Schools nationwide are transitioning to the Common Core--our advice to you: Don't go it alone! Our new book, Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, 6-8, shows you that teaching the Common Core State Standards in the middle grades doesn't have to be intimidating! This easy-to-use guide meets the particular needs of middle school teachers. It provides model lesson plans for teaching the standards in reading, writing, speaking/listening, and language. Get engaging lesson plans that are grade-appropriate, easy to implement and include ready-to-use reproducible handouts, assessments, resources, and ideas to help you modify the lesson for both struggling and advanced learners. Our Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans are equally effective for both English and content-area teachers-the plans are designed to fit seamlessly into your middle school curriculum. You get practical tips for revamping your existing lessons to meet the standards. Middle school students learn how to answer text-based questions, read informational texts, conduct research, write arguments, and improve their speaking and listening skills.We take the guesswork out of Common Core lesson plans with this practical, easy-to-use guide. All lesson plans are grade-appropriate, but every lesson plan includes... Common Core State Standards covered in the lesson Overview of objectives and focus of the lesson Background knowledge required and time required A detailed, step-by-step agenda for the lesson, plus a materials listDifferentiation ideas to adapt the lesson for different kinds of learnersAssessment ideas, including rubrics and scoring guides A place for your notes: what worked; what can improve Bonus! We show you how to extend the lessons into longer units to suit your particular grade's curriculum, and even help you create more of your own lessons!

Part 1 Reading; Chapter 1 The Text Is a Gold Mine-Let's Start Digging!; Chapter 2 What's the Big Idea?; Chapter 3 Leave Your Opinions for Later!; Chapter 4 Who's Telling This Story, Anyway?; Chapter 5 The Parts vs. the Whole; Chapter 6 Did That Really Happen?; Chapter 7 See It, Hear It, Love It (or Hate It)!; Chapter 8 Everyone's Entitled to an Opinion; Chapter 9 You Be the Judge; Chapter 10 Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?; Chapter 11 These Authors Aren't on the Same Page; Part 2 Writing; Chapter 12 Let Me Tell You a Legend; Chapter 13 I've Got Questions. Who Has Answers?; Chapter 14 What's Google Giving You?; Chapter 15 To Quote or Not to Quote?; Chapter 16 Collaborate in the Cloud; Chapter 17 Clean-Up Time; Chapter 18 Do They Know What You Know?; Chapter 19 Hook People In!; Chapter 20 I Say Tomato, You Say To-Mah-To; Part 3 Speaking and Listening; Chapter 21 Yield or Jump In?; Chapter 22 Formalities Required?; Chapter 23 Look at What I'm Saying!; Chapter 24 Please Lend Me an Ear; Chapter 25 There's Information at Your Fingertips, but Is It All Worthwhile?; Part 4 Language; Chapter 26 The Case of the Missing Pronoun; Chapter 27 What's the Right Context for Context Clues?; Chapter 28 Let's Figure Out Figurative Language; Chapter 29 It's Not All Black and White; Chapter 30 Which Punctuation Mark Are You?; Chapter 31 Choppy No More; Chapter 32 Switch It Up!; Chapter 33 Keeping the Action Straight; Chapter 34 Should You Pass on Passive Writing?; Chapter 35 What's Missing?;