Hints for creating your own alignment
If you choose to create your alignment, you will find that developing one is no simple task — there are many ways to correlate topics. We hope you will find the following hints helpful as you create your own alignment.
Suggested steps for completing alignments
- Gather all your information (Core Knowledge Sequence, state standards)
- Review and study the Core Knowledge Sequence and your state standards
- Choose an appropriate user-friendly format (see examples)
- Start with your area and/or grade level of expertise
- Choose a location that is quiet and free from interruptions
- Cut and paste (literally)
- Work through all the content areas and/or grade levels
- Don’t be too literal — Core Knowledge and your state standards will not match word-for-word
- This is not an exact science — encourage debate and dialogue!
- Include ALL standards in the alignment. There is a place to include those that do not correlate.
- Type your correlation and allow time for feedback and revisions
- Type standards AND numbers. Numbers are not useful without the explanation.
- Use an abbreviated "at a glance" document for planning
- Use a detailed document as supporting material
Other Hints
What if topics from Core Knowledge are assigned to a different level than our state standards or testing requirements?
- You may move the content topic ONLY if the content is explicitly listed in your state standards. For example, if the state standard for Grade 2 says, "The student will explain how the contributions of ancient China and Egypt have influenced the present world in terms of architecture, inventions, the calendar, and written language," then you may move the Core Knowledge topic of Egypt from Grade 1 to Grade 2. Moving topics arbitrarily is strongly discouraged since it leads to gaps and repetitions in student learning.
Once your school has a completed alignment with our new philosophy, and you are willing to share it, please contact for details about the benefits of Sharing Your Knowledge!
Templates
Click on the grade level to open these Microsoft Word documents.
Right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As..." to save the file to your computer.
| Kindergarten | Grade 3 | Grade 6 |
| Grade 1 | Grade 4 | Grade 7 |
| Grade 2 | Grade 5 | Grade 8 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
 |
|
||
Last updated: Fri, May 23 2008
