Looking for Nonfiction?

If you're looking for more nonfiction selections to meet the new Common Core State Standards requirements, look no further than the related readings offered in EMC's Access Edition Readers. The additional selections included within the books help students make connections with the literature and the time and place in which it was written. The related readings add relevance to the literature by providing students with background information and context, and by helping them see relationships between literature, informational texts, and primary source materials.  Over forty additional informational/nonfiction selections are included in the Access Editions series!

For example, the Access Edition novel Night, by Elie Weisel, includes the following nonfiction related readings:

• New York Times coverage of the Holocaust. 
• “My Sorrow,” from Fragments of Isabella: A Memoir of Auschwitz by Holocaust survivor Isabella Leitner 
  
• “Anti-Nazi Movement Still Inspires: Germans recall rare courage of ‘White Rose,’” Newsday article by Bob Keeler
• “The Perils of Indifferences,” speech by author Elie Wiesel

 EMC's Access Editions provide thought-provoking, relevant nonfiction related readings to engage your students and help them connect with literature!

Common Core Assessment FAQs

1. How well aligned are your books with the SAT and Common Core? Mirrors & Windows covers 100% of the SAT Literature skills and recommended preparation, and is 100% aligned with The Common Core State Standards (covering 100% of the required range of text types for grades 6-12 in the student edition in every level).
2. Do you provide any form of data analysis? All selection tests and unit tests in ExamView are correlated to the Common Core. In addition, the Formative Assessments provided in the Assessment Guide (and on the Teacher’s Resource CD) are correlated to the Common Core and aligned with remediation rubrics that teachers can use to gather and analyze data to prescribe intervention activities found within the program.
3. Other assessment resources for teachers, etc.? Reading Assessment questions provided after the selections in the student text provide test practice modeled after the ACT and SAT test questions. Test Practice workshops in each unit provide test practice in SAT and ACT formats. Exceeding the Standards: Test Practice provides timed, unit-based practice tests in SAT and ACT formats. The Assessment Guide also provides oral Reading Fluency assessments.

EMC's E-Library Offers Over 300 Selections

Expand your classroom library and take it mobile! EMC's E-library offers over 300 literary selections of classic poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.

• More than 20,000 pages of literary classics
• 120 long selections, including epic poems, novels, plays, nonfiction, and poetry
• 194 short selections, which include poetry and excerpts
• Ability to view on screen or print out individual selections to plan classes
• Downloadable PDF files that can be viewed on E-readers and mobile devices
• Electronic library guide with teaching suggestions, enrichment activities, and reading strategies guidesheets

Access the EMC E-Library today at www.mirrorsandwindows.com.

EMC is proud to participate in the Oregon Reading Association Winter Institute in Portland at the Crowne Plaza on February 10-11, 2012.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THAT MATTERS: The Oregon Reading Association is dedicated to providing teachers with exemplary professional development opportunities. This two-day institute offers an in-depth investigation of literacy instruction in support of ORA’s yearlong look at the reading/writing connection.

• On Friday, three educational researchers will explore the reading/writing connection and how current research can help educators implement effective instructional strategies.

• On Saturday, the Common Core State Standards will be explored and small group sessions will offer classroom-tested strategies for implementation. For more information visit http://oregonread.org.

Daily Journal Topics posted on Expository Composition Discovering Your Voice Blog

Zapping Apathy with Daily Journals

What do I like best about the daily journals used by my Creative Writing students? Probably the surprises.

Each day I write on the board: “Today’s journal topic,” followed by a prompt that comes to me or that I adapt from other sources. I tend to draw the prompts from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away, Susan Shaughnessy’s Walking on Alligators, our Expository Composition: Discovering Your Voice, or from a variety of sites that I find through Googling “high school writing prompts,” “journal prompts,” “writing ideas,” or some other similar search terms.

Each journal prompt also goes on Twitter so that absent students can get the day’s prompt. A happy by-product of the tweets is that quite a few people see them, use them, and chime in with ideas. In the past, I’ve used the hashtag #journal, but that one has become sort of busy and distorted, so this semester I’m using #E307, our school’s code for the Creative Writing course. Feel free to follow along and join in!

Gary Anderson, coauthor of Expository Composition: Discovering Your Voice

When will CCSS common assessments be available?

From the Common Core State Standards FAQ section:

Will common assessments be developed?

Like adoption of common core standards, it will be up to the states: some states plan to come together voluntarily to develop a common assessment system, based on the common core state standards. A state-led consortium on assessment would be grounded in the following principles: allow for comparison across students, schools, districts, states and nations; create economies of scale; provide information and support more effective teaching and learning; and prepare students for college and careers.

This state-led consortium on assessment is PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), consisting of 24 states that have adopted the Common Core Standards that are working together to develop assessments in English and math anchored in what it takes to be ready for college and careers.

Those assessments will be ready for states to administer during the 2014-15 school year. The next year, PARCC plans to set scores on those assessments that will indicate whether a student is on track to be college ready. Visit the website for more info:

http://www.parcconline.org/

Mirrors & Windows Addresses CCSS Standards for Argumentative Writing

The Common Core Standards requires that students have "The ability to write logical arguments based on substantive claims, sound reasoning, and relevant evidence is a cornerstone of the writing standards, with opinion writing—a basic form of argument—extending down into the earliest grades."

Mirrors & Windows places a strong focus on writing logical arguments as an important form of college- and career-ready writing. The labels “persuasive” and “argumentative” writing are often used interchangeably—the purpose of both types is to persuade. The common core state standards draw the distinction that “logical arguments should convince the audience with the perceived merit and reasonableness of the claims and proofs offered” rather than to persuade using “either the emotions the writer evokes in the audience or the character or credentials of the writer.”

While Mirrors & Windows uses the label “persuasive writing” for the numerous argumentative writing opportunities throughout the program, these assignments clearly ask writers to support their arguments and opinions with convincing, reasonable evidence. As an example, the Mirrors & Windows Grade 10 Unit 4 Writing Workshop assignment asks students to “Write a persuasive essay, aiming to convince a larger audience to consider your viewpoint about a subject that is important to you.” The text offers the following definition for a persuasive essay:

“In a persuasive essay, the writer respectfully presents a clear position on an issue, using logic, reason, and information, to convince readers to see his or her viewpoint and, if appropriate, to take action on it.”

Mirrors & Windows provides argumentative/persuasive writing activities throughout the program in post-reading Writing Option assignments and in-depth Writing Workshops at the end of each unit and in the Exceeding the Standards: Writing supplement. Complete Common Core State Standards correlations are available at www.emcp.com.