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Common Core Missed the Mark: Speaking & Listening Important to All Disciplines
If literacy levels are to improve, the aims of the English language arts classroom, especially in the earliest grades, must include oral language in a purposeful, systematic way, in part because it...
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Spouting Off about Professional Development: Don’t Revist PD–Revision PD!
I’m spouting off here…clear the path! If you are on this page, you may notice that I tweet–see the link to your right? I use Twitter (@doctordea) to keep up on educational trends and cutting edge...
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Common Core Literacy Standards: Portrait of College & Career Readiness or...
I am an idealist. I am an optimist. I credit my optimism for carrying me in times of trial and grief. I look for the best in people and in situations. I believe positivism generates enthusiasm and...
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Common Core & Close Reading: An Outcome not a Reading Strategy
Seems like everywhere I go, educators are asking “What is this ‘close reading’ thing and how do I teach it?” The buzz on close reading has become so great that many think close reading is simply...
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Moving Deeper into the Standards: The Demand for Paired Texts
Pairing texts should be done with the same consideration one pairs food and drink: they complement one another. Through the union of the two, each one becomes richer on its own. I posted my first blog...
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Six Text Type Pairings for Critical Thinking & Common Core Success
Clips of the 2012 award winning film, Lincoln, could be paired with other genres as means of analyzing the transformation of ideas between primary texts, secondary texts, and multimedia performance....
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Six or Seven Text Pairings Implied by Common Core ELA Standards?
Who’s counting? Evidently, PARCC ! What does “text pairing” mean? If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I posted a blog several days ago entitled Six Text Type Pairings for Critical...
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Assessment Planner: Alignment to PARCC’s Blueprints and The Common Core
I am in a library for the next two days to show teachers and administrators how to use PARCC’s Content Model Frameworks alongside of the Assessment Blueprints to guide teaching and learning. These sets...
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Evidence Centered Design & the Common Core: A Fairer Way to Assess
As a classroom teacher for nearly 20 years, one who was fluent with and adherent to our state standards, many ask me why I have so easily shifted from the known and comfortable to the unknown and even...
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Releasing PARCC Aligned Curriculum & Assessment Planners
Educators, this is your chance to decide on the texts you will teach as you prepare your students to be thinkers and doers. I have been working like a mad-woman to help teachers make sense of the...
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Getting Started with Common Core: 5 Ordered Steps
Planning: Where are You in Common Core Implementation? Last Friday, I presented an update on PARCC Assessment at the National College and Career Readiness Conference held in Orlando. There were nearly...
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Shaping the Legacy of the 21st Century Educator
Portions of this blog were first published as a guest post with Eye On Education as Part III to PJ Caposey’s (@PrincipalPC) question: In the 21st Century, what is school for? How can we prepare...
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What is the Fairness in Forcing Standardized Assessment on Special Needs...
All children need to be treated fairly. They need to be treated equally when equal is fair. “We sat at our kitchen table until the wee hours of the morning practicing how the test would unfold and...
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A Culture of Learning: Can I Get a Do-Over?
“What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there’s a powerful amount of truth in that, I think” (Malcolm...
View ArticleWhat is New?
What is new in education? Grab a partner and each grab a Post-It. Let’s try an experiment. Number your Post-Its from 1-10. On your own, not sharing ideas, take 30-seconds and each generate a list of...
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Searching for Meaning: Literary Motifs & Close Reading
Sometimes it’s not just that kids don’t know, they are tired of hearing what or how the teacher sees the text making meaning. We need to teach them to care by making them the discoverers of...
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Six or Seven Text Pairings Implied by Common Core ELA Standards?
What does “text pairing” mean? Who’s counting? Evidently, PARCC ! If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I posted a blog several days ago entitled Six Text Type Pairings for Critical...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Assessment Planner: Alignment to PARCC’s Blueprints and The Common Core
PARCC Aligned Curriculum and Assessment Planners are available for grades 3-11. Designed as quarterly form PDFs, each planner provides a structure for planning units that address the standards and...
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Evidence Centered Design & the Common Core: A Fairer Way to Assess
As a classroom teacher for nearly 20 years, one who was fluent with and adherent to our state standards, many ask me why I have so easily shifted from the known and comfortable to the unknown and even...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Releasing PARCC Aligned Curriculum & Assessment Planners
Educators, this is your chance to decide on the texts you will teach as you prepare your students to be thinkers and doers. I have been working with due diligence to help teachers make sense of the...
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