An early-implementation district promotes staff learning

In transitioning to literacy activities that lead to college- and career-readiness literacy levels, we are piloting instructional units from the Common Core Curriculum Maps project This Gates Foundation-funded model has been used as a blueprint for getting students into the habits of mind required by the CCSS. Students now work on much more complex texts and arrive at a deeper understanding of the relationships among them. Because effective writing skills are essential in the Common Core, all teachers are setting greater expectations for students to express their learning via "quick writes" or more formal research writing as required by the standards.