Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Writing a Personal Essay

Writing a personal essay doesn't have to be hard. One would think that the most important part of a personal essay would be writing a draft. This isn't so. While it is important, there are other parts of the writing process that are just as important for writing a focused "A" paper.

One of the first tasks you do before you write the rough draft is to have a topic that is appropriate for a personal essay.

As you may recall, a personal essay should be written in first person, usually about an account of an event, a story about a person, a travelogue of a place or  an illustration of an object (in words) that is or was special to you. Well, does that mean you should write about your mom, your childbirth (if you're a woman) or your vacation? Any of these topics are a good choice for a personal essay.

Recall that the writing process:

1. Brainstorming--Create your topic. Narrow it down.

2. Outlining--Yes, this is necessary!

3. Drafting--Writing your draft from the outline.

4. Revising--Looking at the paper and paragraphs as a thorough explanation of your thesis.

5. Editing--Correcting errors in spelling, grammar, capitalization, punctuation and missing words/typos. Run a spell-check during this step.

That's it! Those are the five writing steps. You can do them any way you want with any topic. You can revise while you're editing if you want or vice versa. Whatever you're comfortable with.


Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Current State of Common Core Standards in California 2016


Below is some information about the current state standards adoptions for all subjects with regard to CCSS. CCSS has now been developed for history/social science in California as of this date.

Beginning teachers often confuse ELA (English/Language Arts) literacy standards for history/social studies and science with California State Content Standards for history/social science and science.

The state of the standards and some useful links are provided below:

California State CCSS and Content Area Subject Standards (note that these are only content standards) are at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/

Two sets of Common Core standards exist for History-Social Studies
1.  ELA Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects is at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf).  
2.  California Social Studies Content Standards at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/histsocscistnd.pdf

Two sets of Common Core standards exist for Science
1. ELA Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects is at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf).
2. Next Generation Science Standards for California Public Schools, Kindergarten through Grade Twelve (CA NGSS) at http://www.cde.ca.gov/pd/ca/sc/ngssstandards.asp

Common Core History/Social Science content standards have not yet been adopted.They're being reviewed. The 1998 standards are still relevant again at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/histsocscistnd.pdf

ELD (English Language Development) standards are at http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/eldstndspublication14.pdf

For more info about NGSS in California, see http://www.cde.ca.gov/pd/ca/sc/ngssintrod.asp

Finally, one other element, Common Core, is worth mentioning, which emphasizes that instruction based on authentic, real-life topics. CCSS developed the Standards drawing upon input from educators and educator groups, higher education stakeholders, content experts, parents and the public" (Thatcher, 2012). For this reason, the state officials who initiated the standards had relevant real-life input about what their worker's skill-sets are and how students can successfully  complete tasks related to them.

Thatcher, D. (2012). Common Core Standards: frequently asked questions for state legislators. National Conference of State Legislators. Retrieved from
https://sites.google.com/site/ncslccssupdate/home/resources-and-comments/NCSL - CCSS FAQ (June 2013).pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Monday, January 25, 2016

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Common Core as a Staircase Presented by Gerber Life Insurance Company.

Describing and defining Common Core challenges most people who are not familiar with education.  One way to explain it is to imagine that the K-12 grades are giant staircases.  Gerber Life Insurance Company (who even know such a thing existed) gives a message on its website that the Common Core standards are vital for parents of babies and toddlers to understand.

First, on the webpage is the video that presents staircases analogy. You see, before Common Core there were different staircases so that a student who would be working at one grade level in one state, say, Florida, would be at another grade level if he/she moved to another state (think Kansas). This has changed. Currently, now that Common Core has been initiated in most states the standards are aligned so that a student working at one grade level in one state will be at the same grade level if they move to another. For example, students studying linear equations in eighth grade in Florida will move into the same topic in Kansas at that grade level.

Note that the Gerber Life Insurance article misinterprets the number of parents who know about Common Core. It states that 39 percent of parents did not know about it yet in the linked article published by the University of Connecticut states that 39 percent of parents "have heard of the much-debated initiative." That would make 61 percent of parents who had not heard of Common Core.

Gerber Life Insurance Company needs to brush up on their math. Subtraction is an important skill.