At our most recent ELA Supervisors Network meeting held Thursday, December 12, Marcia Barnhart, the Assistant Director for Professional Development at the Ohio Department of Education, presented updates from ODE including information about upcoming
Targeted Professional Development meetings to be held January through May of 2012. Marcia also told attendees about the emphasis in PARCC assessments on research skills beginning in third grade. She said students at this age should be able to do sustained research on even small, short topics.
For help with text complexity, Barnhart referred to the Kansas State Department of Education, which has already developed rubrics for determining complexity. The rubrics are listed in draft form and can be found at the bottom of their
Common Core resources page.
Tara Boyer, literacy coach for Newark City Schools, presented "Scaffolding Complex Texts for Middle Schools":
Copies of the
Animal Farm Multi-Genre Sample Template and the
Multi-Genre Template can be downloaded for use in your district.
Notes from the rest of the meeting are available
HERE.
Our next meeting is February 23, 2012.