Claim 2: Students can produce effective and well-grounded writing for a range of purposes and audiences.

Learn About Claim 2

• What is the rationale for Claim 2?
  To communicate effectively, students need to understand why they are writing – for what different purposes and for what audiences. Writing develops the ability to generate, organize, and make sense of and deeply understand information in order to produce new ideas and insights. Read more.

• What does sufficient evidence looks like for Claim 2?
  At each grade level, students will demonstrate their ability to work with – compose, revise, and/or edit - a variety of shorter and longer literary and informational texts for different purposes. Assessment items and tasks addressing this claim include a combination of the following types of writing: narrative writing about real or imaginary experiences or events, writing informational/explanatory texts, writing opinions/arguments about a topic, and writing opinions/arguments in response to texts read (either fiction or nonfiction). Read more.

• What are the assessment targets for Claim 2?
  The targets that are provided are for grades 4, 8, and 11, serving as elementary, middle, and high school examples of the targets that the Consortium will be developed for grades 3-11. Each assessment target is accompanied by the related standard(s) in the CCSS from which it is drawn, and by the intended cognitive rigor/depth-of-knowledge (DOK) required by the assessment target. Read more.

Unit/Lesson Planning

Tools

• Understanding the Standards
• Study the Standards at Your Grade - ELA & Literacy    
  Explore the CCSS ELA concept organizers and unpacked content for your grade or subject developed by other CCSS states.
• Expanded Definitions for CCSS in ELA & Literacy    
  This document, created by the Rhode Island Department of Education provides additional information to help expand understanding of the Critical Areas of Focus for ELA & Literacy.

• Planning Templates
• Quality Review Rubric for Units and Lessons    
  The Tri-State Collaborative (composed of educational leaders from Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island and facilitated by Achieve) has developed criterion-based rubrics and review processes to evaluate the quality of lessons and units intended to address the Common Core State Standards for ELA & Literacy.

• Other Resources
  
  • Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing
    Students who come to college writing with the habits of mind and experiences described in these documents will be well positioned to meet the writing challenges in the full spectrum of academic courses and later in their careers.
    
    Habits of Mind    Developing Rhetorical Knowledge     Developing Critical Thinking     Developing Flexible Writing Processes     Developing Knowledge of Conventions    
    
    Composing in Multiple Environments
• Primary Sources: At the Heart of the Common Core State Standards    
  In this feature article from the Teaching with Primary Sources Journal, the author discusses the role that primary sources can play in achieving the literacy skills required by the Common Core State Standards.

Teaching & Learning

Tools

• Instructional Strategies
  One of the skills critical for success in any content area is the ability to synthesize evidence - based information to form ideas and opinions, and then to communicate that to a variety of audiences. Writing develops the ability to generate, organize, and make sense of information in order to produce these new ideas and insights. Writing also provides the means to communicate to a variety of audiences.
  
  The following activities will help teachers provide a framework for students to write within their given content field.
• Focused Free Write   12/28/2012 (32 KB)
  Focused Free Write provides opportunities for reflection and writing about specific concepts.
• RAFT   12/28/2012 (44 KB)
  RAFT guides students to process information across a variety of topics.
• Journal Writing   01/09/2013 (29.50 KB)
  Journal Writing is one of the most powerful literacy strategies for teachers in the content areas.
• Graphic Organizers   12/31/2012 (31.50 KB)
  Graphic Organizers provide a variety of tools to help students organize thoughts and explore hierarchical relationships.
• Three Level Study Guides   12/28/2012 (32 KB)
  Three Level Study Guides support students thinking and communicating at various levels.

Additional Resources

• Videos of instruction
• Real World Problem Solving: Designing an iPad Case (9-12)    
  Experience the world of an engineer by designing a new iPad case.
• Grant Writing: The American Dream (11-12)    
  In this AP lesson students write and present a proposal aimed at realizing the American Dream.
• Supporting Claims and Counterclaims (Grade 9-12)    
  To develop student skills in supporting claims and addressing counterclaims in writing, this teacher first has students develop these skills in the form of a debate.

• Differentiating for individual student needs
• Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners    
  The documents on this page provide all educators with resources that focus on the needs of English language learners. Educators should continue to reference the resources available on other CCSS pages for content-specific information.
• Meeting the Needs of Students with Disabilities and Diverse Learners    
  The documents on these pages provide all educators with resources that focus on the differentiated instruction of students with special needs. Educators should continue to reference the resources available on other CCSS pages for content-specific information.
• Structuring Active Learning   07/25/2012 (101.41 KB)
  Thie one page document offers suggestions from Kevin Feldman on structuring active learning to increase student engagement.
• Strategy Bank (West Virginia Department of Education)    
  The Teach 21 Strategy Bank from the West Virginia DOE provides templates and examples of research-based strategies including: Activiating Prior Knowledge, Vocabulary Development, Comprehension, Summarization Techniques, Writing Across the Curriculum, and others.
• Writing Across the Curriculum (West Virginia)    
  Writing is a skill that all businesses want their employees to be able to do well. Teachers in all content areas must add writing to their content courses. In so doing, they not only enhance their students' writing ability, but they also increase the understanding of the content and the vocabulary of the discipline. Teachers can use writing as a classroom assessment for learning as they examine students' explanations of what they are learning.

• Lessons
  NOTE: The inclusion of links to these sites does not constitute an endorsement by ODE.
• Suites of Standards-Based Writing Lessons    
  These writing suites for grades 5 - 10 were designed to answer the question, “What standards—specific writing skills, reading skills, and research skills—need to be taught and established at each grade level to enable a student to write an accomplished expository or persuasive piece about content at that level?”
• EduCore: Literacy Tools    
  Understand the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) framework, learn how to use the templates to create reading/writing assignments, and view sample modules for ELA, social studies and science developed by teachers.
• Open Education Resources (OER) Commons    
  A collection of open education resources (OER) including Common Core implementation plans, transition guides, assessment tasks, exemplars and curriculum.
• Resources for Argumentative Writing (Utah Education Network)    
  This webpage from the Utah Education Network offers a variety of resources supporting instruction in argumentative writing.

Assessment

Tools

• Smarter Balanced Sample Summative Items for Teachers
  Covering all possible item types (selected response, constructed response, extended response, technology enhanced, and performance tasks), these samples include student items, as well as sample student responses and evaluation rubrics where appropriate. Educators can use these items to get an idea of how to design classroom tasks that will prepare students for the Smarter Balanced Assessment.
• Grades 6-8    
• Grades 9-11    
  
• Sample Items and Tasks for Students    
  The items on these sites include a combination of computer adaptive items (selected response, constructed response, extended response) and performance tasks. Items can be scored using sample student responses and their accompanying scores as reference for reviewing your answer.
• Smarter Balanced Training Tests    
  Training tests for each grade level and subject area have been released to assist students with becoming familiar with the new item types that are present on the Smarter Balanced Pilot Test. NOTE: The training tests and online calculators can only be accessed on Mozilla Firefox.
• Writing Rubrics    
  NOTE: Rubrics for all genres in all grade bands are included in this document.
• Samples of Student Writing    
  These student writing samples have been annotated to illustrate the criteria required to meet the Common Core State Standards for particular types of writing—argument, informative/explanatory text, and narrative—in a given grade.
• Formative Assessments for Writing (Clackamas ESD)    
  These formative assessment tasks for grades 4-12 from Clackamas ESD include the CCSS standard addressed, directions to the teacher, and a scoring scale.

• Karin Moscon     (503) 947-5706
  Secondary/Post Secondary Transitions - Education Program Specialist, CTE Civil Rights