Contributed by Larry Ainsworth, author of “Unwrapping” the Common Core: A Practical Process to Manage Rigorous Standards (2014)
This post was originally published on Finding Common Ground.
To “unwrap” or not to “unwrap”? – Actually, there is no question.
In addition to the voluminous numbers of standards teachers must impart to their students each year, there is the added challenge of really understanding what the standards means. It’s one thing to read a standard and get a general sense of what it’s about. It’s another thing to thoroughly understand what it explicitly and implicitly indicates. What is it that students must know and be able to do as stated in each of these learning outcomes?
“Unwrapping” is a simple method that all teachers in all grade levels can use to deconstruct the wording of any standard in order to know its meaning inside and out.
Why is this important? If teachers aren’t crystal clear about the full and precise intent of a given standard, how can they accurately teach it? How can they accurately assess student understanding of it? How can they clearly communicate to students the specific learning intentions for a unit of study? Answer: Without first analyzing the standard, they can’t.
“Unwrapping” the Priority Standards (those standards pre-determined by teachers to require the greatest emphasis) is the very first step in planning effective instruction and assessment.
How to “Unwrap”
Working alone or with colleagues, teachers examine each Priority Standard within a particular unit of study. They underline the teachable concepts (important nouns and noun phrases) and circle or CAPITALIZE the skills (verbs) that students are to demonstrate. Some of these concepts and skills represent surface or concrete learning (lower-level foundational knowledge and procedures); others represent deeper or abstract understanding (higher-level insights and applications). Together, these “unwrapped” concepts and skills represent what students are to know and be able to do by the end of the unit of study.
ELA and Math Examples
Here’s an example of an “unwrapped” sixth grade Priority Standard in the strand of Reading Informational Text:
RI.6.6: DETERMINE an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and EXPLAIN how it is conveyed in the text.
And here’s an example of an “unwrapped” second grade math Priority Standard in the domain of Number and Operations in Base Ten:
2.NBT.9: EXPLAIN WHY addition and subtraction strategies work, USING place value and the properties of operations.
In both of these examples, the key concepts (nouns and noun phrases) that students must learn have been underlined, and the specific skills (verbs) that student must demonstrate appear in CAPS.
This same process would then be repeated with the three or four other Priority Standards assigned to these ELA and math units of study, respectively.
Create a Graphic Organizer
After the “unwrapping” step is completed, teachers next prepare a graphic organizer (outline, bulleted list, concept map, or chart) as a visual display of the “unwrapped” concepts and skills. They then determine each skill’s approximate levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. This reveals each skill’s level of cognitive rigor. (Note: Both taxonomies are used to assist educators in accurately matching the identified levels of cognitive rigor to selected- and constructed-response questions when they later write their unit assessment.)
The majority of educators I’ve worked with prefer using a three-column chart in which the concepts are listed in the first column, the skills in the second column, and the levels of rigor in the third. In this way, they can see “at a glance” all of the learning targets and corresponding levels of cognitive rigor that will be the focus for instruction and assessment during the unit. In addition, the concepts listed in the first column provide many of the unit’s vocabulary terms.
ELA and Math Examples
Here are two abbreviated examples of ELA and math graphic organizers that contain the same “unwrapped” concepts and skills as shown above. (Note: A completed graphic organizer would also include the other “unwrapped” Priority Standards for the unit.)