In my last post, I laid out the long, steamy romance that is my history with Kelly Gallagher’s article of the week assignment (disclaimer if you haven’t read it: it’s pretty much not romantic at all, or steamy — it’s just long). In this post, I want to share some resources that come out of last […]
Gerald Graff
A Non-Freaked Out Framework for Literacy Instruction Across the Content Areas, Common Core or Otherwise
This past summer, I began playing around with a 2.0 version of the “non-freaked out approach” to Common Core literacy, hoping to hone the thinking I put forward a year and a half or so ago into something more useable, more balanced, and more timeless (you’ll notice “close reading” died of buzzwordification). Here’s what I’m going to spend […]
Going a Bit Deeper with the They Say / I Say Two-Paragraph Template
Two posts ago, I introduced Graff/Birkenstein’s two-paragraph They Say / I Say template I’ve been requiring my students to use in response to our argumentative Articles of the Week (and, by the way, articles of the week are the original idea of Kelly Gallagher). And as a disclaimer, I’m about to nerd out pretty heavily on […]
A Simple, Two-Paragraph Template that Helps Kids to Really Argue
In the last post, I shared the new argumentative focus I’m experimenting with for the article of the week (AoW) assignment. Rather than choosing just any type of article, I’m looking for articles that argue. [1] It’s not exactly the discovery of the polio vaccine, but still, it’s pretty cool. I like this new focus […]
Non-Freaked Out Common Core — Part 4 — Argument and Debate
If there is one way that you can begin implementing the writing and speaking/listening portions of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in a simplified, manageable, high bang-for-your-buck fashion, it’s simply this: have students argue. Frequently. Whether you teach science, social studies, technical subjects, ELA, even math, argument is a dependable path to enlivening your […]