Pathways to the Common Core ─ Accelerating Achievement

"As challenging as it must have been to write and finesse the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, that accomplishment is nothing compared to the work of teaching in ways that bring all students to these ambitious expectations. The goal is clear. The pathway is not." -Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman

The Common Core is written, but the plan for implementing the Common Core is not.

Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at the Reading and Writing Project have helped thousands of educators design their own pathways to the Common Core. Now, with Pathways to the Common Core, they are ready to help you find your way.

Designed for teachers, school leaders, and professional learning communities looking to navigate the gap between their current literacy practices and the ideals of the Common Core, Pathways to the Common Core will help you: * understand what the standards say, suggest, and what they don't say; * recognize the guiding principles that underpin the reading and writing standards; * identify how the Common Core's infrastructure supports a spiraling K-12 literacy curriculum; and * scrutinize the context in which the CCSS were written and are being unrolled.

In addition to offering an analytical study of the standards, this guide will also help you and your colleagues implement the standards in ways that lift the level of teaching and learning throughout your school. Specifically, it will help you: * become a more critical consumer of the "standards-based" mandates that are flooding your desk; * craft instruction that supports students in reading more complex texts, developing higher level comprehension skills, and writing at the ambitious levels of the CCSS; * develop performance assessments and other tools to propel Common Core reforms; and * create systems of continuous improvement that are transparent, collegial, and accountable.

Above all, this book will help you interpret the Common Core as a rallying cry that ignites deep, wide and lasting reforms and, most importantly, accelerates student achievement.

Professional learning communities and book clubs SAVE when you order a book study bundle. Get 15 copies of Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement for one low price.

PD Resources from Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman are available via Custom Institutes. Also see Mary Ehrenworth's new online course offered through our new Digital Campus.

Lucy Calkins is the author of the best-selling grade-by-grade Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades K-8 and Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grades K-8 series, which have quickly become an indispensable part of classroom life in tens of thousands of schools around the world, the new Up the Ladder: Accessing Grades 3-6 Units in Narrative, Information, and Opinion Writing series, and classroom essentials such as the groundbreaking TCRWP Classroom Libraries and the Workshop Help Desk series. Lucy is also the author or coauthor of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including The Art of Teaching Writing, Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions, Grades K-8 , Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement, and One to One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. In her role as the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, a New York City - based organization that has influenced literacy instruction around the globe for more than thirty years, Lucy has developed a learning community of brilliant and dedicated teacher educators who have supported hundreds of thousands of teachers, principals, superintendents, and policy-makers in schools that bear their distinctive mark: a combination of joy and rigor in the classrooms, and entire school communities - teachers, principals, parents, kids - who wear a love of reading and writing on their sleeves. Lucy is the Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, Columbia University where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program - a masters and doctoral program that brings brilliant teachers and coaches to TCRWP schools everywhere and to the Project itself. She and her husband John are the parents of two sons, Miles and Evan.Mary Ehrenworth is coauthor of Pathways to the Common Core (with Lucy Calkins and Christopher Lehman). She is Deputy Director at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University. She studied history and literature at Harvard and then curriculum theory and adolescent literacy at Columbia, where she received her doctorate - and then has been lucky to work with three subjects she loves - books, children, and teachers. In addition to Pathways, Mary has authored and co-authored numerous books, including: The Power of Grammar; Teaching Reading Through Fantasy Novels; Constructing Curriculum and Tackling Complex Texts from Units of Study in Reading; and Looking to Write: Teaching Writing Through the Visual Arts.Christopher Lehman is the Founding Director of The Educator Collaborative, a think tank and educational consulting organization working to innovate the ways educators learn together. He is an international speaker, education consultant, and New York Times best-selling author. His books include: Falling In Love With Close Reading with Kate Roberts; Energize Research Reading and Writing; Pathways to the Common Core with Lucy Calkins and Mary Ehrenworth; and A Quick Guide to Reviving Disengaged Writers. His articles and interviews have appeared in many publications and popular blogs including Voices in the Middle, SmartBrief, EdWeek, Choice Literacy, and Talks with Teachers. Chris has been a middle-school teacher, a high-school teacher, a literacy coach, and Senior Staff Developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. He now works with schools around the world through The Educator Collaborative, supporting educators, coaches, and administrators in developing rigorous and passionate literacy instruction across content areas. A graduate of University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chris went on to receive his M.A. in Teaching at New York University, and his Ed.M. in Education Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition to consulting and writing, he serves on the NCTE Middle Level Section Steering Committee, is Special Advisor to the National Center for Families Learning, is a Booksource Advocate for student reading lives, and served as a project advisor on a joint NCTE/National Center for Literacy Education collaboration initiative. Follow Chris online! Twitter: @iChrisLehman Pinterest: /ChrisLehmanEdu Blog: ChristopherLehman.com