Institute 6: CCSS Reading/Literacy, Writing, & Speaking and Listening Standards and the PARCC Performance Assessments for Teaching and Learning
Tony Petrosky
Stephanie
McConachie
Reading Today Online asked all of the Institute Chairpersons for IRA San Antonio to respond to three questions designed to give our readers and all of the prospective attendees a better understanding of the insights and benefits they will gain from attending these day-long programs. Below are responses from Institute 6 Chair Stephanie McConachie from the University of Pittsburgh.
1. What is the professional urgency that this institute is designed to address?
The CCSS and the new PARCC assessments are game-changers for ELA. Together, they demand more reading and writing from students in all of their classes. They also ask that more of that reading be informational in structure. And, to raise the bar even further, the success of the changes will demand intense, mediated teaching for most students.
2. What types of literacy professionals is the institute designed for?
These changes need thoughtful and ongoing learning conversations with teachers and other educational leaders. Our one-day institute provides district and school role groups with appropriate examples and conversations to meet these new challenges.
3. How will attendance at this institute help those literacy professionals “make a difference” in their work?
The institute will set up a dialogue with participants about the demand and design of the PARCC assessments by examining a prototype assessment set. After this, participants will break into separate sessions (English language learning, elementary, middle school, and high school) to engage in and study model CCSS performance and instructional tasks. They’ll step back to consider how the routines and text-based questions enabled learners to connect text to task and talk. Then, they will have time and resources (texts, templates, and exemplars) to develop a set of related, instructional tasks that engage students with complex texts to generate evidence-based reading and writing. Following this work, the group will reflect on the implications of their work for their districts and schools.
Registration Information: This preconference institute will be held at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio, Texas from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 19 before the 58th International Reading Association Annual Convention begins on Saturday, April 20. Register online for this or another institute and/or to register for the annual convention. Call 888-294-9167 or 415-979-2278 to find out how to register by phone, fax, or mail. To learn more about convention events in San Antonio, visit the annual convention website and the online itinerary planner (iPlanner), or read more Reading Today annual convention articles.