prospect of adhering to a list of teaching standards. So, here’s a great question: why in the heck should we care about them? (Hint: It’s not because some armageddon is coming in the form of a standardized test […]