In this article you will learn…

• It is critical that students have a clear roadmap for what they will be learning, how they will learn it, and how they will demonstrate their new learning. In an integrated literacy unit that roadmap is a standards-based writing prompt and scoring guide.
• Students will be more confident when they understand what they are expected to produce—the prompt—and what high quality looks like—the scoring guide.
• What makes an effective writing prompt, what makes an effective scoring guide, and the sequence of an integrated literacy unit.

In this article you will learn…

• The standards clearly articulate a shared responsibility for literacy development and were designed with embedded correlations that support conceptual redundancy, reciprocity, and integration.
• The reading and writing standards are correlated by skills between reading type and content area.
• The standards are designed with correlations that lead to integration of standards across literacy strands and content areas. 

In this article you will learn…

• The stated purpose of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects is to provide a set of standards for the states to use in supporting all students to be college and career ready in literacy no later than the end of high school.
• A college and career ready student has the skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening to access information by reading and researching a variety of sources, analyze information by critiquing, clarifying, examining, and discussing it, and apply their new learning by communicating it to others through written and spoken language.
• For conceptual clarity, the authors divided the standards into the four literacy strands but make it clear that they should be integrated in the classroom and provide clear learning progressions, embedded skills within the standards, and correlations between the standards that support conceptual redundancy.