Curriculum Mapping with the Core Knowledge Sequence
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Curriculum Mapping with the Core Knowledge Sequence Participant Workbook Core Knowledge Foundation 801 East High Street Charlottesville, VA 22902 434.977.7550 [email protected] © 2015 Core Knowledge Foundation. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 Creative Commons Licensing You are free: •to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work •to Remix — to adapt the work • Under the following conditions: •Attribution — You must attribute the work in the following manner: • This work is based on an original work of the Core Knowledge® Foundation made available through licensing under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. This does not in any way imply that the Core Knowledge Foundation endorses this work. •Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. •Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. • With the understanding that: •For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Core Knowledge Licensed Professionals Core Knowledge Licensed Professionals are educators who can assist you with your Core Knowledge implementation. These educators have experience in planning and implementation of the Core Knowledge Sequence and can assist you with on-site professional development and support. To learn more, visit: http://www.coreknowledge.org/licensed- professionals For support with the Core Knowledge Language Arts program, contact Amplify Education: http://www.amplify.com/curriculum/core- knowledge-language-arts 800-823-1969 © 2015 Core Knowledge Foundation. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 Page 1 DAY 1 2 Day Goals: • To become more familiar with the Core Knowledge philosophy, Sequence, & materials • To learn more about and apply the 4-C characteristics of the Core Knowledge approach; • To begin development of a year-long, school-wide curriculum plan and domain maps; • To develop a set of school-wide strategies to support implementation Objectives: We will be able to: • describe how the cumulative nature of the Core Knowledge Sequence effects instruction across grade levels; • describe how coherent instruction impacts student learning; and • craft a curriculum plan that reflects the 4-C approach. Itinerary: • Introduction & Community Builder • Materials and CK Philosophy • Curriculum Mapping & Core Knowledge • 4-C Characteristics of Core Knowledge approach • Cumulative Nature of Core Knowledge • Applying Coherence • Drafting the Curriculum Plan • Reflection & Closure © 2015 Core Knowledge Foundation. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 Page 2 Background Information on Core Knowledge 1 1. What is Core Knowledge? Core Knowledge is a research-based, teacher-tested curriculum that engages students in diverse historical, scientific, and cultural content. The idea behind Core Knowledge is simple: knowledge builds on knowledge. The more you know, the more you are able to learn. This idea, grounded in cognitive science, sounds simple and obvious. But it has profound implications for reading achievement, standardized testing, critical thinking, problem solving, and a host of other educational issues. The Core Knowledge curriculum represents a first-of-its-kind effort to describe exactly what every literate American should know—what writers and speakers assume we all know–and to create a roadmap for teaching it, grade-by-grade, year-by-year, in a sensible, age-appropriate sequence. The preschool curriculum is outlined in the Preschool Sequence, and includes the developmental areas of Physical Well-being and Motor Development, Social and Emotional Development, Approaches to Learning, Language and Literacy Development, and Knowledge Acquisition and Cognitive Development. The K-8 curriculum is outlined in the K-8 Sequence which details specific content and skills to be taught in language arts, history, geography, mathematics, science, and the fine arts. The total Sequence represents our best effort to identify and describe the specific core of shared knowledge that all children should learn in U.S. schools. The curriculum is carefully organized so that topics across subject areas build on one another to broaden and deepen students’ knowledge and skills. This wide array of subject matter enables strong reading comprehension and critical thinking—the keys to educational success. Core Knowledge is carefully organized and systematic, yet it leaves room for teacher and student creativity. Grade-by-grade, our approach prevents the repetition or omission of important content, and creates a foundation for interdisciplinary exploration. As the core of a school’s curriculum, the Core Knowledge Sequence establishes a solid, coherent foundation of learning, along with embedded flexibility for meeting local needs. The Sequence serves as the springboard to planning in each classroom. Schools align the Core Knowledge topics with state and district standards, then develop a school-wide, yearlong Curriculum Plan for teaching all requisite topics and standards. The 4-C Characteristics of the Curriculum: The Core Knowledge curriculum is content-rich, coherent, cumulative, and taught in a context-specific way. The content-rich curriculum engages students in rigorous English language arts and literacy, mathematics, history and geography, science, visual arts, and music. The content is organized coherently, or in a logical order, so knowledge builds on knowledge. Content and skills spiral within and through the grades. For example, chart below shows how content related to the Human Body spans through the years. This cumulative sequencing of content is a key strength of Core Knowledge. Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade Fifth Grade Sixth Grade The 5 senses Body systems Digestive & Muscular, Circulatory & Endocrine & Lymphatic & excretory skeletal, & respiratory reproductive immune systems nervous systems; systems systems systems vision & hearing © 2015 Core Knowledge Foundation. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 Page 3 Additionally, Core Knowledge content is taught in a context-specific way. This means that ideas, people, geography, sayings, and more are taught in the context of the time period or related area of knowledge—not in isolation. Students make connections to prior knowledge, other subjects, and real life. For example, students learn about Copernicus when they study astronomy. Likewise, students learn the saying “A penny saved is a penny earned,” when they learn about Benjamin Franklin—the man who coined the phrase. Schools keep these 4-C characteristics in mind as they plan their year with Core Knowledge. 2. Where Did Core Knowledge Come From? Core Knowledge is based on the work of E. D. Hirsch, Jr. He has explained his research and ideas in several widely acclaimed books, including Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them, The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children, and The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools. In the 1970’s, while conducting reading research at a pair of colleges in Virginia, Dr. Hirsch made an important discovery. Community college students in Richmond, Virginia tested just as well as students attending the highly selective University of Virginia — as long as the passages the community college students were asked to read dealt with familiar, everyday topics. But when the community college students encountered passages that required historical background, they faltered. These students had difficulty understanding a passage on Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee because many of them were unfamiliar with the Civil War. That shocked Dr. Hirsch. In essence, the Richmond community college students had been cheated. They hadn't acquired important general knowledge in their homes and communities, and their schools hadn't compensated for that. Their basic intelligence was sound. They simply did not have the knowledge they needed to make sense of many texts that relied on unspoken, assumed knowledge. Dr. Hirsch realized these students had not been taught the things that they needed to know to understand ordinary texts addressed to a general audience. Since Hirsch’s discovery, he has argued for a deeper understanding of reading. Successful reading requires more than an ability to decode, or "sound out," words. It also requires adequate background knowledge, or "cultural literacy." Without background knowledge of history, literature, art, music, science and math, students will read — but without comprehension. They will read, but they won’t understand what they’ve read. In 1986, Dr. Hirsch founded the Core Knowledge Foundation, a small non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia. A year later, he published Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. A surprise publishing phenomenon, the book