Charting the Future of Teaching the Past

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The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities.

This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on issues from King Philip's War to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and make historical claims backed by documentary evidence.

Program Overview


EDUCATION WEEK

Using Text Complexity in the Classroom; Danielson’s Framework

"Under the Common Core State Standards, students will be expected to read and comprehend texts with increasing complexity as they progress through school. In fact, the standards specifically require that “by the time they complete the core, students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found in college and careers.”

Under the Common Core State Standards, students will be expected to read and comprehend texts with increasing complexity as they progress through school. In fact, the standards specifically require that “by the time they complete the core, students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found in college and careers.”

Measuring Text Complexity: Three Factors


Danielson’s framework
for teaching identifies aspects of a teacher’s responsibilities that empirical studies have demonstrated as promoting improved student learning.1 Because teaching is an extremely complex activity, this framework is useful in laying out the various areas of competence in which professional teachers need to develop expertise. Danielson divides the complex activity of teaching into twenty-two components clustered into four domains of teaching responsibility: (1) planning and preparation, (2) the classroom environment, (3) instruction, and (4) professional responsibilities. These domains and their components are outlined in a following table. A brief review of each of these domains will provide a road map of the skills and competencies new teachers need to develop.

Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn

Charlotte Danielson