Teachers attending the Delaware Department of Education’s Common Ground for Common Core professional development program this fall will hear presentations from three distinguished authors and educators—Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar, Linda Kucan, and Doug Buehl—whose appearance was arranged in partnership with the International Reading Association (IRA).

“We are pleased to be partnering with the Delaware Department of Education on this project,” explained Stephen Sye, IRA’s Associate Executive Director. “IRA is helping teachers across the country get the information and strategies they need to transition successfully to the Common Core, insuring that their students acquire college and career ready skills by the time they finish high school.”

Common Ground for Professional Development is a comprehensive program that involves meetings, clinics, convenings, feedback, and follow up sessions, as well as a series of webinars. Locations vary by district. Sessions for teachers from Kent and Sussex counties will be held in Dover, the remainder in New Castle County.

Annemarie
Sullivan Palincsar


Linda Kucan

Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar holds the Jean and Charles Walgreen, Jr. Chair of Reading and Literacy at the University of Michigan, and Linda Kucan is an associate professor in the Department of instruction and Learning at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education. Co-authors of the new IRA title Comprehension Instruction through Text Based Discussion, they will lead a session on close reading from informational texts, a critical student skill under the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts, which Delaware has adopted and is now in the process of implementing.

Palincsar and Kucan will impart a set of discussion strategies designed to support student interaction with texts for the purpose of comprehending text ideas, as well as identifying and synthesizing evidence in support of discipline specific claims. Their presentations will take place on October 15 and 16, 2013 in the Elementary and English Language Arts Strand.

Doug Buehl

Doug Buehl, a teacher, professional development leader, and adolescent literacy consultant with 33 years of experience in the Madison Metropolitan School District, Madison, WI, is the author of the IRA titles Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines and Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, Fourth Edition, the newly released version of the Association’s top selling title. Buehl will offer reflections and strategic advice on the use of self-questioning as a foundational strategy for the “close reading” of texts called for under the CCSS. Participants in his workshops will engage in model lessons that demonstrate scaffolded instruction for mentoring the successful reading of complex information texts. The workshops will take place on October 15 and 16, 2013 as part of the Secondary English Language Arts Strand, as well as on October 17, 2013 as part of the Content Areas strand.

For detailed information visit www.doe.k12.de.us/commoncore or call 302-735-4180.