Okay, are you ready?! Say “common common core words” five times fast… and GO!
Just kidding! Although, “common common core” does sound like quite the tongue twister, as well as the words that go along with common core. Those words can easily twist our tongues – even brains – too!
I teach ELA, Pre-Algebra, and Algebra, in my learning support classroom. More frequently than not I come across, as well as my students who have me for both subjects, the same common core lingo in both subject areas. Sometimes it makes sense and other times we really need to think about what a word like “expand” means during ELA, when I only refer to the word “expand” during math. We know how to expand in math. We learned long ago how to write out our numbers in expanded form.
…this is typically when I hear the moaning and groaning of “why can’t math stay in math and ELA stay in ELA.” …but I tell them that’s just not how these common common core words work.
In math, when we write our numbers in expanded form, we are just making the same number bigger in length. If we apply this same knowledge to ELA, we can assume that we probably need to make the length of what we are working on bigger, too. For instance, we can expand our sentence by using more descriptive words. However, my learning support students can’t just figure out and assume, as easily as other students might be able to.
I don’t blame them for this confusion at all. I am guilty of using the same common terms, over and over again. As an example, I use the word “elaborate” when I want my students to tell me more of something, rather than “expand.” Using the same common words is not going to help my students. Especially when it comes time for state exams.
Ugh. I just got chills thinking about them.
So, as of this year, I have been incorporating more common common core words into my teaching vocabulary.
I realize what you’re probably thinking at this point, “why does she keep using ‘common’ in front of ‘common core’… why can’t she say frequently used, or something else to the like?” Well – this way seemed to grab my students attention the best, possibly as much as it grabbed yours.
I needed to do something about this. I wanted my students to see that there are other common core words we could be using, that have the same meaning/idea of the words we frequently used. I created Common Core Common Word posters to hang in my classroom to help with this.
I needed these posters to be vibrant, easy to read, and to the point. I came up with 24 posters in all. Sadly, they don’t ALL fit on my bulletin board at one time. I switch out posters to display words I feel we see/use most common in my room, or I switch to words we rarely ever see. It all just really depends. There have also been times while lesson planning that I have come across words being used in both subject areas. During these times I really like to drive my point across and hang a poster on my white board. I want my learning support students to become as familiar with these common core words, as much as they can be.
This is also when I hear more moaning and groaning, but this time while saying, “okay – we get it already.”
After a little while of using these posters, I noticed some of my students still were struggling with grasping how words from math class can also be used in their ELA class. I decided to make the posters interactive, for them to use as a reference at any time, by providing example cards. These example cards can be displayed in different ways. I chose to display them on rings hanging from pushpins. I left these example cards blank. I write examples of how we can use what the word means, in the subject we are currently discussing, using a dry erase marker on the laminated card. I had began typing examples to print, but I was adding more to the examples, or changing examples through a lesson. Keeping them blank was the best fit for me, but when opened in Powerpoint I can still easily input a text book and type my example – if I should ever choose to do so.
So… ta-da! This is it. This is how I am trying to incorporate as many common common core words as I can into my teaching vocabulary. This is also how I am trying to familiarize my students with these words. This is also the last time you’ll have to read “common common core.”
Well, from me anyways.
