C.+CROSS+CURRICULAR

Below are artifacts that I have created and shared with the Content Area Instructional team and teachers at Wyandotte. The purpose of these documents were to create a sort of "cheat sheet" in regards to effective lesson design as well as to use as a coaching tool with teachers.

We must focus just as much on the skills needed to understand content as well as the content itself. If students are given tools to utilize to approach information, they become self learners. They do not have to rely on others to be able to access content. This is what good learners do and our instruction should be grounded in these skills. Skills based instruction does not replace the need for direct content teaching. There must a be a balance between the two in order to maximize our student's learning.

The Summarization Smart Card and The Checking for Understanding Smart Card are two resources I have used in my coaching with Language Arts Teacher as well as other content areas in our Literacy First agenda. The ACT and Accuplacer skills sheet was created as a way to begin the conversation with other content areas on how to address the reading and writing skills needed in order to be successful on the ACT and the Accuplacer. The ACT and Accuplacer address much more than the Language Arts curriculum can provide and if we can all come together to study the act of reading and writing in the content area, we are much more guaranteed to give our students the success that they deserve.