Informal Review and Reaction of the Common Core State Standards

It Was the Myth of Finger Prints

Do we all learn the same? I think not. How we approach the world of knowledge is unique to ourselves. Some people need to have a lot of background knowledge and others do not. How we are to implement the Common Core State Standards is up in the air and should be cautiously viewed as an opportunity . What I have read of the CCSS gives me both hope and a feeling of trepidation. On the one hand it is asking the teacher to link the text with the reader’s thoughts and interpretations. It is not saying that there is only one way of looking at a piece of literature, but multiple and all interpretations need to be justified with “evidence” from the text. On the other hand, institutions are seeing the new standards and may  just use the exemplars (suggested readings that are examples of complexity at certain grade levels), and just make things harder. Making things harder does not necessarily mean that students learn more; there needs to be supports and scaffolds in place to help students interact with more complex text in deeper ways. Schools are going to “do education” to students - in other words schools are not going to think about the student’s needs only their needs to show student growth, achievement, and college and career readiness. People have created and channeled knowledge as long as there have been people because we have a need to understand. Fulfilling that need to understand is meant to be joyful not tedious. Understanding speaks to our very nature of being and that is why we toil and wrestle with it: it feeds our purpose.   In light of my mixed emotions and perceptions I am reading articles on the Common Core State Standards to better be able to predict what they may be and what others in the field of literacy think about what they are.  I am writing my initial reactions down in this blog (breaking from my chapter notes) in hopes of learning what the Common Core State Standards have in store for Literacy Educators.  I hope that the educational community will put confidence in the human ability to make meaning and not focus on the political fear of falling behind.

Some people have the patience to read something three times and others do not.

Close Reading-Background Knowledge-Common Core

 In Timothy Shanahan’s recent article, “The Common Core Ate My Baby and Other Urban Legends” (December 2012/January 2013) he states what he believes are other’s misconceptions of the Common Core State Standards and what he thinks the Common Core Standards are. 

The first myth he wishes to dispel is that the new standards will stop teachers from setting purposes for reading or discussing prior knowledge. He uses as evidence that some of the first text books that were put out applying the Common Core stated that having students predict what they would read, discuss background knowledge, and establish the context for certain texts was not needed. The meaning would come without this. As a result many educators and researchers protested and this approach was recanted. That may be a myth that Shanahan debunked, but it brought up a whole series of other issues that are not addressed in his myth busting article. How can one moment it be one way and the next it another? He observes that although the textbook makers recanted they did so conditionally as, “Reading lessons will need to shift away from an emphasis on prereading to greater attention to rereading and follow up.” (p. 15).  Background knowledge should not be the star, but it is needed. How can readers make meaning without background knowledge? How do today’s students know the horrors of the Battle of Gettysburg or the struggle of Martin Luther King to get a satisfactory meaning from the text without knowing their context? Despite this he does argue of less prep for reading and more close reading. I would argue to motivate students to read closely one needs to give them compelling background knowledge for the student to want to reread something two or three times. I would further argue that rereading can be first listening to the piece and recording one’s reactions, reading others reactions to a piece and then going back to reread. Discussion would also be a necessary element here as learning is social and that educational element should not be dismissed. I think another place where the Common Core according to Shanahan is dangerously close to foolishness is when he states that all learners need the same things, “Preparing students to read a text is perfectly reasonable, and it’s compatible with the Common Core State Standards. But such preparation should be brief and should focus on providing students with the tools they need to make sense of the text on their own” (p. 13). This seems to imply that using a young learner’s need to socialize, differentiating learning and scaffolding to meet learners needs are not needed. From personal experience (very unscientific I know) the worst thing that you can do to me when I am under the pressure of needing to learn and preform something for a class is to leave me to my own devices and make it clear that I am left alone to my own devices. This application of the Common Core sounds like everything is an assessment without much preparation. 

Close reading is a new concept to me.  It sounds a bit like asking questions, giving a purpose for reading (maybe multiple purposes, one at a time), and monitoring oneself while reading.  It is a tool and can be used well and can be used poorly. Let it join the tool box of literacy educators along with schema and activation of background knowledge not replace it.

I was glad to hear that teaching phonological awareness, phonics, and fluency were still a part of the Common Core and that rumors to the contrary were just that, rumors.   

It was also a relief that there has been a misinterpretation of the amount of non-fiction a language arts teacher would have to teach. But we will need to wait on this myth as when listening to David Coleman, a chef architect of the Common Core, be interviewed on NPR there was not any recanting that language arts teachers will not have to conform to the 50 non percent and 50 fiction percent for middle school and the 70 percent non-fiction rule for high school when Coleman was questioned using those figures; Coleman supported and defended the use of nonfiction in ELA and those percentages.

Another “fact” Shanahan mythologized was that teachers were to teach readers using only complex and frustrational texts. Shanahan supports using texts with varying difficulty. “Even with older students, the idea is not to have students reading challenging texts exclusively. Students should have an array of reading experiences in the same way that a long-distance runner has a varied training schedule that intersperses different distances and speeds. These varied schedules enable the runner to build muscle, speed, and endurance” (p. 15). Textbooks are at an all-time low level of reading difficulty to keep readings at an independent reading level, but he says evidence does not support that it is helpful in raising reading levels. Even this course’s text states that when texts are simplified or make material “easier” they make comprehension more difficult as there is not enough schema to build knowledge to remember what is being read. Complex text may give the learner more material for schema and make it easier to remember what is read. Shanahan also defends the use of varied complexity of texts by stating that it will help to prepare students for college and the work place.      

The Common Core may not have eaten my baby, but it has managed to call into question how much background knowledge is needed, how much do we want our students to create meaning together, and how much will close reading take the place of the aforementioned items.

Ironically Sarah D. Sparks in “New Research Thinking Girds Core” (November 14, 2012) gives her readers the background knowledge of the creation of the Common Core State Standards so as to help with understanding of her article. Sparks states that the CCSS were created in reaction to the National Reading Panels 2000 report and the lack of quantitative evidence that implementing reading programs grounded in the five pillars of reading improved reading. One of observation of the common core is that it leaves out the means and emphasizes the ends. One interpretation of this is that it is thought to give teachers the purgative to use their professional judgment as to when to teach comprehension strategies and metacognitive training. But on the other side educators feel the CCSS do not look at the educational means of achieving its goals and because of this some feel as if the baby will be thrown out with the bath water because. Metacognitive strategies will be ignored as the ends are the goal not teaching learners how to learn. There was a call for research “of what good comprehension looks like and how to teach it in new contexts required by the common core” (S9).    

Fluency and comprehension grow together; we need more emphasis on non-fiction reading; addressing background knowledge through learning in-depth multiple meanings of vocabulary; support reading to learn to read-even difficult text; CCSS’s grade level descriptors needs to be substantiated with more research

The Hunger Games and the Common Core: Determining the Complexity of Contemporary Texts by Maureen McLaughlin and Brenda J. Overturf (December 2012/January 2013

This is by far the most optimistic reading and practical article of the common core and uses literature form the Common Core State Standards to back it up. It tackles the questions of what is text complexity using the three part triangle and gives an example of how text complexity is measured using the Hunger Games.   

What are exemplar texts and what is their role in the new era of the Common core state Standards?

First they are not mandated and they do not contain all the literature or informational text that should be taught at a given grade level. They are to serve as guideposts in the selection of texts used by educators. Text complexity is a three way model that takes into consideration

Cognitive Capabilities

Reading Skills

Motivation and Engagement with task and text

Prior Knowledge and Experience

Content and/or Theme concerns

Complexity of Associated Tasks  

  

NPR also had a broadcast on the CCSS speaking with various experts, authors, educators. Interesting listen. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=01-19-2013


Below is an exert from Text Complexity and the Common Core Standards: Q&A with Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey
It too is states a common sense approach to the Common Core. Novels and original non-fiction texts do not necessarily need to be made easier, instead we need to prepare the reader to read, help the reader while reading (which may mean rereading), and create ways for students to respond that reflect the complexity of what they have just read. 
Q: But there are concerns about this, too. Can you talk about that?
Fisher: The danger is that there’s a possibility that the conversation about text complexity will get reduced to a booklist of required readings without attention to the instruction that needs to accompany them. It’s not simply a matter of passing out books and telling students to read the next chapter and be prepared to discuss it tomorrow. Complex texts require that teachers model and think aloud, and use guided instruction to strategically question, prompt, and cue. In addition, students need time to engage collaboratively with one another to clarify their understanding. It’s not just moving directly to independent reading. That’s a recipe for failure.
Frey: Another concern is a regression to the whole-class novel as a means for instruction. The practices we know to be effective, such as differentiating texts and using discussion in the context of book clubs and reciprocal teaching, haven’t changed. Text complexity pushes us as educators to think about the ways we can ensure that students are coming into contact with literary and informational texts that challenge their thinking. However, it doesn’t mean that we should disregard what we know about good instruction and curriculum development.
Q: That might be the biggest question of all–you can differentiate?
Fisher: Of course! Advanced readers need opportunities to interact with texts that continue to challenge their thinking, and those that struggle with the text need additional supports and scaffolds, such as those offered through guided instruction and collaborative learning.
Frey: For instance, students who struggle may be reading and discussing a short piece of text repeatedly to build their capacity to read closely. They should have informational texts that build their background knowledge for understanding literary ones.
Fisher: And all students need lots of opportunities to participate in text-based discussions that require them to return to the text to provide evidence, support claims, and ask questions of the author. We need to make sure that personal connections are an invitation into a text, but do not represent the end point.
Frey: I think David Coleman, project editor for the CCSS ELA standards, said it best: An important goal is to teach them to “read like detectives and write like reporters.” Engaging with complex texts gives them opportunities to flex these mental muscles.

Preliminary Final Thoughts

In Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) Azar Nafisi reflects frequently on her clandestine literature classes because after all the teacher and her students are risking their lives to participate in it. One of her thoughts about this she relates to Nabokov and a reappearing theme of meaning and living in a world where one’s own meaning can be created by oneself. This self-created meaning is the quintessence of life. His characters are not allowed to meet the world on their own terms but always on someone else’s terms. In the preface to Bend Sinister, Nabokov talks about a link to another world, a puddle that appears at different points in his novel: ‘”a rent in his world leading to another world of tenderness, brightness and beauty ’” (p. 56). She also quotes Nabokov in an Invitation to a Beheading when its hero speaks of a “’rare kind of time…the pause, hiatus, when the heart is like a feather…part of my thoughts is always crowding around the invisible umbilical cord that joins this world to something" (p. 56). Reading is many things. It is the transfer of knowledge, it is a conversation through time, it is transaction, it is making meaning knowing that the meaning made can change, is flexible, and is a window in as well as out. My hope is that the common core will expand this window creating a world of multi-literate inhabitants, not that it will get bogged down in its own ideology and become unresponsive to the needs of readers and educators alike.