Content Literacy: Grades 6-12

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work, including the final exam.

Lesson 1

Fundamentals of Adolescent Literacy

In the first lesson, you'll examine the difference between literacy and literature and look closely at the adolescent brain to find out how learning during that life stage is different than learning as a baby, child, or adult. You'll get a quick refresher on the concept of learning styles and discover how you can accommodate a diverse group of learners in a classroom. By the time the lesson is over, you'll be ready to explore the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and see how they address the need for grades 6-12 interdisciplinary literacy.

CCSS and Interdisciplinary Literacy

In this lesson you'll explore the history and goals of the CCSS. You'll find out how the developers of the CCSS structured the standards to help prepare students for the 21st century workplace and see how interdisciplinary literacy fits into the standards. You'll then walk through the document and examine its parts. Finally, you'll discover how you might use it when you prepare classroom activities.

Text Complexity

Everyone knows that students need to read more, and they need to read more complex texts. How would you explain what text complexity is? This lesson will discuss the three aspects of text complexity as described in the CCSS. By the end of the lesson, you'll see how you can use text complexity analysis in your content area classroom to help students develop their reading skills and more readily master your academic material.

Reading Strategies That Build Comprehension in the Content Areas

In this lesson, you'll take an in-depth look at the CCSS reading standards. First, you'll examine the reading anchor standards and see how they're articulated for different grade levels as students read both literature and informational texts. Then, you'll examine practical examples of reading strategies that you can use in your own content area classroom. By the end of this lesson, you'll have a clear picture of how to use reading strategies to build comprehension in your content area.

Writing Strategies That Build Comprehension in the Content Areas

In this lesson you'll explore the writing standards and see how the CCSS articulates them for different grade levels. You'll look at some practical writing strategies that are ideally suited for the content area classroom, and then you'll see one of those strategies in practice. You'll also examine some of the most common tricks of the trade among English Language Arts teachers and how you can apply them to your classroom. After seeing what writing strategies look like in practice, you'll be inspired to try them yourself!

Speaking and Listening in the Content Areas

Don't assume that your students have mastered their speaking and listening skills. In this lesson, you'll explore the Common Core State Standards for speaking and listening. You'll examine how the broad goals of the anchor standards are articulated for the 6-12 grade levels and then take a close look at some speaking and listening activities that are ideally suited for the content area classroom. Along the way, the lesson will go over a few techniques for maintaining control in a conversational classroom.

Argumentation as Literacy Development

Most teenagers enjoy a good debate. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; a well-argued debate can lead to some pretty exciting outcomes. In this lesson, you'll take a close look at how argumentation is related to literacy and learn ways to reinforce and encourage the value of debate in your content area classroom.

Developing Academic Language in the Content Areas

Language is the basic building block of any society; it's how people communicate and record events. In this lesson, you'll examine the CCSS goals for language development and learn how to help students achieve these goals in your own classroom.

Technology and Literacy

Technology has significantly changed the way that teachers teach. This lesson is all about integrating the CCSS technology standards into the content area classroom. You'll discover how content learning, classroom technology, and literacy development complement each other and can occur simultaneously. Worried you're not an IT person and don't have the technological skills to succeed? Don't be. The lesson will address that, too, and by the end of it, you'll be ready to roll up your sleeves and dive headfirst into the technology deep end!

Student Learning Centers

Student learning centers are a valuable, real-world model of how content learning and literacy skill development can happen simultaneously in every classroom. In this lesson, you'll learn how to repurpose existing lesson activities as learning center activities, and you'll find out why this approach to working with students in the upper grades is a practical way to integrate literacy development and content learning.

Assessment: How Will I Know It's Working?

In this lesson, you'll find out how content literacy affects formative assessments and summative assessments. You'll learn what formative assessment is and isn't and then learn the three steps to a well-implemented formative assessment. You'll also look at how you can incorporate this type of assessment into your instruction. The lesson will discuss the five building blocks of formative assessment, and you'll learn some simple strategies you can use in your classroom. You'll also take a close look at summative assessments and find out about the two new assessment consortia that will administer standardized tests: Smarter Balanced and PARCC.

Literacy Evolution in the Classroom

In the final lesson for this course, you'll make a plan to use the best of what's new, keep the best of what you've already got, and enjoy being a great 21st century teacher. This lesson will wrap up everything you've learned throughout this course, and you'll examine tools you can use to integrate the CCSS with your existing lesson plans and your school's curriculum.