K-2 PARCC Content Emphases and Frameworks

I have spent most of this week over in a school district near Portland, OR doing trainings for almost all of their Title 1 Kindergarten through 2nd grade teachers.  One of the activities we did together was investigating the Content Emphases (download it at the bottom of the linked page) for each grade level Kindergarten through 2nd. I had been using a version of the Content Emphases that was in a chart format, but at the beginning of this week I learned that it was outdated and some changes have been made.  However the only way I saw it represented was in a list like the one I linked to above, but I really liked the chart format!! So, I created my own.  I took the Content Emphases for Kindergarten through 2nd and organized them using the Major, Additional, and Supporting clusters.  In searching for the updated version, I found the PARCC Content Model Frameworks.  They have an old version for 3rd-11th grade down at the bottom of the page, but I was interested in their K-2 Content Frameworks.  Those are up towards the top of that page (there is ELA/Literacy and Mathematics).  I am not linking directly to the document because it is a DRAFT, which means it will be taken down soon and probably tweaked a little and then my link won’t work.

The nice part about the Content Frameworks versus the Content Emphases is that the Frameworks provide educators with a lot more detail.  In the Content Emphases it just lists which clusters are Major, Supporting, and Additional.  But the Content Frameworks give ideas on how to connect the Supporting clusters to the Major clusters.  The document gives insight to the Key Advances from one grade level to the next, as well as describing the standards in each grade level that afford teachers to go more in-depth to develop a solid foundation.

I like the Content Frameworks but it is too much information to give teachers all at once, but the Content Emphases didn’t quite have enough…so I combined them to create a mix of the information in one document that provided some wonderful discussions and insights this week.  I broke the participants up into grade level groups and had them spend time investigating their Content Emphases/Frameworks document that I merged together.  Then we did a jigsaw and each grade level group broke up and connected with teachers from the other two grade levels.  This allowed Kinder, 1st, and 2nd grade teachers to talk about the vertical alignment of what they need to teach kids.  I asked the groups to create some kind of visual to share with the whole group to show us the progression through K-2.  Below is a picture of my favorite representation.  They didn’t quite get it finished because of their detailed drawing, but enough that we can get the idea they were going for.  Their drawing is cool, but what was even better was their explanation.  My summary of what they said is inserted into the second picture.

If you didn’t catch one of the links to download the file I created that merged the Content Emphases with some of the Content Frameworks, just click HERE.

Have you had PD around these Content Frameworks and/or Content Emphases?  Did you find it useful?  What kind of activities did you do to help you gain a better understanding of them?