The CCSS: How Does My Writing Program Measure Up?

Last week, I shared my summer learning goals in my post, one of which was taking the online course offered by Heinemann called Harnessing the Common Core Standards K-12. Yesterday I started with the first session: Getting to Know the Writing Standards and Making Choices to Fortify Your Writing Curriculum.

The "course moderator", Mary Ehrenworth, is on staff at the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project, and taught the middle level section of the Reading and Writing Institutes that I attended in previous summers. She is a strong advocate of the workshop approach to teaching writing. Because we share a similar teaching pedagogy, I have immediate trust in what she is saying; however, I do need to keep my critical thinking cap on because the schools she works with-- mostly public schools-- are different in many ways to the private international school in which I work.

As I studied the CCSS Writing Standards for middle school, I noticed a few things:

• It calls for processed pieces of writing as well as on-demand writing. I mostly do processed writing, although there are times when I ask for on-demand writing, such as performance assessments.
• It calls for three kinds of writing: opinion/argument, informational, and narrative. In our 6th and 7th grade curriculum, all three of these kinds of writing are taught, along with poetry. In 8th grade, we double up on opinion/argument, drop informational, and keep narrative and poetry. 
• The benchmarks under each kind of writing focus on articulating a clear main idea/problem in the lead, supporting that idea with details, transitioning from one idea to the next, using precise and concise words and correct conventions. These are all things I teach within each genre unit.
• The benchmarks spiral from earlier grades to later grades, increasing complexity each time. We do this as well within our K-8 writing program. 
• The expectations for how sophisticated the writing becomes is slightly higher than we are currently reaching, but I see that it is within our grasp.

So what does this mean for me and my teaching? In practical terms, nothing, since we have not adopted the CCSS at my school. However, when we do (and I firmly believe they will be adopted within the next 3 years), I will need to make a few adjustments.

• Add an informational writing unit. Right now our ELA curriculum calendar is full, and I do not see a good space to teach informational writing. On the other hand, I do see how I could replace a social studies activity/project with an informational writing piece that included instruction on how to write in that way. If this project happens at the beginning of the year, I could add this "all about" writing as an assessment piece at the end of our nonfiction reading unit, which could give students a practice opportunity later in the year. I'm thinking maybe a "How To" book on Native Americans (How to Adapt to Your Natural Surroundings in Order to Thrive) or explorers (So you want to be an explorer? Here's how!).
• Start adding teaching points that lift the level of writing so that the expectations of the project more closely match the CCSS benchmarks. I will need to closely examine each unit and see where the gaps are and what can be adapted/adopted/replaced.

That's not too long of a list. I'm feeling pretty comfortable right now. I think I'll dig into my Social Studies unit calendar and see how I can tweak things.