ClassX Video Lessons Struggling to Find a Research-Based and -Backed Literacy Program? Check Out ThinkCERCA
Hello, friends! It’s Chrissy and Tanner from Common Sense Education, and we’re excited to share something awesome with you today. Every Tuesday, we introduce a new tool that can help you in your classroom. If this one isn’t quite right for you, don’t worry! You can always explore other free resources on Common Sense Education.
Today, Tanner is going to tell us about a fantastic tool called ThinkCERCA. You can find it online, and it’s a tool we’ve been keeping an eye on for a while. We recently gave it a five-star review, and it’s even being considered for our top award! Plus, it has an 81% approval rating from our privacy team, which is pretty impressive.
ThinkCERCA is a well-organized program designed to help you improve your reading and writing skills. It uses something called the CIRC framework, which stands for Claim, Evidence, Reasoning, Counter-Argument, and Audience. This means you’ll learn how to make a strong point, support it with facts, explain your thinking, address other viewpoints, and communicate effectively with your audience.
ThinkCERCA helps you think deeply about what you read and then guides you through writing assignments that your teacher can grade. It’s a complete approach to learning literacy skills!
When we first discovered ThinkCERCA, we were amazed by how clear and easy it was to understand. It fits perfectly with Common Core standards and has nearly ten years of research backing it up. If you’re curious, you can check out their results page to see lots of studies and research that show how effective it is.
ThinkCERCA offers content in various subjects, not just English Language Arts (ELA). You can learn literacy through social studies, science, and math too! This is great for connecting different subjects, especially in elementary school.
The program includes direct instruction and skills lessons, along with writing modules. These modules guide you step-by-step through reading and writing activities. You can work on these lessons by yourself or with your teacher leading the class. There are quizzes to check your understanding, and your answers help your teacher see how you’re doing.
Each module in ThinkCERCA is designed to grow with you, from grade 3 all the way to grade 12 and beyond. They offer suggested pairings for content, which is a neat feature.
In each module, you’ll find an overview, key vocabulary, the text, an audio version of the text, and a rubric for grading. You’ll go through activities like reflecting, answering reading questions, engaging with the text, summarizing, and building an argument using the CIRC framework.
ThinkCERCA provides lots of support, including Spanish vocabulary, teaching guides, and suggestions for different learning needs. Teachers can give feedback using the rubric, and you can improve your work based on their suggestions. However, some teachers wish the rubric could be customized.
ThinkCERCA isn’t free, so you’ll need to contact them for pricing details. If you decide to use it, it could become an important part of your learning, so it’s a good idea to talk about it with your school.
If you found this helpful, come back next Tuesday for more cool tools! You can also check out our past videos for other great resources. Visit us at Common Sense Education, and we hope to see you again soon. Thanks for joining us!
Imagine you’re a detective solving a mystery! Choose a topic you’re interested in, and use the CIRC framework to create a strong argument. Write down your claim, gather evidence, explain your reasoning, consider a counter-argument, and think about your audience. Share your detective work with the class!
Explore the ThinkCERCA platform and go on a scavenger hunt! Find a module that interests you and identify the key vocabulary, text, and audio version. Share your findings with a partner and discuss what you learned from the module.
Get into groups and choose a topic from ThinkCERCA. Each group member will take on a different role: one will present the claim, another will provide evidence, a third will explain the reasoning, and the last will offer a counter-argument. Present your debate to the class and see which argument is the most convincing!
ThinkCERCA isn’t just for ELA! Pick a subject like science or social studies and find a related module. Work with a partner to complete the reading and writing activities, and then present how literacy skills can enhance understanding in that subject.
After completing a ThinkCERCA module, exchange your work with a classmate. Use the rubric provided in the module to give each other constructive feedback. Discuss how you can improve your arguments and writing skills based on the feedback you receive.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the YouTube transcript:
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Hello there! I didn’t see you there, but since you’re here, it’s Chrissy and Tanner from Common Sense Education. Just like every Tuesday, we’re here to tell you about a new tool that will probably be useful for you in the classroom. If it’s not, you can always visit Common Sense Education for other free resources that might be helpful.
Today, it’s all about Tanner and what he has to share. Tanner, what’s the tool you want to talk about?
I want to discuss Think Circa. You can check it out at the web address provided. This is a tool I’ve been following for quite a while, and we recently updated our review of it, giving it five stars. It’s also under consideration for our highest honor, which is the selection for learning. Additionally, it has an 81% pass rating from our privacy team.
As our one-liner says, this is a highly structured program for literacy. One of the unique aspects of it is the acronym CIRC, which stands for Claim, Evidence, Reasoning, Counter-Argument, and Audience. The whole idea is to help students develop a claim, back it up with evidence, have sound reasoning, tackle counter-arguments, and think about how to communicate that to their audience. It moves students from thinking critically about reading to completing a writing assignment that gets graded by teachers. It really has a holistic approach to literacy.
When I first saw this tool years ago, I was impressed with how well thought out their approach was and how clear and easy it was to understand. It fits particularly well with the Common Core standards, and they have almost a decade of research behind the tool. If you go to their results page, you can explore numerous case studies and extensive research that supports the tool’s development and effectiveness.
Let’s dig in. This is a demo account that Think Circa provided for our review. You won’t see all the great reporting data because we don’t have a bunch of students, but when you do start getting data from students, it’s based on a mastery model. They also have handy leveling and benchmark assessments you can issue to your classroom to gauge where everyone is at and differentiate accordingly.
Now, let’s look at the curriculum, which is really the most important part. You can see that they have content broken into various areas, not just ELA. There’s also content for social studies, science, and math, allowing you to teach literacy through the lens of these other subjects. This is particularly great for elementary teaching, where you might want to connect different subjects.
You can see they have direct instruction and skills lessons, as well as writing modules. The writing modules are extensive and take students through a scaffolded program of reading and writing. The direct instruction skills are more focused and meant to build foundational skills needed for the larger writing modules.
These lessons can be self-guided, but a teacher can also lead them in front of the class. Students can input answers to questions, and there are quizzes to check understanding, which feed data back to the teacher.
Let’s look at a module. One thing I love is that all of these modules can scale, which is extraordinary. Every topic scales from grades 3 to 12 and even higher education. They’ve been at this for a while, so they have a lot going on. They also provide suggested pairings for content, which is easy to miss.
Each module includes an overview, key vocabulary, the text, an audio version of the text, and a rubric. While the rubrics aren’t modifiable, they are well-constructed for grading. The sequence students go through in a module includes reflection, reading comprehension questions, engaging with the text, summarizing, and building an argument using the CIRC framework.
Every module follows this basic structure, providing a sense of repetition, but the topics are interesting and scalable. You can assign content individually based on grade levels, which allows for flexibility.
Each lesson comes with great supports, including Spanish vocabulary, teaching guides, and differentiation suggestions. There’s truly a lot of content, making this an extraordinary tool.
As for feedback, when teachers use the rubric, they can provide suggestions for improvement, and students can redo their work, allowing for a dialogic nature to the process. However, I felt the rubric should be modifiable, as we’ve seen in other tools.
Regarding cost, this is not a free tool, and you have to contact them for pricing. It’s a tool that, if you take it on, will likely be a core part of your curriculum, so you’ll need to discuss it with your administration.
If this was helpful, come back again next Tuesday, check out some of our past videos, and find something else that’s helpful for you. Visit us at Common Sense Education, and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks for watching!
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Let me know if you need any further modifications!
ThinkCERCA – A platform that helps students develop critical thinking skills through reading and writing activities. – Example sentence: Our teacher introduced us to ThinkCERCA to improve our critical thinking and writing skills.
Learning – The process of gaining knowledge or skills through study, experience, or teaching. – Example sentence: Learning new vocabulary words helps us become better readers and writers.
Reading – The action or skill of understanding written or printed matter. – Example sentence: Reading every day can help improve your vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Writing – The activity or skill of creating written text to express thoughts, ideas, or information. – Example sentence: Writing a story allows you to use your imagination and share your ideas with others.
Skills – The ability to do something well, usually gained through training or experience. – Example sentence: Good communication skills are important for presenting your ideas clearly.
Evidence – Information or details from a text that support a claim or argument. – Example sentence: When writing an essay, it’s important to include evidence from the text to support your points.
Reasoning – The process of thinking about something in a logical way to form a conclusion or judgment. – Example sentence: Using reasoning helps us solve problems and make decisions based on facts.
Argument – A set of reasons or evidence in support of a conclusion or viewpoint. – Example sentence: In a debate, each team presents an argument to persuade the audience of their position.
Audience – The group of people who read or listen to a piece of writing or a presentation. – Example sentence: When writing a letter, it’s important to consider your audience and what they need to know.
Literacy – The ability to read and write effectively. – Example sentence: Improving literacy skills helps students succeed in all subjects at school.
