Mapping Comprehensive Units to the English Lanuguage Arts Common Core Standards, K-5 introduces educators to the benefits and key points of the English Language Arts (ELA) standards and shows how they can use them to plan effective curriculum. The learning curve to transition to these standards is significant, in order for states to be primed for the performance assessment of 2014, and training is essential. Districts, county offices of education, and professional development groups are currently introducing these new standards and beginning to train teachers about their implementation. This book will provide the help they need for the elementary ELA standards. Author and consultant Kathy Glass provides practical and accessible tools for developing a comprehensive unit map, including: • A primer on the elementary ELA common core standards ò Examples of unit curriculum maps and assessments ò Exercises to help with every step of the process ò Ideas for differentiation ò Dozens of reproducible templates, rubrics, and forms

List of Figures
Foreword by Cindy A. Strickland
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
1. Standards and Knowledge
2. Essential Understandings and Guiding Questions
3. Unit Template With Examples
4. Assessments
5. Skills, Activities, Formative Assessments, and Resources
6. Differentiated Instruction
7. Lesson Design
Resource: A Brief Primer on the ELA Common Core Standards
References
Index

Consulting Description

Kathy Glass is a former teacher who consults and presents nationally with K-12 teachers and administrators at schools, districts, conferences, and county offices of education. She offers a blend of professional development (PD) topics to target audiences in areas affecting curriculum and instruction. To deliver customized PD, she assists educators with strategic planning to determine objectives. Then she tailors PD based on requested topics such as, but not limited to:

· highlights of the ELA Common Core Standards

· implementation of the ELA Common Core or other standards-based curriculum using a backward design approach

· essential understandings and guiding questions to frame curriculum and instruction

· differentiated tools and instructional strategies

· pre-, formative, summative, and self-assessments

· alignment of six-traits writing instruction and assessment to curriculum goals

· unit and yearlong curriculum maps

· text-dependent questions to facilitate close reading, and more.

To help educators directly translate what she presents into effective classroom practice that impacts students, Kathy can provide a variety of PD opportunities (e.g., presentations, lesson demonstrations and modeling, coaching, collaborative unit design, etc.).

She is the author of six books: Mapping Comprehensive Units to the English Language (ELA) Arts Common Core Standards, 6-12 (May, 2013); Mapping Comprehensive Units to the ELA Common Core Standards, K-5 ((c) 2012); Lesson Design for Differentiated Instruction, Grades 4-9 ((c)2009); Staff Development Guide for the Parallel Curriculum ((c)2009); Curriculum Mapping: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Curriculum Year Overviews ((c)2007); and Curriculum Design for Writing Instruction: Creating Standards-Based Lesson Plans and Rubrics ((c)2005). In addition, Glass has served as a reader and reviewer for Reader's Handbook: A Student Guide for Reading and Learning (2002, Great Source Education Group) and as a contributing writer and consultant for the Heath Middle Level Literature series (1995, DC Heath and Co). Website: www.kathyglassconsulting.com; email: kathy@kathyglassconsulting.com