Common Core Resources

Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms

Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Disciplinary Literacy

The Common Core State Standards require students to do more with knowledge and language than ever before. Rather than be mere consumers of knowledge, students must now become creators, critics, and communicators of ideas across disciplines. Yet in order to take on these new and exciting roles, many students need daily teaching with an extra emphasis on accelerating their academic communication skills.

Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms describes seven research-based teaching practices for developing complex language and literacy skills across grade levels and disciplines: using complex texts, fortifying complex output, fostering academic interaction, clarifying complex language, modeling, guiding, and designing instruction. Most important, you will find clear descriptions and examples of how these essential practices can—and should—be woven together in real lessons. You will also find the following:

Classroom activities based on the practices

• Dozens of classroom examples from lessons in different grade levels and disciplines
• Detailed lessons with annotations focused on language and literacy development
• Strategies and tools for building system-wide capacity for sustained growth in the practices

Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms is a concise guide for helping us improve our practices to strengthen two vital pillars that support student learning: academic language and disciplinary literacy.

About the Authors

Susan O’Hara is executive director of the Center for Cooperative Research and Extension Services for Schools (CRESS) at the University of California, Davis. Cofounder of the Academic Language Development Network, Susan has extensive experience in teacher professional development, math and science education, and effective practices for teaching English learners.

Robert Pritchard is a professor of education at Sacramento State University. A frequent consultant for schools, districts, and departments of education, Robert brings extensive experience as a former ESL teacher and reading specialist to his work with teachers and administrators.

Jeff Zwiers teaches in the Stanford Teaching Education Program and works for Stanford’s Center to Support Excellence in Teaching. He received his Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco and has taught English, Spanish, science, and history in high school, middle school, and elementary school. Jeff says that he became a teacher to “positively influence the social linguistic, ethical, and cognitive development of students.”

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Web Resources

Common Core Implementation Funding Template Information and Spending Plan Template

Resources for use in expending the $1.25 billion one-time funds provided  in the 2013-14 budget.

• May be used for professional development, instructional materials, and technology enhancement
• LEAs must spend by the end of 2014-15
• Funds subject to annual audit

LEAs must:

• Have created a plan for use of funds, describe and adopt at a public meeting by July 1, 2015, report detailed expenditure information to CDE

CCSS English Language Arts

• 2000+ Common Core lessons for mathematics and English Language Arts – Learnzillion.com
• Commom Core Close Reading exemplars – English Language Arts – CCSS Close Reading Exemplars
• Anthology Alignment Resources – Common Core Aligned ELA Lessons by Grade Level
• Stanford University’s Understanding Language Resource – Persuasion Across Time and Space: Analyzing and Producing Complex Texts
• California Department of Education CCSS ELA Resources – CDE CCSS ELA Resource Page
• California Department of Education English Language Development Resources – CDE CCSS EL Resource Page

Ethnologue, Languages of the World, a comprehensive reference work cataloging all of the world’s known living languages.

CCSS History

• Reading Like a Historian: 73 free secondary school lessons in U.S. and World History 
• U.S. History Resource: critically read primary sources, critique and construct historical narrative – Historical Thinking Matters
• Long Beach Unified School District CCSS Curriculum Resources by Grade Level

CCSS Mathematics

• California Department of Education CCSS Math Resources – CDE CCSS Math Resource Page
• Georgia Department of Education CCSS Math Resources – GDE CCSS Math Resources by Grade Level
• University of Arizona – Institute for Mathematics and Education CCSS Math Progressions across grade levels – Progression Documents for Common Core Math
• Illustrative Mathematics – Institute of Mathematics and Education – Common Core Standards aligned grade level tasks – IllustrativeMathematics.org
• Inside Mathematics – a professional resource for education with CCSS aligned mathematics tools for educators at all levels including teachers, coaches, principals and administrators – Inside Mathematics.org

CCSS Science

CCSS Environmental Curriculum; K-12 Environmental Education Curriculum  – Education and the Environment Initiative

Other CCSS Resources

• The Teaching Channel – Inspiring Video Resource of teachers working in classrooms
• Literacy Design Collaborative  – A free collaborative online community of educators sharing CCSS learning modules
• Lesson Planet – Common Core Aligned teaching resources - Lessonplanet.com

California Common Core State Standards Implementation – Update (November 2013)

California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESA), in partnership with the Sacramento County Office of Education, received results from a statewide survey on the current status of Common Core implementation. The survey was administered to 818 California school districts representing approximately 83% (6.2 million) of the state’s K-12 student population.

The survey defined nine identified focus areas for CCSS implementation including:

• capacity building and leadership
• sequencing of CCSS implementation
• communication
• curriculum review
• instructional materials and electronic resources
• professional development;
• CCSS-alignedassessment;
• technology to support instruction, data, and assessments;
• assistance and support

Highlights from that report follow:

• 50% of school districts report having a formal, written CCSS implementation plan.
• 100% of school districts report being engaged in CCSS implementation work.
• Communication with key stakeholders (parents, students, local businessleaders and the local media) on the CCSS and/or CCSS-aligned assessments continues to be a statewide need.
• School districts report that 50% of teachers understand the content, structure and organization of the CCSS.
• 60% plan to purchase CCSS-aligned instructional materials in mathematics over the next 18 months.
• 33% plan to purchase CCSS-aligned instructional materials in English Language Arts (ELA) over the next 18 months.
• 50% report that teachers have identified strategies and resources to support the transition the CCSS for English Learner (EL) students.
• 60% of school districts report offering keyboarding skills to their students.
• 80% of school districts report that they have completed the Smarter Balanced Technology Readiness Tool Survey available on the CDE Website.

CDE Technology Readiness Tool

75% plan to administer the computer-adaptive assessments to all their students at all their schools in 2014-15.