Common Core standards -- really?

[Gwen in VA]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/27/why-all-cool-kids-are-reading-executive-order-13423/

 

An article on the Common Core standards in English.

 

Education seems to be the only arena where human subject testing is allowed! Why can't we try some of these ideas out on a small group and see the results first before turning the entire public education system topsy-turvy?

[Candid]

This has been discussed before and I think the general impression I got was that this Fox News piece is incorrect.

 

I found some detail here:

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

 

I see nothing in the Lit part about reading 70% of lit in nonfiction texts which seems to be the point of the Fox article. I suspect that might be an overall goal and if you consider high school subjects, I would assume 70% in a nonfiction text might be about right. While lit would have fiction and poetry, math, science, history, and most other subjects will have a text.

[NotSoObvious]

I'm sorry, I see Fox News and... ;)

[Sebastian (a lady)]

This has been discussed before and I think the general impression I got was that this Fox News piece is incorrect.

 

I found some detail here:

http://www.corestand...A Standards.pdf

 

I see nothing in the Lit part about reading 70% of lit in nonfiction texts which seems to be the point of the Fox article. I suspect that might be an overall goal and if you consider high school subjects, I would assume 70% in a nonfiction text might be about right. While lit would have fiction and poetry, math, science, history, and most other subjects will have a text.

 

I was on an email list for AP English teachers over the fall. There was quite a bit of gripping about this from them. Several pointed out that the Common Core requirement could and should be met across the whole of the curriculum. Just the reading done in science and history should get a kid to around 66%. Unfortunately several other teachers came back with complaints that their district or state had imposed a 70% of the English class must be in non-fiction, informational texts requirement. They were pretty much appalled and were quite frustrated, but had not gotten anywhere with trying to get the new requirement modified at their schools.

 

There have been columns about the issue from a wide range of sources. I personally found the long quotation at the end of this onecaptured my frustrations well. My favorite bit:

 

The New Common Core Standards are meant to prepare our students to think deeply on subjects they know practically nothing about, because instead of reading a lot about anything, they will have been exercising their critical cognitive analytical faculties on little excerpts amputated from their context. So they can think “deeply,†for example, about Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, while knowing nothing about the nation’s Founding, or Slavery, or the new Republican Party, or, of course, the American Civil War.

 

 

Yes my kids read the Gettysburg Address. No, they didn't read the Emancipation Proclamation. But they did read Red Badge of Courage (historical fiction written by a non-veteran), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas (a primary source), and Battle Cry of Freedom (a history of the war that is just under 1000 pages). They also read 10 chapters of Uncle Tom's Cabin (fiction, but contemporary to the period) and a section of Hard Tack and Coffee (memoir). They also analyized sections of the military record of an ancestor who was stationed at and hospitalized at Harper's Ferry (primary sources).

 

Of course, this is not a course of study that works if you have students who haven't mastered reading at the fourth grade level by high school. A thousand pages of adult level history is not something they are ready to tackle. And so many medium and lower level histories are contrived, dry, and deceptive in where they choose to place their focus. There is an awful lot of truth that can be conveyed to lower level readers through good fiction. And a lower level in reading is a measurement of where they are now, not where they have to stay.

[Candid]

I was on an email list for AP English teachers over the fall. There was quite a bit of gripping about this from them. Several pointed out that the Common Core requirement could and should be met across the whole of the curriculum. Just the reading done in science and history should get a kid to around 66%. Unfortunately several other teachers came back with complaints that their district or state had imposed a 70% of the English class must be in non-fiction, informational texts requirement. They were pretty much appalled and were quite frustrated, but had not gotten anywhere with trying to get the new requirement modified at their schools.

 

Here's my take:

 

First, they should do a little nonfiction sort of reading in lit in the form of literary analysis. As this quote indicates only 4% of the overall total would be left. That's probably enough, especially if the teacher does a bit of grammar or writing intervention with some material read for that, they might get as much as 20% of their overall English course from a text source.

 

The district or state stuff is stupid and the teachers need to make a big stink about it. If they are unionized they should get their union to make a big stink too. The administrators are being what I think of as overly literal and the teachers need to fight that fight. (And hey, I'd have one about how dumb administrators are while I was at it; see if I could get some admin jobs cut while getting some teaching jobs back.)

[Reya]

I see nothing in the Lit part about reading 70% of lit in nonfiction texts which seems to be the point of the Fox article. I suspect that might be an overall goal and if you consider high school subjects, I would assume 70% in a nonfiction text might be about right. While lit would have fiction and poetry, math, science, history, and most other subjects will have a text.

 

 

This is not what English teachers are being told. They are being told that THEY have to shift focus to nonfiction and away from literature.

 

Right now, students usually don't read their textbooks. They carry them around for problem sets.

[Reya]

This is what CC says:

 

"Fulfilling the Standards for 6–12 ELA requires

much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary

nonfiction—than has been traditional. Because the ELA classroom must focus

on literature (stories, drama, and poetry) as well as literary nonfiction, a great

deal of informational reading in grades 6–12 must take place in other classes if

the NAEP assessment framework is to be matched instructionally."

 

This isn't what's happening.

[Nan in Mass]

This is what CC says:

 

"Fulfilling the Standards for 6–12 ELA requires

much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary

nonfiction—than has been traditional. Because the ELA classroom must focus

on literature (stories, drama, and poetry) as well as literary nonfiction, a great

deal of informational reading in grades 6–12 must take place in other classes if

the NAEP assessment framework is to be matched instructionally."

 

This isn't what's happening.

 

Obviously, many administrators did not learn to read non-fiction.

[readinmom]

Sorry, but it's true. I will not be teaching literature next year except to teach the literary elements using a "snippet" of the source. The reasoning is absurd. The only bargaining ground I know of at my grade level within my district was To Kill a Mockingbird and "Romeo and Juliet". Ironically, these are the only pieces we are required to teach, anyways. Just saying Common Core makes my stomach hurt. Not everyone is meant for college, and not everyone was meant to be measured by an invisible measuring stick.