During class on Wednesday, for the first time I began to understand the frustration of some teachers with the Common Core Standards (CCS). I could not picture any type of district-wide curriculum that I would enjoy working with. I believed that forcing all teachers to do the same would surely be cumbersome and ineffective as it wouldn’t allow them to build in differentiation based on student needs or cultural differences. After reading the “Assignment Template” handout, I realized that curriculum doesn’t mean day-by-day lesson plans that all teachers across the district use. Instead, the Handout suggests activities, assignments, and strategies based on the CCS.
Since reading the handout I have changed my mind and believe that as a starting teacher, working with similar curriculum would be very helpful. Even now, I plan on using the Handout as a resource in planning some of the lessons for my practicum. It clearly shows which CCS respond to each suggestion or activity; in addition, rather than giving premade worksheets, it provides open ended prompts that each teacher may alter for their purpose.
Further, while reading the handout I realized the difference in approach that students should use to access informational text and literature. Many of the suggestions could be used in reading literature as well, but it seems most of the handout focused on informational text. This fact left me wondering if there is another part of the curriculum focused on approaching Literature.
Lastly, I enjoyed the way that the handout outlines the different types of writing occurring at each revision. It seems like a great idea to communicate the purpose of each draft to the students. Recognizing that a first draft is more like working an argument out on paper and it is revising that leads to clarity for the reader is a good way to take pressure off students when writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment