The Common Core State Standards require students to do more with knowledge and language than ever before. Rather than be mere consumers of knowledge, students must now become creators, critics, and communicators of ideas across disciplines. Yet in order to take on these new and exciting roles, many students need daily teaching with an extra emphasis on accelerating their academic communication skills.
Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Disciplinary Literacy describes seven research-based teaching practices for developing complex language and literacy skills across grade levels and disciplines: using complex texts, fortifying complex output, fostering academic interaction, clarifying complex language, modeling, guiding, and designing instruction. Most important, you will find clear descriptions and examples of how these essential practices can--and should--be woven together in real lessons. The book:
- Clarifies how to support the learning of complex language that students need for reaching Common Core and other standards
- Provides practical ways to realize the instructional shifts needed with the implementation of new standards in diverse classrooms
- Includes frameworks and descriptions on how to develop students' complex language, speaking, and writing
- Helps maximize strategies and tools for building system-wide capacity for sustained growth in the practices
Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms is a concise guide for helping us improve our practices to strengthen two vital pillars that support student learning: academic language and disciplinary literacy.
Pritchard, Robert: -
Robert Pritchard is a professor of education at Sacramento State University. A frequent consultant for schools, districts, and departments of education, Robert brings extensive experience as a former ESL teacher and reading specialist to his work with teachers and administrators. Having lived in and taught in diverse environments -- from inner-city Newark, New Jersey, to the Republic of Palau -- Robert developed a passion for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse learners.
"I taught for five years before I made the decision to make teaching my career," Robert says. "I realized that what I loved most about my interaction with children was helping them learn and grow. And the areas my students needed the most support in were language and literacy development. So that became -- and has remained -- my professional focus."
Robert received a bachelor's degree in political science from Susquehanna University; a master's degree in education from California State University, Hayward; and a doctorate degree in reading education and second language learning from Indiana University.
"The personal connections we make, the words we speak, and the actions we take influence children their entire lives," Robert says.
Among his areas of specialty are language and literacy development, with a focus on diverse learners; professional development for teachers; and innovative uses of technology.
"Effective professional development -- in other words, job embedded, sustained, and collaborative -- provides opportunities for practice, research, and reflection that deepen teacher content knowledge and pedagogical skills. These in turn impact student learning, which is the ultimate goal of professional development."
Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Disciplinary Literacy, coauthored with Jeff Zwiers and Susan O'Hara, is Robert's latest book. He has authored numerous publications related to language and literacy development of culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and is a regular presenter at national research conferences.
Zwiers, Jeff: -
Jeff Zwiers teaches in the Stanford Teaching Education Program and works for Stanford's Center to Support Excellence in Teaching.
He received his Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco and has taught English, Spanish, science, and history in high school, middle school, and elementary school.
Jeff says that he became a teacher to "positively influence the social linguistic, ethical, and cognitive development of students." His areas of specialty are academic language and literacy.
Jeff is also a consultant on the Guatemala Education Reform in the Classroom project to develop effective systems of bilingual education and teacher training across the country. He has published articles and books on literacy, cognition, and academic language.
