ANALYSIS USING COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

Esperanza Torres
LBS 355-02
Analysis using Common Core State Standards
Paper # 3
Draft #3
3 pages
December 1, 2014

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Analysis using Common Core State Standards

The Common Core State Standards philosophy for students is that they will learn and
they will be able to do what they learn at the end of their grade level. I believe CCSS made sure
high school students were prepared to succeed in college, and succeed beyond college because
they would be able to compete with students all around the world. In terms of writing, CCSS
created the grade 3-5: Generic 4-Point Opinion Writing Rubric that outlines three categories:
statement of purpose/focus and organization, language and elaboration of evidence, and
conventions to address the way an essay should be written among grade levels 3 to 5. Based on
CCSS standards and the rubric, I evaluated two writing samples focusing on organization,
elaboration of evidence, and conventions; however, also I focused on effective teaching in
transitional strategies, citation, and misspelling because I believe the rubric helps in organizing a
plan that helps to teach students.
The writing rubric is divided into a grading system, used to score an essay from 1 to 4.
In writing sample one, I gave Johns essay a 2 because I focused on his organization which had
few transitions. In his writing sample, his topic sentences lacked transitions. For the second
writing sample, I gave Marias essay a 2 because she lacked organization in her topic sentences.
She didnt use transitions to help her link her ideas together to make her paper more coherent.
Maybe, Marias and Johns topic sentences will improve with these phrases: moreover, in
addition, and lastly. As a teacher, I will teach transitional strategies by color coding each category
of transitions. For example, the color purple would be for transitions that add information. The
color red would be for transitions to show time. The color orange would be for transitions to
show compare and contrast. Indeed, both writing samples can improve their topic sentences with
proper transitions.

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Furthermore, I also evaluated the writing samples on elaboration of evidence and I gave
both essays a high score of a 3 because the sources were cited appropriately, as a 3-5 grader does.
John, for example, has two sources which were cited as sources 3 and 1. However, John can
learn a basic way to cite a source, for example, to cite a quote John must include the name of
author, then the year of publication in parentheses, and the direct quote to indicate that the words
are not his. Similar to Johns essay, Maria also can improve her citing format by paraphrasing the
authors words in her own words and conclude with the name of the author and year of
publication in parentheses. I believe, as a teacher, I will teach my students these basic citing
strategies because they are useful to distinguish sources between the students words.
Moreover, I also evaluated Johns and Marias essays on conventions and I gave them
score of a 2 because both students had misspellings. Johns and Marias misspellings made their
writing unclear; for example, John used the word go instead of got, and Maria use anther
instead of another in her writing. I will encourage my students to practice their writing, so they
can write better over and over again because I want them to feel confident when they write. Also,
I will have them write 3 times each word on their vocabulary list. I will also have my students
make a rainbow homework, which is about coloring each letter with a different color. Its my
sons favorite homework. Also, I will assign the vocabulary words in ABC order. My son does
his vocabulary in ABC order every other day and he does about five words a day, so I think I will
divide my own sight words similarly. Finally, I will encourage my students to use a dictionary
and thesaurus because they are great sources to help my students learn more spelling words.
Briefly, I believe that my students will benefit from the three categories: statement of
purpose/focus and organization, language and elaboration of evidence, and conventions of the
writing rubric because their essays will be more organized with better elaboration on their

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evidence and conventions. I believe this organization of ideas will help me be effective in
teaching my students how to write.