Recently in a workshop, I realized that once again many professionals had been playing "Assumicide" with their participants in CC workshops. Some of my participants told me that while they had been told to UNDERLINE or HIGHLIGHT VERBS in the standards, no one had explained to them WHY they were highlighting or underlining the VERBS! So here we go... So, what is the importance of the VERBS in the CCSS? They indicate the SKILLS that the students need to master. Additionally, using BLOOM's TAXONOMY or WEBB's DOK LEVELS, we can determine the level of cognitive demand or cognitive load or cognitive intensity or whatever someone chooses to call it. In other words, we can determine how difficult the learning process will be for the students. Let's identify the VERBS in the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard 1 for Reading: 1. Read, determine, make, infer, cite, support, conclude... OK, some of you will say, "I don't see all those verbs in CC 1." Use your critical thinking, and you will. Now assign BLOOM's or WEB's to them. (i.e. Read - Knowledge; Determine - Comprehension; Make - Application; Infer - Analysis; Cite - Comprehension; Support - Evaluation; Conclude - Evaluation) So, in this very first of 10 standards for college and career readiness in reading, a student must show 5/6 of the Bloom's Taxonomy for Measurable Verbs. Synthesis is the only one left out. ( You can also assign a Web number; but personally I prefer Bloom's. It is more detailed.) Now in order for a teacher to know with certainty a student is college and career ready for Standard 1, all of the verbs must be mastered by the student. These measurable skills demonstrate the cognitive activity that must exist in the brain in order for the student to demonstrate learning. This is the type of "DECONSTRUCTION" that I want teachers to accomplish when they UNPACK, UNWRAP, DISSECT, or any other synonym that you use for pulling standards apart. I want them to know how this standard must be presented (Intended Curriculum), how they must teach for student mastery (Taught Curriculum) and how the standard will likely be assessed (Tested Curriculum) so we all can say with certainty based on our assessment evidence our students have mastered the standard (Curriculum Mastery!) Every teacher teaching CCSS (either for ELA, or Literacy in Science, History, and Technical Courses, or Math) should completely analyze every standard to this degree. It is more important than reading the content in the text book. My 2 Cents! Sarah