Tag Archives: Common Core State Standards

Common Core and Black History Month

Over at their “Closer Readings” blog on Thinkfinity, NEH EDSITEment has just posted a list of resources for teachers looking to incorporate literature and primary texts about Black History Month while meeting the demands of the Common Core English Language Arts Standards. As EDSITEment notes, “the Common Core’s English Language Arts Standards will shift the learning emphasis to frequent student engagement with reading complex informational texts and their … Read more »

Common Core and teacher evaluation reform

On Tuesday, we attended a presentation and panel discussion hosted by the Center for American Progress about the impact that Common Core assessments will have on teacher evaluation and professional development. Since so many of our readers are teachers who use and will be affected by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), here are some highlights from the conference. 

Oratory and the Common Core Standards

Over at the EDSITEment “Closer Readings” blog, Michael Steudeman, a former secondary school English teacher in New Orleans and currently a Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric at the University of Maryland, has some great tips on using oratory to meet Common Core Standards. “Great speeches,” he notes, provide “a way to combine instruction history/Social Studies with English Language instruction.” Specifically, speeches are a great way to meet two Common Core … Read more »

English class under the Common Core Standards

We noted in December that many English teachers are concerned that, under the new Common Core State Standards, “they will have to replace the dog-eared novels they love with historical documents and nonfiction texts.” This fear comes in large part from the Standards’ requirement that nonfiction texts comprise half of all reading assignments for elementary school students and 70 percent of reading assignments for students in grade 12. 

Writing for … Read more »

Welcome to the blogosphere, EDSITEment!

We’ve long admired the good work that EDSITEment, the learning hub for the National Endowment for the Humanities, does for teachers. Their website is full of resources, lesson plans, and educational links that bring “the best of the humanities on the web” to both teachers and students. (And, while you’re perusing the website, be sure to check out our “Meaning of America” curriculum as part of their … Read more »

Three R’s of Narrative Nonfiction

Earlier this week, we wrote about the important place that narrative nonfiction can have in English and social studies classrooms under the Common Core State Standards. Today, we suggest another nonfiction teaching resource: have students write their own nonfiction narrative.

Writing for the New York Times, Lee Gutkind, founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction Magazine, helps students write their own nonfiction by detailing the “three R’s of narrative … Read more »

How to Use Literary Nonfiction to Teach the Common Core

At the Common Core blog, Barbara Davidson reminds that the Common Core State Standards’ emphasis on nonfiction need not mean that teachers excise great literary works from their curricula. Instead, she writes, teachers should use the opportunity to expand their repertoire and use literary nonfiction texts and narratives to engage students. Nonfiction does not have to be informational texts filled with technical language and graphs and charts. 

One such … Read more »

Common Core and reading

Earlier this week, Lyndsey Layton wrote in the Washington Post about many English teachers’ concerns “that they will have to replace the dog-eared novels they love with historical documents and nonfiction texts” to align with the Common Core State Standards. These Standards, which have been adopted in 46 states so far, require that nonfiction texts comprise half of all reading assignments for elementary school students and 70 percent of … Read more »

Resource Spotlight: Common Core at the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress recently unveiled a great teaching resource for teachers beginning to use the Common Core State Standards, complete with lesson plans, primary source sets, and a searchable database that teachers can use to find material that meets the Common Core standards, their individual state standards, or even standards set by other organizations. Over at the Edudemic blog, Jeff Dunn highlights all the resources that … Read more »

Never mind algebra–is literature necessary?

Writing last month in The New York Times, Andrew Hacker, an emeritus professor of political science at Queens College, caused a stir when he suggested that perhaps high schools should not require all students to learn algebra. Responding to Hacker’s suggestion, Tim Clifford, an English teacher in New York City, raised the next question: If algebra is no longer necessary for students to learn, what about literature?

Clifford writes:

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