faulker035

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...

The adoption  of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by all but four states presents an unprecedented opportunity for publishers and authors. For the first time, teachers across the nation are teaching the same English standards.  What are the Common Core State Standards?  The CCSS are specific benchmarks, divided by grade level, that students should master by the end of each year in a certain subject. At this point, there are only standards for Language Arts and Math.  The L.A. standards are divided into Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language.  They are pretty specific.  For instance, one of the Reading Standards for 8th grade reads:                 3. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and  analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of ...