Texts, Tasks, and Talk

In Texts, Tasks, and Talk: Instruction to Meet the Common Core in Grades 9-12, Brad Cawn takes a focused look at the disconnect between school standards and classroom instruction. The book examines how to fully align teaching with the intellectual demand of next-generation standards - by pairing instructional goals with high-quality texts, tasks, and talk. It also provides strategies for how to do so, including five key steps for organizing curriculum according to next-generation standards. Through this deliberate selection of texts, creation of tasks, and focus on high-quality talk, students gain the literacy skills they need to succeed.

Grades 9-12 teachers, coaches, and curriculum leaders will:

• Learn how to align teaching with next-generation standards

• Ask questions that can direct brainstorming and development of texts sets

• Discover how to build an effective text staircase in order to support literacy engagement

• Consider examples of inquiry frames and then match the frames to the standards and implement them

• Find out what kinds of discussion structures encourage students to exercise independence and proficiency

• Understand what close reading means and discover four close-reading protocols

• Examine how collaboration is at the core of instruction for next-generation standards