Common Core State Standards: Confusion Reigns Over What Students Should Read
The Washington Post's Lyndsey Layton has a thoughtful -- and fresh -- take on the implementation of theCommon Core State Standards, detailing how educators seem to be misinterpreting the new requirement that non-fiction texts eventually make up 70 percent of a student's classroom reading.
This is a wrinkle I haven't yet seen reported, and it certainly raises a lot of questions. Here's a couple of mine: If the expectation is really that non-fiction texts will be used by teachers in all subject areas, and not just English class, why are those critical instructions buried in a footnote in a 60-plus page primer on the Common Core -- as Layton pointed out? If English teachers are indeed abandoning literature in favor of non-fiction in a misguided attempt to comply with the new standards, shouldn't somebody be calling a staff meeting?
This is a critical juncture for the Common Core initiative, which has been adopted in some form by 46 states and
This is a wrinkle I haven't yet seen reported, and it certainly raises a lot of questions. Here's a couple of mine: If the expectation is really that non-fiction texts will be used by teachers in all subject areas, and not just English class, why are those critical instructions buried in a footnote in a 60-plus page primer on the Common Core -- as Layton pointed out? If English teachers are indeed abandoning literature in favor of non-fiction in a misguided attempt to comply with the new standards, shouldn't somebody be calling a staff meeting?
This is a critical juncture for the Common Core initiative, which has been adopted in some form by 46 states and