Literacy Design Collaborative | Science & Technical Subjects. Tackling Informational Text:You Want Me to Read What?! Who, indeed? Surprisingly, the Common Core State Standards avoided becoming the piñata of the kinds of petty controversies that have been customary in past discussions of curriculum reform in English language arts. During the entire standards writing and adoption process, there were no "reading wars," no grandstanding governors emptily threatening to forego federal education support, no marching ministers or protesting pressure groups. All in all, it was a pretty civilized affair. We're now in the implementation season, and things have heated up a bit, but the main arguments against the standards are more about issues like federalism, test policy, President Obama's education preferences, data mining, and so on (Strauss, 2013).
Such complaints do not say much about whether these standards are any good. For example, former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch (2013) voiced a complaint that's pretty typical of the current reproaches: What is informational text? Maybe. E. Yes. Cutting to the Common Core: Analyzing Informational Text. Kate Kinsella tackles the particular challenges of preparing learners to be able to analyze and discuss complex informational text The Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2010) for reading focus heavily on students gathering evidence, knowledge, and insights from what they read. In fact, 80-90% of the reading standards in every grade require text-dependent analysis — being able to answer questions only by referring back to the assigned text, not by drawing upon and referencing prior knowledge and experiences.
Equal emphasis is placed on the sophistication of what students read and the skill with which they read. With an aim of equipping students with 21st-century literacy and learning skills for college and the global workplace, the standards demand an increased percentage of informational text exposure and rigor as students advance in their coursework. Integrating targeted and systematic vocabulary instruction to support reading comprehension is an instructional imperative. The Challenge of Complex Texts. How are Mitochondria Connected to the Aging Process? - Core Challenge. Debrief: How are Mitochondria Connected to the Aging Process? - Core Challenge. Power Failure. Mitochondria are tiny. A single human cell can contain hundreds to thousands of these potato-shaped organelles, depending on the tissue type. They power the biochemical reactions in our cells through the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). These oft-overlooked furnaces, not studied in earnest until the 1970s, are now the subject of intense scrutiny for their potentially central role in common, complex diseases.
They may be, scientists say, pivotal to the etiology of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, epidemics against which researchers and companies have spent billions of dollars but made arguably little progress. But not everyone agrees with the mitochondrial hypothesis. Complex diseases are simply that, some researchers argue—complex.
It doesn’t help that studies of human mitochondrial function are invasive, costly, and lengthy. It has been his tune for more than 30 years, though it’s often fallen on deaf ears in the scientific community. A Pandora’s box of mutations. What is Mitochondrial Disease - The United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. Mitochondrial diseases result from failures of the mitochondria, specialized compartments present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. Mitochondria are responsible for creating more than 90% of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and support growth. When they fail, less and less energy is generated within the cell.
Cell injury and even cell death follow. If this process is repeated throughout the body, whole systems begin to fail, and the life of the person in whom this is happening is severely compromised. The disease primarily affects children, but adult onset is becoming more and more common. Diseases of the mitochondria appear to cause the most damage to cells of the brain, heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney and the endocrine and respiratory systems.
Energy Factories and Much More The conventional teaching in biology and medicine is that mitochondria function only as "energy factories" for the cell. Defining Mitochondrial Disease. Achieve the Core - PD Modules and Courses. Aspen Institute Tools for Teachers. PARCC ESC Update Nov 4 2013. Common Core Success - Science Lessons.