Bringing the Common Core to Life in K-8 Classrooms: 30 Strategies to Build Literacy Skills

Bringing the Common Core to Life in K 8 Classrooms: 30 Strategies to Build Literacy Skills offers thirty easy-to-use strategies that encourage student mastery of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts across the curriculum. Teachers will help their students work smarter, not harder, to become actively engaged in their own learning. Authors Eric Jensen and LeAnn Nickelsen's provide tips for structuring teaching, and address common fears and challenges that this shift in teaching and learning evokes. Jensen and Nickelsen begin by explaining the difference between top-down, passive classrooms and two-way engaged-for-success classrooms. The first is driven by teachers while the latter welcomes and encourages students to take control of their teaching and learning. The two-way process also promotes higher-level thinking, as opposed to students reciting simple concepts that they will easily forget. The strategies are organized into three zones of engagement: Zone 1: Engage to Build Basics; Zone 2: Engage to Explore; and Zone 3: Engage to Own. Each zone builds on the previous so that teachers and students work better rather than harder. Chapter 1 illustrates the characteristics of an engaged classroom, and chapter 2 explains the CCSS for English language arts. In chapter 3, K 8 teachers and administrators will learn how to tie the CCSS and strategies into the three engagement zones. Chapter 4 elaborates on the first engagement zone and explores how teachers can activate students' background knowledge to prepare students for learning. Chapter 5 lists strategies for Zone 1. The authors detail Zone 2 in chapter 6 with tips to engage students. Chapter 7 lists strategies for Zone 2. Chapter 8 tackles Zone 3, and chapter 9 is packed with strategies that help all content-area teachers lead students in close reading. Finally, chapter 10 offers insight into habit formation and helps teachers build a big-picture unit plan. Appendix A offers differentiation sugge