Writing Your First Module

1. Writing Your First Module St. Bernard Parish Public Schools Nicole Bower 8thGrade English Justin Burkhardt 8th Grade Social Studies

2. Challenges of the Common Core State Standards • The transition to the Common Core State Standards will create changes and challenges in all classrooms. • Some of these new challenges include: • Reading and analyzing complex texts • Rigor • Multiple genres • Using evidence • Speaking and listening skills • Overall higher level writing

3. How do we tackle these challenges and prepare our students for College and Career Readiness? Literacy Design Collaborative

4. LDC – First Impressions and Initial Challenges Initial Challenges for Social Studies • Integration with GLE’s • Overwhelming Initial Challenges for English • LDC Rubrics • Writing Styles

5. The Planning Process • Developing inquiry among students • Selecting an appropriate and engaging task • Using Module Creator as a tool • Locating a variety of complex nonfiction and fiction texts Determine essential question

6. What We Learned • Shorter, richer passages in the content areas to account for time • Goal setting and organization—students need to know where they’re going next • The importance of student engagement in task • The importance of scaffolding a task and modeling analysis of a text

7. Helpful Resources • Resources • Module Creator • R-Groupspace • Teacher collaboration across content areas • Instructional Strategies • Writers Checklist and Writers Notebook • LDC Rubrics • Annotations and close reading • AEC or any other writing strategy • Socratic seminars, debates, discussions

8. Benefits of LDC • Growth on standardized assessments along with a deeper understanding of material • Increase in rigor of writing based on close analysis of complex mentor texts • Increase in speaking and listening abilities • Student testimonials – Danton and Ambria