{"id":20429,"date":"2013-10-17T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=20429"},"modified":"2013-10-17T12:22:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T16:22:00","slug":"anatomy-of-an-english-class-how-the-common-core-is-shaping-instruction-for-one-miami-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/10\/17\/anatomy-of-an-english-class-how-the-common-core-is-shaping-instruction-for-one-miami-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Anatomy Of An English Class: How The Common Core Is Shaping Instruction For One Miami Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20430\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Miami English teacher Lois Seaman.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/10\/10-16-LoisSeaman2.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20430\" alt=\"Miami English teacher Lois Seaman.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/10\/10-16-LoisSeaman2-300x224.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/10\/10-16-LoisSeaman2-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/10\/10-16-LoisSeaman2-620x463.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/10\/10-16-LoisSeaman2.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Sarah Carr \/ The Hechinger Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miami English teacher Lois Seaman.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s note: This story was authored by Sarah Carr for The Hechinger Report.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>MIAMI\u2014English instructor Lois Seaman often speaks bluntly to her middle-school students about the increased expectations they will face under the new Common Core curriculum standards. \u201cIt\u2019s like you are looking at this under a microscope; glean all you can from this text,\u201d she told a class of eighth graders as they studied a passage from \u201cFlowers for Algernon\u201d by Daniel Keyes. \u201cCommon Core says, \u2018Read like a detective and write like an investigative reporter.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Seaman\u2019s students at Richmond Heights Middle School will still be tested on the old state standards this school year. But like many of her colleagues, Seaman has already started adjusting her teaching approach to meet the new standards. Here are a few of her strategies, culled from her own research and materials and guidance provided to teachers by the Miami-Dade school district and the state:<\/p>\n<h4>Asking students to read multiple texts on the same theme:<\/h4>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This year, Seaman will assign the short story \u201cThe School Play\u201d by Gary Soto, which includes a reference to the Donner Party, a group of American pioneers trapped in the Sierra Nevada snow during their mid 19th-century migration to California.<\/p>\n<p>Students will also read excerpts from diaries written by members of the Donner party in an effort to give them added insight into the short story. In addition, \u201cRaymond\u2019s Run,\u201d a story about a girl who cares for her mentally disabled brother, will be accompanied by the poem \u201cBrother and Sister\u201d by Lewis Carroll.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/10\/16\/how-florida-reading-lists-are-changing-for-new-common-standards\/\">How Florida Reading Lists Are Changing For New Common Standards<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/10\/16\/factchecking-tuesdays-common-core-forum\/\">Fact-Checking Tuesday&#8217;s Common Core Forum<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/10\/16\/supporters-opponents-of-floridas-common-education-standards-have-their-say-in-tampa\/\">Supporters, Opponents Of Florida&#8217;s Common Education Standards Have Their Say In Tampa<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/01\/2-20-CommonCoreApple.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/topic\/common-core\/\">Your Essential Guide To The Common Core<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>The pairings are part of Seaman\u2019s effort to ensure students can analyze and write on multiple readings that explore similar themes\u2014a key requirement of the Common Core.<\/p>\n<h4>Introducing more challenging readings:<\/h4>\n<p>Since the new standards call for teachers to introduce more challenging readings at younger grades, Seaman looked for texts that would force her middle school students out of their comfort zone in some way.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis Carroll\u2019s \u201cBrother and Sister,\u201d for instance, engages them through humor (and is also focused on a theme many students can relate to: sibling rivalry). But it contains a mixture of antiquated and advanced words\u2014such as mutton, wherefore, prudent, and indignantly\u2014that Seaman knew many of her students would find difficult.<\/p>\n<h4>Requiring students to analyze readings independently:<\/h4>\n<p>When Seaman\u2019s eighth graders started reading \u201cFlowers for Algernon\u201d this fall, she asked them to dive in on their own. The class did not read the opening passage together or review biographical information about the author, as they might have done in the past. Instead, the students read the first paragraph silently and then discussed it with a partner (in a new twist, Seaman told them to have an \u201cintellectual\u201d conversation rather than simply saying, \u201cdiscuss\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>At the end of those conversations, the students turned in bulleted lists with their observations about genre, setting, main characters, and story conflict. If Florida uses the PARCC exam (which appears increasingly unlikely) or something like it, the test will likely require students to write analytical essays on clusters of readings. Partly as a result, Seaman is trying to ensure students feel comfortable undertaking literary analysis without much prior background information, context, or large group discussion.<\/p>\n<h4>Assigning more analytical writing exercises:<\/h4>\n<p>Over the course of her classes, Seaman repeatedly reminds students to support almost anything they write with evidence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt can never just be about yourself,\u201d she tells them. \u201cWe can\u2019t just throw things out. We have to back them up.\u201d She hammers this point home deliberately. The PARCC exam will require students to write essays citing evidence from multiple readings.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, Florida\u2019s current standardized test focuses just on expository and persuasive writings; citing facts and evidence from the texts isn\u2019t weighted nearly as heavily as it will be under PARCC. Seaman is trying to encourage even one of her sixth grade classes comprised largely of English language learners to focus more on evidence in their writing, advising them to start sentences with, \u201cI know this because&#8230;.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor&#8217;s note: This story was authored by Sarah Carr for The Hechinger Report. MIAMI\u2014English instructor Lois Seaman often speaks bluntly to her middle-school students about the increased expectations they will face under the new Common Core curriculum standards. \u201cIt\u2019s like you are looking at this under a microscope; glean all you can from this text,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[1157,879],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20433,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20429\/revisions\/20433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}