English Language Arts/Literacy
Units
The units included here have been reviewed by experts using rigorous protocols and have been found to be in alignment with the CCSS. The effectiveness of any individual unit will depend on the relationship of the unit to your yearlong curriculum plan. These units may be used as models or adapted for use in your district, school, or classroom.
Lesson Plans
The lesson plans included here have been reviewed by experts using rigorous protocols and have been found to be in alignment with the CCSS. The effectiveness of any individual lesson plan will depend upon its relationship to the unit of instruction and the yearlong curriculum plan. These lesson plans may be used as models or adapted for use in your classroom.
Tools for Use in the Formative Assessment Process
The short assessments included here have been reviewed by experts using rigorous protocols and have been found to be in alignment with CCSS. The effectiveness of any assessment will depend upon its relationship to the unit of instruction and the objectives it is designed to assess. These short assessments may be used as models or adapted for use in your school, grade level team, or classroom.
Resources
Materials found here will enhance your understanding of the standards. You will also find useful materials for the classroom.
- Understanding / Implementing Common Core Standards in the Classroom
- Video Resources
- Specific Skill Instruction
- Assessment
Classroom Resources
- Classroom Resources for Unit/Lesson Development
- Learning Projects Aligned to Core Standards
- Equip Resources and ELA Toolkits and Materials
- ELA Resources for Text Sets
- ELA Resource Libraries
Dream Team Close Reading Plans
The Connecticut Dream Team ELA and content-area literacy teachers created materials built from complex texts and the CT Core Standards with a focus on close reading. Their work includes an analysis of a complex text and a set of text-dependent questions designed to guide students towards a "big takeaway" in the text.
For each text-dependent question, there is a follow-up mini-lesson that models the thinking necessary to answer the question; these direct-instruction lessons should be used to differentiate for those students who struggle to answer the text-dependent question. Additionally, ideas for ways to practice and extend the comprehension skills behind each text-dependent question are included.
The following materials were developed by CT Dream Team members and were utilized during the 2014 TeachFest.
Since the materials are not considered to be complete units of study or comprehensive lesson plans, they have not been rated using the Connecticut rating system that is based on the EQuIP rubrics.
TeachFest Connecticut: Summer Academy
The text-complexity and vocabulary analyses you see below examine the meaning, structure, language, prior knowledge requirements, and the vocabulary demands of over 150 texts for grades K-12. These analyses were created by teachers from across the state of Connecticut who came together for a state-sponsored PD event in July 2014 known as TeachFest: Summer Academy.
You can use them to help understand texts at a deeper level prior to instruction, and to guide the creation of text-dependent questions and writing tasks.
ELA
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Other Content Areas
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