Concepts
Concepts declare key knowledge that students need to learn at specific grade levels. In essence, they take the big ideas that all students need to know and interpret them at the appropriate developmental and academic level.
For instance, with the big idea: "Writing is a means of documenting thinking" there are three concepts that second graders must learn:
- Writing requires accurate and fluent motor and language skills.
- Focus, content, organization, style, and conventions work together to impact writing quality.
- Writing improves through the recursive process of revising and editing.
Concepts form grade level objectives which focus on what the students must learn over the course of the year. Each of these concepts will contain competencies that students should master.