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Teaching Dare to Dream . . . Change the World

A few weeks ago, I hit that time of year in my sixth grade classroom I usually dread.  Poetry.  I've never been a big fan of poetry myself. Teaching poetry to sixth graders usually feels to me like trying to make a trip to the dentist sound fun.  They don't buy it.  So we slog through two weeks of rhyming couplets, dubious metaphors, and allusive symbolism before we all breathe a huge sigh of relief. This year I wised up.  Wrote a grant that got me a class set of Dare to Dream . . . Change the World books.  This collection of poems edited by Jill Corcoran features writing by some of today's top KidLit writers and poets.  Each spread couples a biography of someone who has made an impact in some way with two poems that relate to that person. Nicole and I (well, mostly Nicole) had the pleasure of putting together a Teacher's Guide for Jill.  We honed in on as many of the Common Core Standards for grades 6 through 8 as we cou...
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The Common Core and Children's Authors

With the adoption and transition to the common core standards, teachers across the country are going to be looking for new ways to cover these more detailed student learning objectives. This is an opportune time for authors to get their books in teachers' hands, which equates to greater sales, more opportunities for speaking engagements, and longevity. Having a curriculum guide that accompanies your book sweetens the deal for most teachers. What is a curriculum guide? A solid curriculum guide includes all the necessary components for teaching a novel in an engaging way, while still reflecting the Common Core Standards. The most useful guides are those that are explicitly tied to the standards; pull out key, grade-appropriate vocabulary; offer a wide assortment of engaging activities for students to be involved in; contain thoughtful and spiraled discussion questions; and have at least one writing prompt. What's most helpful to a teacher--who is juggling so mu...
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Have No Fear . . . Common Core and Writers

Fiction writers have viewed the adoption of the Common Core standards with skepticism. And maybe with good reason. These new standards require teachers to focus much more time on Informational text. Staff lounges and department meetings across the country are also abuzz right now with what this means for curricula. In actuality, the document and its standards are well organized, well-written, and a realistic interpretation of what we want kids to know and do at the end of each school year. For us, curriculum writers and teachers, the CCSS are refreshing. The adoption of the CCSS by all but 5 states is merely an outgrowth of a decades long push to incorporate standards-based teaching into schools. There were (and actually still are) 50 distinct state standards for major subject areas. Now, we have ONE set of standards for math and English for most of the country. Finally, we in the education world can talk the same talk and collaborate on promoting best practices. But what does th...
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