Planning or revising curriculum?

  1.  Go to Templates for Lessons & Units to see sample curriculum overviews and unit plans and download the necessary templates.  See Recommended Reading for tips on finding appropriate texts for your students (This link should help, too).

  2.  To ensure that your curriculum is aligned to your state's standards, check out the new Standards page!!!

  3.  Don't forget about Bloom's Taxonomy to ensure that your lessons and units are RIGOROUS.

  4.  If you're not already familiar with backwards design, check out the Recommended Reading below.

OTHER RESOURCES:

For NJ test-prep links, go to Test Prep Resources & Links.

Achievement First:
Achievement First, a network of high-performing charter schools, has developed a pool of best-practices resources.  VERY handy! (Thanks to Justin Testerman of TN Charter School Incubator for this lead!).  I particularly dig their Interactive HS Writing Rubric!

Byliner Spotlights:
"Editor-curated collections of nonfiction stories from the Byliner archives.  Some timeless.  Some timely.  All guaranteed great reads."

The CNN San Francisco bureau and Literacyworks (Western/Pacific LINCS) have partnered to develop an online adult literacy site that benefits all learners and instructors. This site offers Web-delivered instruction using current and past CNN San Francisco bureau and CBS 5 news stories. Each story module includes the full text of each story and interactive activities to test comprehension. The learner can choose to read the text, listen to the text, or view the broadcast through streaming video.  Check out the STORY ARCHIVES, a vast array of news stories, including abridged versions of the articles, outlines, vocabulary, and other supporting materials!  NOTE: The content is appropriate for students as well as adults who wish to strengthen their reading comprehension skills.  If you're a teacher looking for more nonfiction texts for your students, this is a GREAT RESOURCE!  PLUS: The Website supports inquiry and additional research by referring to other resources relating to the stories presented!

THE COMMON CORE CONVERSATION provides links to DOZENS of other Websites dealing with the Common Core.

Common Core Curriculum Mapping Project: 
Common Core's Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts translate the new Common Core State Standards for K-12 into unit maps that teachers can use to plan their year, craft their own more detailed curriculum, and create lesson plans.  They were written by teachers for teachers and are available for $20-60.  Flexible and adaptable, they address every standard in the CCSS.  Any teacher, school, or district that chooses to follow these Common Core maps can be confident of adhering to the standards!

DocsTeach: 
More than 3,000 primary sources selected from the National Archives, plus activities: a phenomenal resource for history teachers!  (Thanks to Brent Maddin of Relay College of Education for this lead!)

FREE: 
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence: Teaching and Learning Resources from Federal Agencies

HistoryTeacher.net:
This Website contains links to many other helpful history-related sites.  (Thanks to Kaity Korda of Academy Charter HS for this lead!)

Khan Academy:
A great FREE resource.  They proclaim: "With over 3,300 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, we're on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace."

The Learning Network:
This blog, "Teaching and Learning with the New York Times," bases lesson plans on articles.  This post offers 12 ways to use this blog effectively.

LearnZillion:
This FREE Website, designed for use by teachers and students, contains more than 2,000 video lessons on math and ELA, aligned with the Common Core Standards for grades 3-12.

Open Court Resources: 
If you use the Open Court textbook series, you will want to check out this link.

PARCC
PARCC is "a 23-state consortium working together to develop next-generation K-12 assessments in English and math."  As you plan curriculum, it's of course important to consider how it will be assessed in this high-stakes standardized test.

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
"The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) is a state-led consortium working to develop next-generation assessments that accurately measure student progress toward college- and career-readiness. Smarter Balanced is one of two multistate consortia awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Education in 2010 to develop an assessment system aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by the 2014-15 school year."

Sparknotes
The on-line equivalent of CliffsNotes, this Website provides summaries, questions, and quizzes on many commonly-taught books.

Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
This Website features an array of helpful literacy resources, including Frequently Used Booklists.

Teachers' Domain:
Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You’ll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities. (Thanks to Shawn Vizenfelder of Paul Robeson CSH for this lead!)

Thinkfinity: 
Free lesson plans and educational resources

Time for Kids:
Time magazine has developed an on-line resource to support K-6 literacy instruction.  It includes many helpful items, such as articles, questions, quizzes, graphic organizers, and mini-lessons.

Write Source: 
Write Source is a group of teachers and writers who develop materials for students and instructors from kindergarten through twelfth grade.  The site includes writing topics, student writing models, and information on how to judge sources.