Week 33: WWCCD? (What would Common Core do)
My last post was about Common Core, and this one will be about an assessment my students did with our student teacher this week, and how that could look under some models of Common Core that have been pushed forward.
Students were reading The Coming of the Long Knives from “Sing Down the Moon” by Scott O’Dell about the removal of the Navajo (spelled Navaho in this story) from Canyon De Chelly to Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner). It was a short constructed response question asking the students why are the Long Knives (U.S. Cavalry soldiers) raking the Navajos away from their homes? The students needed to write 3-5 sentences to answer the question.
Some of the students who focused on just the facts came up with the idea that the soldiers wanted them to starve, not understanding that this was a tactic, not the end game. Most students got that this was a land grab and the U.S. wanted to take the Navajo’s land, but here is where it got interesting. Many students included an idea from outside that story.
In addition to reading the story, the student teacher showed them a video from National Geographics, The Story of Us series on westward expansion. There is a very interesting part in the video where an American Indian