Check Out New Resources and Tools at EmergingAmerica.org 

Emerging America recently added useful functions to our website. At the suggestion of friends at the #TeachDisabilityHistory campaign, we added an FAQ page to the Reform to Equal Rights curriculum. And we added more lessons as well as search tools to the Teaching Resources page.

Rubrics are frequently used to communicate expectations and standards to students. Making expectations as clear, simple, and easily understood as possible is a practice of value to all learners.

A streamlined rubric form, using one column to specify the target standard, offers advantages for accessibility–especially fewer words to absorb–over more typical multi-column rubrics. This Single-Point Mastery Rubric is an example. 

A Tool to Help Correct Misconceptions

The point of the RAN Chart (RAN stands for "Read and Analyze Non-fiction") is for students to research and confirm or correct their ideas for themselves! (Thus the RAN Chart improves on the old "Know-Wonder-Learned / KWL" chart.) 

Step 1: Draw the RAN Chart on a whiteboard or smart board, or arrange note cards or post-its on a RAN Chart template. Ideally, leave the RAN Chart up through throughout an investigation. Create categories to help categorize the important ideas and information of the topic. 

Using familiar imagery of trains, young students can begin to make foundational connections to geography and history using primary sources. Kindergarten students will make a first exploration of local history through early railroad maps from the Library of Congress. This lesson addresses Kindergarten Common Core State Standards and several Massachusetts Social Studies standards and skills. centered around maps. The culminating activity has students create and modify their own town maps to include symbols, cardinal directions, labels, a key, etc.

In her essay, "Is That Higher-Order Task Really Higher Order?" Jennifer Gonzalez, reflects on how to ensure that performance tasks really require higher-order thinking.

Gonzalez refers to the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, first published by Anderson and Krathwohl in 2001, in her discussion of two common mistakes teachers make with higher-order thinking tasks.

The Bloody Massacre–Or Was It?

Performance assessments require students to demonstrate what they know and can do. Often expressed as “authentic”–mostly meaning as much like the real world as possible. In this performance task, fifth graders compare three pieces of evidence from a key event in American History.

Civil Rights During WWII

Performance assessments require students to demonstrate what they know and can do. Often expressed as “authentic” (as much like the real world as possible). In this performance task, high school students compare several pieces of evidence from the Civil Rights Movement during WWII.

A model district-determined measure for 7th grade Geography, developed by the Collaborative in 2015 for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. A pre-assessment utilizes documents on the building of the Quabbin Dam in Central Massachusetts in the 1930s. The post-assessment utilizes documents on the building of the Aswan Dam in Egypt in the 1960s. Students use graphic organizers to prepare and then write a short essay on the costs and benefits of large water management projects.

Geography DDM Directions: