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Claims, Targets, Standards Alignment 

Why Claims, Targets, Standards?
When beginning to look at the sheer numbers of standards that came with the shift to Common Core, we as teachers need to better understand how we can teach these standards in tandem. 

In getting a deeper look at our assessment system through the Smarter Balance CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) which offer reports that provide "claim" level data.  In ELA we Four Claims: Reading, Writing, Listening/Speaking, and Research and Inquiry. Within those Claims there are Targets that group together standards.

Claims: Provide the Why
Big picture Domains.

Targets: Provide the How
Instructional targets give teachers a group of standards to focus on.

Standards: Provide the What
Standards tell us what the students need to be able to do at each grade-level.

How to Bring it All Together
As I worked through creating lessons for ELA it became more and more apparent that these standards are organized in such a way that I could be covering multiple at a time.  That was the first ah-ha, then in the last year as a district we came to better understand the Targets and how they bring together groups of standards that cover multiple domains (Reading and Language).  
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In NVUSD we have aligned our pacing guides to the Instructional Targets.  Currently we have 3-8th grade ELA Pacing guides that provide teachers a resource for what groups of targets to focus on and when.  Below is the snapshot of the 4th grade pacing guide, and you can access the 3-5th Grade and 6-8th Grade Pacing Guides and print to reference.

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Common Core

21st Century Skills

TPACK