A Common Core Tale

Des Floyd

mis -

a prefix applied to various parts of speech, meaning ill, mistaken, wrong, incorrectly, or simply negating.

Gross Misinterpretations: Ten of the Tallest

Common Core

Tales Ever Told

1

Seventy percent of all texts students read in Language Arts classrooms must be informational while the remaining thirty percent must be literary in nature.

The 70-30 Rule

1

The percentages reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.

The 70-30 Rule

Click “True” or “False” to examine the original source of information. You

will be redirected to the official Common Core website.

2

The FEDS The standards originated out of a desire by the federal government to align the efforts of all US educational institutions.

2

The FEDS The federal government had no role in the development of the Common Core State Standards and will not have a role in their implementation. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort that is not part of No Child Left Behind and adoption of the standards is in no way mandatory.

3

Readings must be pulled solely from an exemplar collection of classic works (mythology, foundational US documents, Shakespeare) and such works have been pre-identified in the CCSS appendices.

“Dead White Men”

3

…while the standards make references to some particular forms of content, including mythology, foundational U.S. documents, and Shakespeare, they do not—indeed, cannot—enumerate all or even most of the content that students should learn.

“Dead White Men”

4

Text Complexity Lexile bands have dramatically increased. For example, The Grapes of Wrath is now considered a 2nd grade-level text.

4

Text Complexity The ELA Standards suggest “Grapes of Wrath” as a text that would be appropriate for 9th or 10th grade readers...Common Core supports an approach that considers 3 aspects of text complexity: quantitative (e.g., Lexiles), qualitative (e.g., levels of meaning, structure, knowledge demands/requisites), and reader/task considerations (motivation, knowledge, experience).

5

Altogether absent from the standards is an emphasis on digital literacy or technology as a tool for learning.

Digital Learning

5

To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old and new.

Digital Learning

PAUSE AND REFLECT

Exercise #1, next page

Did you hold any of the beliefs previously-mentioned?

What new information did you acquire?

Will this change a current practice/approach in any way?

Does your curriculum incorporate multiple forms of

digital/media literacy? What examples can you share?

6

Common Core Standards call for an abandonment of literacy strategies as they have been proven to be ineffective.

Goodbye,Reading Strategies

6

The standards are grade-specific standards but do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations. No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom.

Goodbye,Reading Strategies

7

Common Core Standards dictate that literacy instructors change the way they currently teach in order to ensure that students will master the standards.

Teach Like This

7

The Standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach. For instance, the use of play with young children is not specified by the Standards, but it is welcome as a valuable activity in its own right and as a way to help students meet the expectations in this document.

Teach Like This

PAUSE AND REFLECT

Exercise #2, next page

While the Common Core State Standards DO NOT

mandate how teachers will teach, the shift to college and

career readiness for all may call for dramatic changes in

how we teach.

What changes in your current attitude/belief system will

be necessary for successful implementation?

What specific changes will you need to make in order to

better prepare your students for college/career readiness?

What support will you need to make such changes?

8

The Common Core Standards clearly mandate three forms of writing: argumentative/persuasive, expository/informative, and narrative writing.

Write Like This

8

While there is a focus on those 3 forms…by emphasizing required achievements, the standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed. Thus, the standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning.

Write Like This

9

Reading, writing, and speaking/listening must be grounded in answers that can be found in texts.

Text-based Answers

9

“Finding answers” and “supporting answers with evidence” are not the same…Whatever they are reading, students must also show a steadily growing ability to discern more from and make fuller use of text, including making an increasing number of connections among ideas and between texts, considering a wider range of textual evidence, and becoming more sensitive to inconsistencies, ambiguities, and poor reasoning in texts.

Text-based Answers

10

The intention of standards developers was to equip educators with the tools necessary to prepare students for college.

In the Name of College Prep

10

The Standards are designed to build upon the most advanced current thinking about preparing all students for success in college AND their careers.

In the Name of College Prep

The End o http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy

o http://www.achievethecore.org/steal-these-tools

o http://www.corestandards.org/resources/myths-vs-facts

o http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/key-design-consideration

o http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/how-to-read-the-standards

o http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/students-who-are-college-and-career-ready-in-reading-writing-speaking-listening-language

Authors: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers

Common Core State Standards (ELA)

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington D.C.

Copyright Date: 2010

[email protected] 04/13/2013

Please note: The views expressed in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the views of the Florida Department of Education.