Common Core State Standards
Teaching Strategies for Appendix B: Text Exemplars
Grade 3-5
Expected Outcomes:
 Acknowledge your existing teaching and learning beliefs
 Address Common Core State Standards for ELA and Literacy
 Make recommendations that focus on instructional strategies for informational text
 Share online resources
Common Core State Standards:
 RI. 5.5 - Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison,
cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or
more texts.
Transacting with Text:
Hurricanes: Earth’s Mightiest Storms by Patricia Lauber
Text Rendering- Identify:
 Sentence
 Phrase
 One word
What Is Academic Vocabulary?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) define academic vocabulary words as the
words that are traditionally used in academic dialogue and text. Specifically, it refers to
words that are not necessarily common or that children would encounter in conversation.
These words often relate to other more familiar words that students use. For example,
rather than watch, observe. They are also words that help students understand oral
directions and classroom instructional dialog. They also help students to comprehend text
across different content areas- including math, science, and social studies/history.
Vocabulary words are often categorized into three tiers.
Tier 1 words: These words are basic vocabulary or the more common words most
children will know. They include high-frequency words and usually are not multiple
meaning words.
Tier 2 words: Less familiar, yet useful vocabulary found in written text and shared
between the teacher and student in conversation. CCSS refers to these as “general
academic words.” Sometimes they are referred to as “rich vocabulary.” These words are
more precise or subtle forms of familiar words and include multiple meaning words.
Instead of walk for example, saunter could be used. These words are found across a
variety of domains.
Tier 3 words: CCSS refers to these words as “domain specific”; they are critical to
understanding the concepts of the content taught in schools. Generally, they have low
1
frequency use and are limited to specific knowledge domains. Examples would include
words such as isotope, peninsula, and refinery. They are best learned when teaching
specific content lessons, and tend to be more common in informational text.
Resources: http://www.learninga-z.com/commoncore/academic-vocabulary.html
Academic Vocabulary Activity: Text Samples
Think, write, pair and share
#1
Great whirling storms roar out of the oceans in many parts of the world.
They are called by several names—hurricane, typhoon, and cyclone are
the three most familiar ones. But no matter what they are called, they are
all the same sort of storm. They are born in the same way, in tropical
waters. They develop the same way, feeding on warm, moist air. And
they do the same kind of damage, both ashore and at sea. Other storms
may cover a bigger area or have higher winds, but none can match both
the size and the fury of hurricanes. They are earth’s mightiest storms.
#2.
Like all storms, they take place in the atmosphere, the envelope of air
that surrounds the earth and presses on its surface. The pressure at any
one place is always changing. There are days when air is sinking and the
atmosphere presses harder on the surface. These are the times of high
pressure. There are days when a lot of air is rising and the atmosphere
does not press down as hard. These are times of low pressure. Lowpressure areas over warm oceans give birth to hurricanes.
Source: HURRICANES: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST STORMS by Patricia Lauber.
Copyright © 1996 by Patricia Lauber. Used by permission of Scholastic, Inc.
Other Resources
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/can-you-believe-hurricanes
http://pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=common%20core%20ela
www.teachersfirst.com/spectopics/hurricane.cfm
2