Whats the Relationship Between Big Ideas and Standards

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Whats the Relationship Between Big Ideas and
Standards?
District Support Specialists Meeting January 18,
2005 Jim Linsell
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Big Ideas

• Are written by teachers for their own courses to
  organize and focus what they teach.
• Are few in number.
• Can be written at different levels for an entire
  discipline, an entire year, for a course, or a
  unit.
• Unify and connect the MANY standards and
  expectations for which were accountable.
• Ask higher-level questions that encourage
  students to think like professionals in the
  discipline.

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Big IdeasThink of Konstantin Stanislavsky

• Russian actor, teacher, and theatre director who
  told his actors
• Whatever you think, however you move, in whatever
  way you deliver your linesmake sure all these
  things support my few big ideas or messages for
  this play.

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Standards and Benchmarks for 8th Grade
English/Language Arts

• R.WS.08.04 Know the meaning of frequently
  encountered words in written and oral
• contexts (research to support specific words).
• R.WS.08.05 Apply strategies to construct meaning
  and identify unknown words.
• R.WS.08.06 Read fluently eighth grade level texts
  (increasingly demanding texts read
• with fluency as the year proceeds).
• R.WS.08.07 Use strategies (e.g., prior knowledge,
  text features, structures) and authentic
• content-related resources to determine the
  meaning of words and phrases in
• context (e.g., historical terms, content area
  vocabulary, literary terms).
• Narrative Text
• Students will
• R.NT.08.01 Investigate through classic and
  contemporary literature recognized for
• quality and literary merit various examples of
  distortion and stereotypes such as those
• associated with gender, race, culture, age,
  class, religion, and other individual
  differences.
• R.NT.08.02 Analyze elements and style of
  narrative genres (e.g., historical fiction,
• science fiction, realistic fiction).
• R.NT.08.03 Analyze the role of rising and falling
  actions, minor characters in relation to
• conflict, and credibility of the narrator.
• R.NT.08.04 Analyze how authors use symbolism,
  imagery, and consistency to develop
• credible narrators, rising and falling actions
  and minor characters.

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• R E A D I N G
• W R I T I N G
• S P E A K I N G
• L I S T E N I N G
• V I E W I N G
• ELA
• GRADE LEVEL
• CONTENT
• EXPECTATIONS
• E I G H T H G R A D E E N G L I S H L A N G U A G
  E A R T S
• Office of School Improvement
• www.michigan.gov/mde
• Welcome to Michigans Grade Level Content
  Expectations! The performance
• statements contained in this document represent
  many months of dedicated
• contribution from classroom teachers, curriculum
  specialists, academicians, and
• Michigan Department of Education consultants.
  They are meant to provide teachers
• with an outline of learning expectations and will
  be used to drive grade level
• assessments throughout the next several years.
  They by no means represent an entire

• W.GN.08.03 Formulate research questions that
  demonstrate critical evaluation of
• multiple resources and perspectives and
  arguments/counterarguments that culminate
• in a presented, final project.
• Writing Process
• Students will
• W.PR.08.01 Set a purpose, consider audience, and
  replicate authors styles and patterns
• when writing narrative or informational text.
• W.PR.08.02 Apply a variety of pre-writing
  strategies for narrative text (e.g., story maps
• designed to depict rising and falling actions,
  roles of minor characters, credibility of
• narrator) and informational text (e.g.,
  compare/contrast, cause and effect, sequential
  text
• patterns).
• W.PR.08.03 Experiment with various ways of
  sequencing information (e.g., ordering
• arguments, sequencing ideas chronologically or by
  importance).
• W.PR.08.04 Review and revise their compositions
  for coherence and consistency
• regarding word choice, cause and effect, and
  style, and they will read their own work from
• another readers perspective in the interest of
  clarity.
• W.PR.08.05 Edit their writing using proofreaders
  checklists both individually and in peer
• editing group.
• Personal Style

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Possible Big Ideas That UnifyLanguage Arts
Teaching and Connect it to Standards

• Course-Long Big Ideas
• How do writers think and thinkers write?
• How can we learn more about ourselves by
  understanding fiction?

• Unit-Long Big Ideas
• How do Hemingway and Faulkner compare as creators
  of mood and setting?
• How can I develop my own voice as a writer?

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An Example of a Big Idea
History matters! It's important to understand how
history directly affects you and issues you care
about... Students come to appreciate that history
is not just a subject to learn but is the basis
of our society today. Understanding history over
time and relating it to the present makes us
curious about the causes and results of
historical events as well as current events.
and the Standards It Summarizes
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The curriculum frameworks/standards addressed in
this unit are This unit provides an
opportunity for eighth grade students to meet the
educational standards and curriculum frameworks
from the California Standards for History and
Social Science and some California Language Arts
Standards (California). --Students will
demonstrate understanding of the guarantees of
the Bill of Rights and its continuing
significance by analyzing the significance of the
Bill of Rights and its specific guarantees.
--Students will understand the importance to a
democracy of citizens who are willing to
participate actively in government, think
critically and creatively about issues, confront
the unresolved problems of the society, and work
through democratic processes toward the fuller
realization of its highest ideals. --Students
should be aware of the presence or absence of the
rights of the individual, the rights of
minorities, the right of the citizen to
participate in government, the right to speak or
publish freely without governmental coercion, the
right to freedom of religion, the right to trial
by jury, the right to form trade unions, and
other basic democratic rights. --Students
should understand that the events in history
provoked controversy as do the events reported in
today?s headlines. Through the study of
controversial issues, both in history and in
current affairs, students should learn that
people in a democratic society have the right to
disagree, that different perspectives have to be
taken into account, and that judgments should be
based on reasonable evidence and not on bias and
emotion. --Students should be provided with
opportunities that help them develop commitment
to public service and their communities.
--Students will write persuasive text that
includes a well-defined thesis and makes a clear
and knowledgeable judgment. --Students will
arrange details, reasons and examples,
effectively anticipating and answering reader
concerns and counter-arguments. --Students will
achieve an effective balance between researched
information and own ideas. 
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8th Grade Course-Long Big Ideas

• 8th Grade Science (Bill McWeeny)Each student
  will...
• Become an excellent observer by using the sixth
  sense as well as the basic five senses.
  (Observations are the foundation of science.)
• Look for and attempt to understand connections in
  the world. (Everything is influenced by other
  things, everything is somehow connected.)
• Consider and assess how she/he personally
  connects to the world. (Understanding personal
  connections helps one understand themself and
  his/her environment.)
• Record, contemplate and communicate her/his
  findings to others. (Sharing is an essential
  human trait.)

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10th and 11th Grade Chemistry (Jerry Russell,
Vasilii Petrenko)

• The things that I most want my students to
  understand after this course or year are...
• The scope, key concepts, principles, and methods
  used in chemistry and the relevance of chemistry
  to their daily lives.
• The interrelationships that exist between
  chemistry, other sciences and mathematics.
• The methods used by scientists to collect
  information, how that information is used in the
  development of scientific theories and the
  multiple ways of presenting and communicating
  scientific findings and information to others.
• A sense of fascination about chemistry and
  science in general.

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12th Grade English Class (Christine Greenhow)

• The things I most want my students to understand
  after this course or year are
• Students will write compositions with a clear
  focus, developing the composition with logically
  related ideas and adequate supporting detail.
• Students will demonstrate improvement in
  organization, content, paragraph development, and
  the level of detail in their compositions after
  revising them.
• Students will use self-generated questions,
  note-taking, summarizing, and outlining to
  enhance their learning when reading or writing.
• Students will communicate information using a
  variety of media and evaluate the quality of
  their presentation.

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Why Its Worth It to Create My (Our) Own Big
Ideas

• Greater likelihood that students will find that
  your teaching transfers to other subjects and to
  their lives now and later.
• Helps keep teachers focused.
• Gives teachers ownership of curriculum.
• Makes direction and biggest goals public for
  kids, parent, yourself, other school people.

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• Kids refer to them to help them organize course
  content and know whats important.
• Better chance students will make connections
  within and between disciplines.
• Increased possibility that students will develop
  the same independent thinking capacity to
  organize large bodies of information now and
  later.
• Equips and encourages students to go beyond the
  information given and apply it in novel
  situations.
• Gives teachers an opportunity to connect
  standards to big ideas.