Framing our thinking about Common Core State Standards

I was introduced to this wonderful video featuring Sarah Brown Wessling and wanted to share it with you. Watch it first and then come back for some thoughts!!

Sarah does an amazing job at showing us how we can begin structuring our thinking about the Common Core State Standards. Summarizing this video would not do it justice at all so I just want to discuss some of the highlights (at least to me) and then get your thoughts. The first thing that she talks about are ways in which we can frame how we look at the CCSS.

Three Ways to Frame Our Thinking:

1. That we recognize that sometimes we have to frame it in observation.

2. That we also contextualize our thinking and what it means.

3. That we then begin designing and building our curriculum.

I love these. They are such simple things that we can definitely take to heart and the fact that they follow my favorite policy... KISS (keep it simple, stupid)! Sometimes we get so bogged down in the various lists of things that we should do that our list takes over our life and becomes overwhelming to us. By having three main areas to look at and use to structure our thinking.

She goes on to give so many golden nuggets of information that I couldn't begin to write about them all. This blog post would be forever long. One of the most important that she talks about were the patterns that she notices in the CCSS and how they are shift our focus from previous standards. Those are worth looking at.

Patterns in CCSS

* There will be much more non-fiction than ever before.

* We will focus on writing argumentatively instead of persuasively

* Integration is key! We WILL NOT teach strands of literacy in isolation

* The student must see the text in conversation with each other

(I love that she pointed out that it is not enough to read the book, take the quizzes, and then do the test anymore. That to me felt like a "Duh!" statement because I am constantly bringing in poems that relate to the theme of the novel or a video about something that the novel talks about that the students are unfamiliar with or something else. Does anyone else do that?)

* There is a great increase in text complexity

* Literacy is a COLLECTIVE responsibility

Those things make me more excited about teaching the CCSS because they do lend us to have much more freedom within our teaching and bring so much more into our classroom that maybe we were hesitant to do before. Sarah tells us that we have to be intellectual risk takers. I love that title. In order for us to bridge between tasks and learning, just as she mentions, we have to have gentle failure. And here is the tough part for some... we have to do it in front of our students. We have to show them that it is okay to not get it the first time and how we worked through the process to understand.

Do you understand everything about the CCSS after reading it through one time?

Could you pass a test on it?

Of course not! Who could?! We have to show our students that it is okay to mess up and try again. My students know that I have absolutely no shame in showing them how I mess up all the time. They love to see it! I will admit that I had a very hard time with it at first because, really, who wants to show their flaws?! However, as my lessons progressed, I saw that my students are reading and willing to mess up and then process through it. Those are some of my favorite days!

There are so many other things I could talk about from this video but I want to mention the story about she and her daughter playing school. Did that rattle anyone else? Oh goodness, it did me. First of all, what does my child think I do all day (and I would ask her but she is in the bed so I will ask later and let you know) and then this question:

Are you just playing the game of school?

That is the question that I want to leave you with to think on. Let me know what your thoughts are from Sarah Brown Wessling's video. Did anything make you pause to reflect or stick out to you? I would love to hear from you!