Common Core Standard 7 for Reading presents teachers with many possibilities for mixing all kinds of art forms with literature.  Music, photography, painting, sculpture, and many other media are easily brought into the classroom today because of the internet…the important thing is to use these resources heuristically. 7. Analyze the representation ...

This week we look at the last of three standards under “Key Ideas and Details” in the “Reading” section of the Common Core: Standard 3:  Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. For students to ...

Summer has finally arrived here in Maine.  I hope many of you, like me, have finished up the school year and can now take some time to recuperate.  Looking forward to a productive summer, I am planning a series of blog posts focusing on the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  My plan is to post regular articles with a simple goal: each blog ...

As the school year winds down, you might be thinking about what new or different books you hope to use in the fall.  If you are, I encourage you to check out Open Educational Resources (OER) textbooks.  OER or “Open Source” textbooks are digital, often customizable, textbooks published and available on the web.  Many of them are quite ...

When recently looking for electronic resources to add to my short story unit, I came across LearnOutLoud.com where hundreds of recorded works are available free for download.  Learn Out Loud doesn’t just have audio recordings of books and stories (though there are plenty of those); they also have podcasts and videos. Some of the resources cost ...