Common CoreUncommon Challenge

Getting Real!Marc Aronson

http://www.corestandards.org/

CC and You• CC is the one chance for the librarian to

step forward and make himself/herself the heart of the community, the go-to resource for teachers, students, parents

• CC is the ideal opportunity for team teaching, for Social Studies, Art, Music, Science, Math, ELA to work together

But• You can only step into that role if you

understand what CC asks of you, and if you build teams with teachers, curriculum supervisors, school librarians, and administrators

• The opportunity is here now –

take it!

In a word• The Third “C” in “Common Core” is

“Collaboration”• The librarian must be the hub of the

community; teachers must work together

• You can, if you have the tools, and the vocabulary, to meet the CC challenge

What Is the Common Core?

• ELA CC – our focus today

• Math CC – in place

• Science, Social Studies – to come(Draft NYS CC K-8 SS Framework – 9/13/12)

• Assessments – to come (but we have a good sense of what they will be)

The Key to Everything• ELA standards are for reading, not content• Everything we are going to talk about

today is in the ELA World• But reading undergirds everything else• And reading is what you have to offer• From 2nd grade on, reading does NOT

mean simply decoding text

CC Turns Reading Inside Out

• Reading becomes active, not passive• Reading is questioning, not absorbing• Readers ask how we know, rather than reciting

what others claim they know• We want students to see the teachers, the public

library, the school as the real Web – a place bursting with questions, ideas, knowledge, challenge – you are the search team asking questions and finding answers together

ELA Standards Adopted by

• All states except

• Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia

• Minnesota adopted ELA but not Math

• Texas is developing own ELA standards on same principles as CC, but not as part of national initiative

What Could Possibly Get 46 States to Agree On Anything?

• Crisis 1: students who graduate HS not ready for college or work

• Crisis 2: state assessments so different that Mississippi HS grad was at the level of Massachusetts 8th grader

• Crisis 3: localism of teaching did not match population on the move

• Crisis 4: post HS work depends on mastery of many kinds of media

Our Focus Today Is

Crisis One• One third of students arriving in college

so behind need remediation• Students extend college stay past 6

years or drop out, saddled with debt• Students not trained in the skills which

available jobs require• In other words, K-12 education is not

doing its basic job

ObjectionsPoverty

Poverty

Poverty

Poverty

Yes, but

Why?

When the pathway to reading runs almost entirely through fiction, students do not learn how to read a nonfiction book until they hit textbooks in 4th grade – thus “4th grade slump”

• Texts aimed at K-12 increasingly easy, while texts students need to read after HS increasingly complex

• We don’t build the “reading stamina”

that students need

• K-12 reading focused on fiction and personal response (“I feel,” “I relate to”) when college and work require analysis of what text says, how it says it, and the evidence it uses

• How you read shapes how you will write

As the man responsible

for the CC said “When you have a job, no one

asks you to write about what you feel about a problem, instead they want your analysis of the issue and your proposal for what to do about it.”

CC Shifts• From fiction focus to nonfiction

• From subjective response to objective analysis

• From write to persuade (feeling) to write to make a case (argument)

• From nonfiction as bland to nonfiction as having a point of view

What Is Wrong With This Picture?• Pure nonfiction informs and instructs, sticking to the facts

Creative nonfiction includes a/the story surrounding the facts by introducing place, scene, setting

Pure nonfiction describes the subject(s)Creative nonfiction adds characterization so that the reader becomes involved and can relate to the subject.

Pure nonfiction is journalistic and scholarlyCreative nonfiction employs a literary voice-a tone- to the story

Pure nonfiction focuses on fact.Creative nonfiction allows the reader to hear the author’s perspectives

Pure nonfiction is thoroughly researched Creative nonfiction is thoroughly researched

Pure nonfiction never invents dialog, facts, or eventsCreative nonfiction shouldn’t either- theoretically

As Susan Taylor Brown states, "If you want to teach young read ers about the Irish potato famine, the rain forest, or even math, tell them a story. Tell an interesting tale about interesting people doing interesting things and readers come back for more, sometimes not even realiz ing they are reading about something that really happened. This is creative nonfiction."

• Donna Bowman Brattman http://donnabowmanbratton.blogspot.com/2010/08/nonfiction-vs-creative-nonfiction-vs.html

Everything

The dominance of nonfiction“Narrative” and “Informational” texts are to be:

• 50% of all reading in Elementary School

• 55% of all reading in Middle School

• 70% of all reading in High School

• This is across all subjects from Language Arts to Social Studies and Science

Teams• It is IMPOSSIBLE to reach those

percentages unless teachers and librarians are in contact.

• How can you measure reading across a grade unless you share reading lists and coordinate assignments?

Common Core Myths

• Rumors you may have heard:

• Appendix B; Short texts; no biography

• Are they true?

• How to tell – The Common Core Approach

Perspective or POV “What is right in

front of my eyes

that I am missing?” -- Dr. Lee Berger

Point of View – POV• Textbooks and traditional K-12 nonfiction aims to

be “objective”• CC says show evidence, show sources, yes, but

all NF has an approach, an aim, a style, an agenda.

• Students must learn to compare and contrast in texts – just as they must on the net

• NF can have voice, texture, passion, and can engage the senses

Responses to Crisis One: Pre-K and Elementary

• Pre-K to elementary students need to learn elements and structures of nonfiction books

– a carnival of shelf talkers

• The library should be bursting with text and text features calling out for attention

CC Considerations NF Elements

• Feature NF text elements:

• Title, subtitle, TOC, running head, section head, caption, sidebar, glossary, index, sources, bibliography, author bio, author note, expert or consultant named

• Art and text interaction: caption, placement

Cluster One Treasure Hunt

• Create a scorecard – define the text features and turn the students loose.

• How many kinds of text features can students find?

• Display a group of book on the same subject, with shelf-talkers highlighting what features each has or does not have.

Text Complexity• Not just a matter of Lexile or other metric

• Hemingway is not for third graders

• Dinosaur names do not require advanced skills

• Crossing point of difficulty in decoding and richness of expression and thought.

• Text that asks more of the reader and offers more in return.

• Reading challenge as sport

But What If My Students Read Below Grade?

• Engagement - When a students wants to learn, complexity is not a hindrance, POV comes naturally when students care

• Debate is your friend – so long as it runs on evidence and argument, not emotion

Multimodal• Visual literacy is literacy – how to read a

photograph, a painting, a sculpture• Media literacy is literacy – how to read an

advertisement, a sound bite, a news report• Audio literacy is literacy – how does sound

shape experience? • Scientific literacy is literacy – how do we

know what we know?• Numeracy is literacy

Students need all of these• They need to be able to “read” across

many kinds of sources, compare them, contrast them, evaluate them, and create within them

• That is true to being alive in 2012, and it makes everything about learning come alive.

Combinations• From New IRA “White Paper”:

http://tinyurl.com/iraccwhitepaper

• “Provide research opportunities that involve reading both print and digital texts, and that require writing in response to reading.”

Cluster Two• Perspective and Multimodality joined in lively displays:• Materials that show students how authors use evidence

to build arguments• Displays using mixture of modes – print, printout, audio,

URL, video – on same subject• SLJ feature from Marc and Sue Bartle:

http://www.slj.com/2012/11/standards/common-core/putting-it-all-together-wondering-how-to-put-common-core-into-practice-its-easier-than-you-think/

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmoozYQXl3chdFdkNXBSbzBZN3dHMkJ6enQ4ckJuT2c

ExamplesThree Little Pigs

Lewis and Clark

Boxing

Graffiti

Outsiders - Gangs• Create a display or prepare a lesson, depending on how

much class time you have

Students Must Distinguish• Main Point and Subsidiary Points

• What Is This Piece (book, magazine, image, video, website) saying?

• How does it say it?

• How do these two pieces discuss the same issue in different ways?

Demonstrate and Display• With a class, compare and contrast same

subject across media, just as you did same folktale for POV

• In display juxtapose book, magazine, database, website printout on same subject, highlight differences (not as ranking but as travel guide, what do each do? How?)

Assessments• ELA CC standards released in 2010, are

being put in place now.

• CC assessments start in 2013 in some states, to be in place in all by 2014

• Assessments being developed by two distinct groups but can be sure focus will be on

Exactly What CC Emphasizes

Nonfiction

Evidence

Argument

Point of View

Want a Sneak Peek?• http://www.p12.nysed.gov/apda/common-c

ore-sample-questions/

• All of the questions require close reading of text to determine what it does and does not say

• Train student to see what is there in the text, not what s/he feels about the text

Resources• CC is the land of compare and contrast

• CC is the land of POV

• CC is the land of juxtaposed sources rather than homogenized textbooks

• The more chances you give students to see different “takes” in print, online, broadcast, etc. the better they will do on these tests

We are surrounded with opinion• Op-eds• Sports talk radio• Political cartoons• Campaign ads• Commercial ads• Reality contest shows • Feature these, engage students, have them

research, post, argue, listen, compare, judge

ResourcesCC Builds

• Evidence in text in 3rd grade becomes comparison of fact and myth in 4th grade and recognition of perspective within a story in 5th grade

• The more you provide linked resources that grow in complexity and challenge – almost a computer game “level up” model – the better students will do on these tests

Resources• CC focuses on argument and evidence in

writing, not emotional persuasion

• The more chances students have to read effective arguments/contentions and learn how the author build the case, and then to apply those understandings in their own research reports, the better they will do on these tests.

Resources• By 7th grade CC asks students to use

many kinds of evidence and to learn how to compare, contrast, and assimilate information that comes from distinct media sources

• The more resources you provide for students to search across media to find meaningful information the better they will do on these tests

Your challenge Your opportunity

• Many in your community do not know nonfiction books outside of textbooks

• May not like nonfiction

• May not expect their kids to like them (which can be a misreading of especially boys and their interest in everything from facts and records to disasters, battles, and cars)

Bringing It All Home

• CC is a wonderful opportunity to link teachers and librarians, to engage students, and to see books and other resources in new ways.

• Begin by knowing your way around the books yourself

Resources• Orbis Pictus

• NCSS-CBC Notables

• NSTA-CBC Notables

• Sibert Award

• YALSA-NF Award

• “Consider the Source” – MA column in SLJ

• http://classroombookshelf.blogspot.com/

Change Is Here

Embrace it!http://nonfictionandthecommoncore.blogspot.com