I wrestled with the process for a long time of how to implement the Common Core State Standards into a lesson, feeling like the standards severely limited my creativity. Finally I met with my professor and it clicked for me:
Let lessons be driven by standards.
That doesn't limit creativity. In fact, it liberates creativity! The standard creates purpose and direction for content. In this post, we'll break down how to create a lesson driven by a Common Core State Standard.
For example, here is a standard for 9th grade English Language Arts:
Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.5)
Say what?
Okay, let's break it down.
First of all, find the main verb and you find your objective. Good objectives, and in fact all the Common Core State Standards, are driven by verbs, about what you can DO if you achieve this learning goal.
In this standard, the main verb is "develop."
Next, find the stem, which is the main phrase. The stem is "Develop and strengthen writing as needed." This is your objective, which is much easier to swallow than the whole standard itself. Then naturally one may ask: how does one develop and strengthen writing as needed?
"Plan, revise, edit, rewrite, try a new approach, focus on addressing what is more significant for a specific purpose and audience."
Your lesson plan can focus specifically on several or even only one of these aims mentioned above. You can't expect students to be sailing away with every aspect of this standard within one lesson. But objectives can be revisited again and again.
I personally have found - surprisingly - a liberation in focusing on these standards. I don't feel so lost and adrift in planning a lesson, trying to invent interesting material that might be meaningful.
For example, for the standard mentioned above, the material could be to write an essay, a story, a novel, a research paper, a newspaper article.
Standards are a compass that allow me to actually focus in on where I'm going with my students, then let the journey to that destination be filled with adventure.
So break it down, then build it up.
(click on the image below for a zoomed in view of this diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy)
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Let lessons be driven by standards.
That doesn't limit creativity. In fact, it liberates creativity! The standard creates purpose and direction for content. In this post, we'll break down how to create a lesson driven by a Common Core State Standard.
For example, here is a standard for 9th grade English Language Arts:
Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.5)
Say what?
Okay, let's break it down.
First of all, find the main verb and you find your objective. Good objectives, and in fact all the Common Core State Standards, are driven by verbs, about what you can DO if you achieve this learning goal.
In this standard, the main verb is "develop."
Next, find the stem, which is the main phrase. The stem is "Develop and strengthen writing as needed." This is your objective, which is much easier to swallow than the whole standard itself. Then naturally one may ask: how does one develop and strengthen writing as needed?
"Plan, revise, edit, rewrite, try a new approach, focus on addressing what is more significant for a specific purpose and audience."
Your lesson plan can focus specifically on several or even only one of these aims mentioned above. You can't expect students to be sailing away with every aspect of this standard within one lesson. But objectives can be revisited again and again.
I personally have found - surprisingly - a liberation in focusing on these standards. I don't feel so lost and adrift in planning a lesson, trying to invent interesting material that might be meaningful.
For example, for the standard mentioned above, the material could be to write an essay, a story, a novel, a research paper, a newspaper article.
Standards are a compass that allow me to actually focus in on where I'm going with my students, then let the journey to that destination be filled with adventure.
So break it down, then build it up.
(click on the image below for a zoomed in view of this diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy)
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