The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Language (ACTFL) has posted a draft document aligning the national standards for LOTE with the Common Core. ACTFL has announced a process to revisit the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning to make explicit the link of the standards for learning languages with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. ACTFL invites your input on the by Jan. 15. draft document at www.actfl.org/commoncore

Because Common Core promotes the importance of all students studying the arts, we have highlighted places where ELA instruction could be enhanced by connecting a genre or particular text, or a theme of a unit, to works of art, music, or film. We suggest, for example, that students study self-portraiture when they are encountering memoirs. Students might compare a novel, story, or play to its film or musical rendition. Where a particular period of literature or the literature of a particular region or country is addressed, works of art from that period or country may also be examined. In each case, connections are made to the standards in the CCSS themselves.

ELA teachers who choose to use this material may do so on their own, by team teaching with an art or music teacher, or perhaps by sharing the material with the art or music teacher, who could reinforce what students are learning during the ELA block in their classroom. The inclusion of these works in our ELA Maps is not intended to substitute for or infringe in any way upon instruction students should receive in separate arts and music classes.

In order to facilitate lesson-planning that utilizes these arts resources and collaboration with art and music teachers, we have created a single document (see below) containing all of the suggested art works and art-based activities in our Maps. It is organized by grade and by unit.

A substantial body of research clearly indicates that utilizing specific instructional modifications as well as targeted pedagogical strategies can accelerate ELLs’ academic achievement and English language acquisition. As a result, ELLs’ academic performance can be comparable to their English proficient (EP) counterparts.

This document is intended to inform educators on insights and practical suggestions for accelerating the academic achievement of ELLs in literacy classrooms, specifically in the following areas:

I. Vocabulary

II. Scaffolding

III. Native Language

IV. Writing

In order to develop proficiency in the Standard for Mathematical Practice 3 (Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasoning of Others) and Standard for Mathematical Practice 4 (Model with Mathematics), it is important to provide English Language Learners (ELLs) with two levels of access to the tasks: language access and content access.

Success with the Common Core Learning Standards for students with disabilities.