Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students' abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of the Nobel Peace Prize Speeches of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students€' abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of the first chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois€' The Souls of Black Folk.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students€' abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of President Ronald Reagan€'s First Inaugural Address and Secretary Hillary Clinton€'s 2011 APEC Address.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students' €abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of the Commencement Address Steve Jobs delivered at Stanford University on June, 2005.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

These curriculum materials for Grade 7 English Language Arts are separated by the full curriculum Modules (developed by Expeditionary Learning for New York State) and Units in the Developing Core Proficiencies Series (developed by Odell Education for New York State). The resources include Grades 6-8 ELA Curriculum: Appendix 1: Teaching Practices and Protocols; Grades 6-8 ELA Curriculum: Appendix 2: Graphic Organizers; and a Grades 6-8 English Language Arts Curriculum Map.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

These curriculum materials for Grade 8 English Language Arts include Units in the Developing Core Proficiencies Series (developed by Odell Education for New York State) as well as Grades 6-8 ELA Curriculum: Appendix 1: Teaching Practices and Protocols; Grades 6-8 ELA Curriculum: Appendix 2: Graphic Organizers; and a Grades 6-8 English Language Arts Curriculum Map.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students€' abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of an excerpted text from Plato€'s Apology.

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**

Huckleberry Finn opens with a warning from its author that misinterpreting readers will be shot. Despite the danger, readers have been approaching the novel from such diverse critical perspectives for 120 years that it is both commonly taught and frequently banned, for a variety of reasons. Studying both the novel and its critics with an emphasis on cultural context will help students develop analytical tools essential for navigating this work and other American controversies. This lesson asks students to combine internet historical research with critical reading. Then students will produce several writing assignments exploring what readers see in Huckleberry Finn and why they see it that way.

This 30 minute video features a discussion between NYS Commissioner of Education John B. King Jr., David Coleman (contributing author to the Common Core) and Kate Gerson (a Sr. Fellow with the Regents Research Fund) on the first 20 paragraphs of Martin Luther King Jr.‰'s ‰"Letter from Birmingham Jail.‰" This conversation represents one of the ways a group of educators might prepare for close reading of text with students. This behind-the-scenes discourse represents the kind of dialogue teachers can have as they build their own fluency and familiarity with a text before diving into it with students. After watching this video, educators might ask themselves: Why are conversations like these important? What role can adult discussions of text play in teacher prep? Participants might also continue the conversation King, Coleman, and Gerson are having by picking up where they left off and engaging deeply around paragraphs 21-30. What happens next in the text? What is King ‰"up to‰" for those paragraphs?

**NOTE: The New York State Education Department shut down the EngageNY website in 2022. In order to maintain educators' access, nearly all resources have been uploaded to archive.org and the resource links above have been updated to reflect their new locations.**