On My Bookshelf: Code of Honor by Alan Gratz

The basic plot from Amazon: Kamran Smith has it all. He's the star of the football team, dates the most popular girl in school, and can't wait to enlist in the Army like his big brother, Darius. Although Kamran's family hails from Iran, Kamran has always felt 100% American. Accepted.
And then everything implodes.

Darius is accused of being a terrorist. Kamran refuses to believe it, but the evidence is there -- Darius has been filmed making threats against his country, hinting at an upcoming deadly attack. Kamran's friends turn on him -- suddenly, in their eyes, he's a terrorist, too.

Kamran knows it's up to him to clear his brother's name. In a race against time, Kamran must piece together a series of clues and codes that will lead him to Darius -- and the truth.

But is it a truth Kamran is ready to face? And is he putting his own life at risk?

Why I liked it: At the start of Code of Honor, Kamran is your typical all-American boy hero. He's the star of the football team and Homecoming King, he has a beautiful girlfriend, tickets to the upcoming Super Bowl game with his best friend, and he is headed to West Point in the fall. All of that changes when Kamran's brother Darius, a West Point graduate and Army Ranger stationed in Afghanistan, is seen on video taking responsibility for a terrorist attack on the United States embassy in Turkey.

While at first Kamran is in shock and cannot believe this about his brother, there are times when his belief (as well as the reader's) wavers as the government presents Kamran and his parents with suspicious details about Darius's activities leading up to the attack. The fact that Darius continues to appear in terrorist videos
doesn't help his case either.

Besides questioning if Darius is a willing terrorist or a captive forced into action against his will, the team sent  to help Kamran find his brother is also full of questionable characters. JImmy is an ex-hacker now employed by the government, Dane was discharged from the Army for admitting drug use, Aaliyah has ties to royalty in Jordan and suffer from post-9/11 discrimination, and even Mickey, a CIA agent, could have ties to Irish rebels. A series of near-death misses make it clear that at least one of them can't fully be trusted.

The novel is full of action, from Kamran's escape from the detention center in DC to finding Darius and the terrorists in the caves of Arizona's mountains to foiling the bombing at the Super Bowl.

Classroom application: A great research or debate topic would be the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and the rights of the suspected terrorists kept there. While Kamran and his parents are not taken to Guantanamo Bay, they are taken from their homes in the dead of night by Homeland Security without being told where they are going. They are held in a detention facility in Washington DC where they are not allowed to see each other and their requests for a lawyer are denied because they haven't been charged with anything.

Another real world connection would be to examine the treatment of Muslims after September 11th, the stereotypes, and the misunderstandings about their religion. Finally, students could explore the issues surrounding PSTD for soldiers, how many of them self-medicate for their mental health issues and then are discharged. Like Dane, they receive a dishonorable or other than honorable discharge, which affects their access to benefits and only perpetuates their mental health issues.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Code of Honor for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here.

Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Research Papers: Choosing Topics, Using Appropriate Sources, Creating Outlines & Avoiding Plagiarism

This #2ndaryELA Twitter chat was all about writing research papers in the secondary ELA classroom. Middle and High School English Language Arts teachers discussed the types and frequency of research papers written, choosing topics, finding reliable sources, creating an outline, citing sources and paraphrasing versus plagiarism. The highlights are below.

Choosing appropriate, focused sources:
*Topics in the “Room For Debate” section of the NY Times

*Brainstorm and share topics in writing groups and conferences
*Choose the topic for the first research paper for students, for the second allow them to choose a subtopic within a larger topic, gradually releasing them into choosing their own

*Tie student writing into to a current unit of study
*Give students a list of ideas and allow other ideas with approval
*Base research papers on themes in literature circle novels

Finding appropriate, reliable sources:
*Go over the qualities of reliable sources with Schmoop video or this video

*Use your school's databases subscriptions

*provide the sources for the first research paper for students, for the second allow them to also add their own, gradually releasing them into finding all of their own
*Provide links to start initial search
*Partner with media center specialist/librarian

*Model reliable sites and what they look like: lack of ads, web address endings, etc.

*Use the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia articles to find great sources
*Use Google Scholar
*Create a shared Google Doc that students add to as they find great sources

Organizing research and creating an outline
*Have students create an annotated bibliography

*Putting research onto note cards which can easily be grouped and rearranged
*Provide an outline or graphic organizers
*Use Google slides as digital notecards which can also be rearranged
*Create an outline of the information students need, then as sources and information is discovered, assign colors/symbols to help with grouping of ideas

Paraphrasing versus plagiarism
*Practice paraphrasing by reading the text, write a summary without looking, and then putting ideas in bullet points

*Practice paraphrasing with famous quotes, quotes from books and movies, etc.

*With the note card method, have students write research on one side, their own words on the other
*Have students highlight source material in their paper & see the total percentage
*Tell the story of Kavvya Viswanathan as a cautionary tale with examples from her highly publicized plagiarism
*Use stop and write/draw - after 2 minutes of reading, give students one minute to write/draw what they remember without looking back
*Run papers though PaperRater to check grammar and plagiarism or other free plagiarism checkers
*Use Draftback, a Google extension, to create a live-action movie of a paper's creation, character by character.  You see every typing stroke, deletion, and mass paste.

Citing sources
*Use EasyBib online or as a Google Add-On
*For citations @EasyBib is awesome
*Discuss why citations are needed with famous examples

Hope you'll join us next Tuesday April 19th at 8pm EST to talk about teaching media literacy. We'd also love for you to join our 2ndaryELA Facebook group (even if you aren't on Twitter). 2ndaryELA is a group of middle and high school English Language Arts teachers looking to share ideas and best practices. This group is an extension of our Twitter chat and a place for collaboration, questions, and encouragement. Feel free to post teaching ideas, success stories, resource links, photos, etc. that will enhance our instruction. 

If you missed this most recent chat, scroll down and read the whole thing below.

#2ndaryELA Twitter Chat Topic: Research Papers

Brynn Allison, The Literary Maven & Kristy, 2 Peas and a Dog are hosting #2ndaryELA on Twitter every Tuesday evening from 8 - 8:30 PM EST. #2ndaryELA is a weekly chat for secondary English Language Arts teachers focused on a topic. Every Sunday, we will post the topic and questions on our blogs to allow you to prepare for the upcoming Tuesday evening's chat. Thank you to everyone who joined us last week and we hope that you will join us again.

Looking for the recap? Click on the image below.

New in 2016 is our 2ndaryELA Facebook group, which we would love to have you join even if you aren't on Twitter. 2ndaryELA is a group of middle and high school English Language Arts teachers looking to share ideas and best practices. This group is an extension of our Twitter chat and a place for collaboration, questions, and encouragement. Feel free to post teaching ideas, success stories, resource links, photos, etc. that will enhance our instruction.

On Tuesday, April 12, our #2ndaryELA chat will focus on research papers.

The Format:
8:00 Intros: What and where do you teach? Include a link to your blog if you have one. #2ndaryELA
8:05 Q1: Are your research papers informational or argumentative? How many do your students write each year? #2ndaryELA
8:10 Q2: How do you help students choose appropriate, focused topics? #2ndaryELA
8:15 Q3: How do you help students find appropriate, reliable sources? #2ndaryELA
8:20 Q4: Explain the process you use to organize student research and create an outline. #2ndaryELA
8:25 Q5: Share your approach to getting students to paraphrase rather than plagiarize and correctly cite sources. #2ndaryELA

The Directions:
1. Log into Twitter on Tuesday from 8-8:30 PM EST.
2. Search for tweets with the hashtag #2ndaryELA in the search bar. Make sure to click “All tweets.”
3. Introductions are for the first 5 minutes.
4. Starting at 8:05 (@literarymaven or @2peasandadog) will post questions every 5 minutes using the format Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. and the hashtag #2ndaryELA.
5. Respond to questions using the format A1, A2, A3, etc. with #2ndaryELA.
6. Follow any teachers responding and who are also using #2ndaryELA.
7. Like and respond to other teachers' tweets.

You can schedule your responses to the questions ahead of time using a scheduler like TweetDeck or HootSuite (but don't forget to use A1, A2, etc. and #2ndaryELA). Links are encouraged, so be sure to use a link shortener like tinyurl, bitly, goo.gl or ow.ly Just visit one of those links and paste your long link to shorten it for Twitter. Using images is also encouraged when relevant.

New to chats? Here are the rules:
1. Stay on topic & stay positive!
2. Please do not post or promote paid products unless specifically asked.
3. If you arrive late, try to look through other posts before beginning.
4. Feel free to just read, like, and/or retweet.
5. Always use our hashtag #2ndaryELA, including in your replies to others.
6. Make sure your twitter feed is set to public. (Also keep in mind that Twitter is completely public – that means students, parents, and administrators can and will read what you tweet.)

Be sure to spread the word to any teacher friends who might be interested in joining us as well. We look forward to chatting with you Tuesday evening and in our 2ndaryELA Facebook group!

Get caught up on past chats here:

On My Bookshelf: The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

Basic plot from Amazon: Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty, or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself—because maybe, just maybe, a hired girl cleaning and cooking for six dollars a week can become what a farm girl could only dream of—a woman with a future. Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz relates Joan’s journey from the muck of the chicken coop to the comforts of a society household in Baltimore (Electricity! Carpet sweepers! Sending out the laundry!), taking readers on an exploration of feminism and housework; religion and literature; love and loyalty; cats, hats, and bunions.

Why I liked it: The Hired Girl's central character, Joan is one you are constantly rooting for, that is when you are not shaking your head at her. At the age of 14, things look bleak for Joan. She can no longer attend school, as her mother is dead and she must keep house for her father and brothers. When she tries to take a stand for her rights as the woman of the house, her father punishes her by burning her books, taking away her only respite from her hard life. But Joan is headstrong and determined not to be ruled by her father, so she decides that she will leave home using the little money her mother left for her. I found myself comparing my own life at the age of fourteen to Joan's and being very thankful that I was not born in the early 1900s.

Joan takes the train from her Pennsylvania farm, stopping briefly in Philadelphia (I love any mention of my home city!), and ends her travels in Baltimore where she hopes to find work. But amazingly, and this is where the head shaking begins, that is the extent of Joan's plans. She would have spent her first night in Baltimore sleeping in a park if not for the kindness of a stranger, Solly Rosenbach, whose family gives her a place to stay and employs her as the help to their aging housekeeper. because she is so tall, Joan lies about her age to the Rosenbachs, which once they discover the truth, explains much of her "misbehavior" and childish impulses. Joan is eager to please and often meddles in the family's affairs, ending up in over her head. Each chapter, formatted as a diary entry, is a roller coaster of emotions which leaves you wondering what Joan will get into next.

Classroom application: While all of the characters are fictional, the details of the setting and time period are not. During or after reading the novel, students could research what life was like in 1911 in their city or town. Using The Hired Girl as a mentor text, students could then create characters and write diary entries from their perspectives based on their research. Students could also research how children's and women's rights have changed over time.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of The Hired Girl for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here. 

Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

On My Bookshelf: Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Basic plot from Amazon: I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald’s still would be open.

High school sophomore Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in a year’s worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all—hope—in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut! Susan Beth Pfeffer has written three companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.

Why I liked it: Life As We Knew It is set in my home state, Pennsylvania, so the mentions of places familiar to me helped draw me in right away. Like The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the setting is a post-apocalyptic one, the shift of the moon has environmental repercussions, but the world is otherwise normal; no vampires or any other mythical creatures in this one. Miranda's family struggles to maintain their physical and mental health without knowing when the disaster will end. I don't know enough about science and space to know if this kind of event could really happen or if its effects are accurately portrayed, but the author certainly made it all believable. During reading, I often found myself thinking what I would do and impressed by the wherewithal of Miranda's family, particularly her mother. Actions that Miranda thinks are slightly crazy at the start of the novel turn out to be what helps her family hold out until help arrives. I am looking forward to reading the other novels in this series.

Classroom application: Life as We Knew It is definitely worth adding to your classroom library for middle or high school students. The fact that it is part of a series is also a plus; if you can get a reluctant reader to read one, he/she will want to read them all. This novel would be a perfect choice for literature circles themed around natural disasters, real or imagined.

Cross-disciplinary connections could also be made with science while reading Life As We Knew It. Students could research the effects of the moon on Earth (tides, plate-tectonics, stability on its axis, etc.) and how being closer to or farther from the moon would impact life on Earth. Other possible research topics would be natural disasters throughout history and the asteroids/meteors that have actually landed on Earth.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Life as We Knew It for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here.

Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

On My Bookshelf: One For The Murphys By Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Basic plot from Amazon: Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, and moves in with the Murphys, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household. Despite her resistance, the Murphys eventually show her what it feels like to belong--until her mother wants her back and Carley has to decide where and how to live. She's not really a Murphy, but the gifts they've given her have opened up a new future.

Why I liked it: Carley is a main character that is impossible not to love. Who can say no to a girl who skips school to go to the library? And your heart will break for her as she struggles to accept the love of her new foster family because of how poorly she has been treated in the past by her stepfather and even her own mother. It's no wonder she lets her new friend, Toni, believe that the Murphys are her real family. Being the new kid at school is difficult enough without having to explain that you are in foster care and how you ended up there. Despite some disagreements between her foster mother (who turns out to have been in foster care herself) and foster father, and tension with the oldest of the Murphys' sons, Carley builds relationships with the entire family and it is a struggle for her to return to her mother. I, for one, was rooting for her to stay with the Murphys.

Classroom application: This one will have your middle school students holding back tears and high schoolers will love it too. The novel would be a great lead in to a research project on the foster care system. Students could research the number of children in foster care in your state, the percentage of them that are returned to their homes versus the percentage that are adopted or remain in the system until they age out. Students could also investigate the rules surrounding removing a child from his/her parent's care and maybe even write an argument essay on children's rights or parents' rights.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of One For The Murphys for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here.

Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

You Oughta Know About...Google Scholar

In high school and college when I was assigned a research paper I had the benefit of having access, through my school's library, to a variety of databases filled with scholarly articles. In college these databases could be accessed online through the library's website, but in high school they were only accessible on the library's computer (that was 10+ years ago so it may be different now). I am sure both my high school and college had to pay for costly subscriptions to these databases of information. 

If your school lacks these resources, if you can't get into your school's library due to scheduling conflicts (ours totally shuts down during AP testing), or you want students to be able to access high-quality sources at home, Google Scholar is an excellent free online resource.

Just as you would when using the Google search engine, entering search terms will display a list of related results. Under each result is listed the number of times the source has been cited. Also under the result are the options of "related articles," "cite," and "save."

Before having students begin research for an assigned research paper, you may want to familiarize them with this site and discuss how to research. Ask them how the "related articles" feature can help them with their research. Have students examine sources that have been cited frequently and infrequently and the reasons why they think that is (older versus newer publication, more or less credible, etc.). The "cite" feature formats the citation in MLA, APA, and Chicago. Discuss the different purposes and usages of the different styles. The "save" option allows students to save the article for later reference. 

You can also have students create alerts for topics, which sends the search results to them as new publications are released. This would be especially helpful if students are doing a long-term research paper or researching a very current hot topic.

As students are working, they can return to "my library" to see all of their saved sources or "create alert" to add or edit alerts.

These features are also located on the Google Scholar homepage.

Two other important features are the "metrics" and "advanced search."

Under "metrics," the top publications are listed as well as other language options. Regardless of their research topic, have students look at these top publications and identify qualities of high-quality sources. ESL students may benefit from the other language options.

Have students play around with the advanced search to see how limiting or broadening their search terms changes their results.

You can see how easy Google Scholar is to use. I love that its simple site name is easy to remember, and best of all it is free and accessible anywhere. Hopefully Google Scholar will be a tool you can use with your students next year for writing research papers or just practicing research skills. 

Page Turners: Writing

This is a brand new linky and my very first go at one. Here's hoping it works as planned!

 Not sure what a linky is? A linky, also known as a link up, is a chance for bloggers to connect their posts at the end of another blogger's post so that readers can read multiple posts on a related topic. Sometimes bloggers will link up products rather than blog posts, like the link up hosted by my friend Lauralee from The Language Arts Classroom, a weekly linky on Sundays of resources for secondary teachers.

This linky, hosted on Wednesdays, will feature great blog posts that I have read or written connected to a weekly topic. I would love for you to join the link up with a newer or older blog post that you have written or read. If you are adding one of your own, please include the linky button above and a link back to my blog in your post.

And now on to this week's topic, writing.

My first page turner, Using Thinking Stems in the Primary Classroom, is from Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice. While I am not a first grade teacher, not even an elementary school teacher, thinking stems are a tool that can be used at any grade level for struggling writers. I love her bulletin board and anchor charts that writers can reference at any time.

Page turner #2, Writing With Colors, is from Mandy of Caffeine and Lesson Plans. The post describes how to use colors to identify the different parts of a constructed response. This strategy is a great way to help students visualize what they have or don't have present in their writing. Plus students love to highlight and this is highlighting with a purpose :) Students could use the same colors to annotate a sample text.

Thesis Statement Throwdown is page turner #3. This post from Caitlin Tucker's blog (AMAZING, you must follow her) explains how she has students collaborate to write awesome thesis statements. She gives the students a prompt, groups have five minutes to write a thesis, and then she randomly chooses two groups to "compete." Dramatic music plays as the students post the thesis statements up on the board, the teacher edits them as necessary, a winner is declared, and then repeat with a new prompt.

Jackie of Room 213 just posted this page turner, Getting Ready to Research. It is short, but a great approach to writing research papers and includes a free resource from her TeachersPayTeachers store. As a teacher, I think I might hate research papers just as much, if not more than my students. Many expect to be able to craft a thesis without knowing anything about their topic. Whether you are assigning a topic or students are choosing their own, have students create an outline of what they know about a topic as well as the information they will need to gather so they are researching with purpose.

This last page turner is one of my own blog posts, the first in a series of ten posts about writing and the Common Core. Even if your state has not adopted the Common Core or has already dumped it, this series is full of general best practices for teaching writing. This post explains how the writing standards (like all of the Common Core standards) build upon each other. Later posts discuss the gradual release process, the three types of writing: informational, argumentative, and narrative, research, and assessment of writing.

I hope you found some new ideas for your classroom and maybe even a new blog to follow. Be sure to check out other blog posts linked up below and come back next week for some great posts about hands-on learning in the classroom.

An InLinkz Link-up

Creative Writing 101: Talk Show Interview

When I think of creative writing, poetry and short stories are the first things that come to my mind, and probably yours too, but not all students are interested in that type of writing. In my creative writing elective class (which students had not elected to take), I wanted to come up with a creative writing topic that all of my students would be interested in. Since everyone has at least one person they are interested in, whether a famous athlete, musician, etc, I came up with the idea of having students write a script for a talk show interview.

As I thought more about it, I realized this assignment would also require students to engage with nonfiction sources and use their research skills, but because students would be focused on a person of interest, they wouldn't even realize it! Sneaky, sneaky me.

I allowed students to choose any famous person, living or dead. I discouraged students from using someone non-famous, like their grandmother, because that would be more difficult to research in class. Some choices were: Beyonce, Steve Jobs, Kevin Durant, President Barack Obama, Aliyah, and Will Smith.

After students selected a person of interest, I asked them to identify three credible sources of information about their person. As my students were in 10-12th grades, we just did a quick review of what makes a source credible or not. If your students are younger, you may want to spend more time on the topic. Students emailed me the links to their three sources and once I checked them to see if there was enough information and that they were credible sources, students received the okay to begin developing the questions and responses for their talk show.

Once students had an outline of their Q & A, we examined samples of written interviews to properly format our own. We also discussed the idea of dialogue (narrative skill) and making our written interview sound as if two people were actually speaking to each other. Watching clips of a view interviews would help students get the flow.

After students wrote out a rough draft, they typed it up in Google Drive where I could easily make suggestions about revisions.

In my English classroom, I might use a similar project to have students "interview" a favorite poet from our poetry unit or a favorite author at the end of the year. You could also "interview" a character from a novel, but then students would be using a fiction source rather than nonfiction and would not employ research skills.

A talk show interview isn't limited to the ELA classroom. This writing project would require nonfiction sources and employ research skills regardless of the subject area.

Some ideas:
1. In history/social studies, have students select a historical figure from a unit or time period to "interview."
2. In science, have students select a scientist who made a significant contribution to the unit or course topic (i.e. chemistry, physics, anatomy) to "interview."
3. Similarly in math, have students select a mathematician who made a significant contribution to the unit or course topic (i.e. algebra, geometry, calculus) to "interview."
4. In gym/physical education, a famous athlete.
5. In music or art, a famous musician or artist from the genre or style you are studying (i.e. jazz, Cubism).

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Common Core Writing: Wrap Up & Additional Resources

This is number ten and the final post in a series about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. If you are looking to get caught up, check out:
Post #1: an overview of the writing standards
Post #2: the gradual release process and writing
Post #3: explicit teaching of writing skills
Post #4: argument writing
Post #5: informational writing
Post #6: narrative writing
Post #7: research and writing
Post #8: writing across the content areas
Post #9: assessing student writing

In this final post, I wanted to wrap up what I learned from the course and share a few additional resources to help you align writing in your classroom with the Common Core. As this was a series of ten posts, I will leave you with a top ten list of what I learned.

1: The Common Core standards are standard across grade levels; they just increase in complexity.
2: The gradual release process should be used with writing just as with any other lesson in the classroom to ensure students have ample time to practice before working independently.
3: Explicitly teach students even the most basic of writing skills because any gaps in knowledge will only continue to be a hinderance.
4: Argument is the most important type of writing and must be grounded in evidence.
5: Find great mentors texts on interesting topics to hook students when doing informational writing.
6: Narrative writing can be blended with nonfiction and research by writing historical fiction or science fiction pieces.
7: Practicing research skills is not limited to research papers and can be done with shorter assignments.
8: Schools should take a unified approach for teaching writing across content areas.
9: Assessment should be used as a tool to plan future teaching and students should be active participants in the assessment process.
10: Likely you are already doing parts of 1-9, but as you approach each type of writing, look back closely at the related standard to ensure that your lesson is truly Common Core aligned.

As you shift your teaching to better align with the Common Core, there are several valuable resources related to writing on the Common Core State Standards Initiative website.

The English Language Arts Appendix A reviews types of writing and related language skills. Pages 23 - 24 define the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 24 - 25 explain why argument writing is so important as well as the difference between persuasive and argument writing. Pages 28 - 29 introduces teaching and learning the conventions of Standard English (grammar and usage). Page 30 has a graphic showing an example of the progression of a skill across grades. Page 31 showing the progression of all language skills from grades 3 - 12.

The English Language Arts Appendix B focuses on text exemplars and performance tasks, which will show you what kind of readings students should be analyzing in their writing. Page 2 discusses selection of text exemplars. Pages 4 -13 are a table of contents of text exemplars listed by grade band and by type of text: stories, drama, poetry, and informational texts for ELA, history/social studies, and math/science, and technical subjects. Excerpts of the listed exemplars are on the pages that follow.

The English Language Arts Appendix C offers samples of student writing so you can see what student writing should look like at your grade level. Samples are broken down by grade and the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 3 - 4 are a table of contents of samples broken down by grade and the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 6 - 107 are the samples, each with an annotation that breaks down how each piece meets the grade level standards, citing examples from the piece to support each point.

I hope you enjoyed this series on implementing the Common Core writing standards, and as always I would love to hear how you are implementing these ideas in your classroom.