This
summer I taught an online webinar on Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for
High School for The Principal Center’s program titled Smarter Online Common
Core Educator Roundtable (SOCCER.) I approached the topic from the author’s point
of view.
Long before I
committed to teach this webinar, I’d printed out the CCSS. I fully intended to give the topic careful
consideration. I’d even thumbed through
them several times. I told myself I’d go
through the standards and get a handle on what the fuss was all about. But every time I looked at the thick stack of
pages, I’d think about all the other things I needed to do and I’d do them
instead.
As the webinar
date approached, I faced a very real deadline.
I had five hours of time to fill—one hour a day for five days. There is nothing like a deadline to provide
the necessary motivation. I picked up my
highlighter, ink pen, and the hefty stack of Common Core State Standards and went
to work.
When I begin
research on a new book, initially I get a general understanding of the topic,
and then I concentrate on specifics.
Studying the CCSS was the same way.
First I needed to understand the “big picture” of the Common Core. I studied the standards, I compared the
standards, I highlighted the standards, I made notes on the standards, I read
the overviews, I consulted the exemplar texts—you get the picture. After a while, I made sense of them. By the time of the webinar, I could help
others make some sense of them. Maybe
some of the “big picture” details I learned will help you too.
The CCSS were
created to ensure that American high school graduates are prepared for college
level work (without remedial classes) or the workforce. Also to ensure that American students are
prepared to compete in the global marketplace.
Before
the CCSS were put into place, education standards varied from state to
state. In our mobile society, common
standards across the country were needed to make sure a student who moved from
one state to another would not be left behind or be too far ahead academically. Common standards were needed make sure every
American student would receive the best education possible no matter where they
live. A student who attends school in a
large city and a student who attends school in a small rural community both need
a high quality education. In order for
students all across the country to receive the same quality education, the CCSS
established what each of them should know by the time they graduate from High
School. The idea is that each student will learn the
skill sets set forth in each grade level, which will be the foundation for the
skills added the next year. The
standards for 11-12 grades represent the skills every American student should
have when they graduate and go out into the world.
According
to the CCSS Myth vs. Fact page, the text complexity high school students are
reading now does not match the text complexity they will face in college or the
work place. Therefore, the goal of the CCSS is to build a
“staircase” of reading complexity throughout a student’s educational
experience. Reading informational text
is needed to teach students how to do close reading of text, how to think
deeply about the text, and how to participate in discussions to gain greater
understanding of the text.
The
CCSS do not dictate how a teacher
teaches those skills. The teachers and
school systems will decide how they will teach these skills required by the
CCSS. Teachers will build lessons for
their class just like they always have. They
will have the freedom to choose complex informational books that are
appropriate for their classrooms.
Perhaps the biggest change for some is that CCSS requires every teacher
to teach literacy alongside their content areas (this includes teachers of social
studies, history, science and technical subjects).
The
CCSS brings with it a renewed focus on informational text. The standards require teachers to use
complex, literary nonfiction books in the classroom. This is good news for those of us who write
books that fit this need. Perhaps now,
amazing nonfiction books will take their rightful place in educating students to
succeed in a nonfiction world.
What
do I think after studying the Common Core State Standards? In a word:
WELCOME!
Carla Killough McClafferty
1 comment:
I also approach CCSS from two perspectives--zooming out and zooming in. That is, we need the big picture of where we're going and the small snapshots of some of the small day-to-day pieces. For teachers, it's a dialog between yearly goals and the everyday experience. When we incorporate nonfiction into the classroom, we think about it from these perspectives. We're asking, How does the activity we're doing today contribute to a larger goal?
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