California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

           This is possibly the most valuable handout to me I have received ever since I decided to enroll in the education program. I thought that the most help I would ever have going through this experience would be the list of Common Core State Standards that I would have to meet and then form my lesson around that. This handout feels almost like a cheat sheet to teaching it is so helpful. One thing I have always had trouble figuring out is how to properly introduce a piece of text to the class and teach them the proper background knowledge that they need before they read the text. Making the students predict what is going to happen in the text, teaching the necessary vocabulary they need, and then getting them started on reading and outlining may seem like such simple and obvious things to do but it is comforting to have these steps written out by an accredited source. Then, instead of just having them read the text and report back, the teacher can turn the reading into an experience by having the students annotate the text and summarize little bits and pieces of the text. Critical thinking is, to me, the most important skill you can learn in the classroom. This handout does a great job at explaining how to introduce the concept of critical thinking to the classroom by having them read information text and then having them question all aspects of it, from questioning the author to the logic behind the piece. The handout then goes on to talk about how to write about the piece but for right now, I am feeling so relieved that there are all of these ideas and solutions about how to introduce and read a text that I was thinking about in a scholarly piece, written by people other than myself.