Writing and the Common Core State Standards

Professor Dorothy Strickland of Rutgers University last week made a PowerPoint presentation to the New Jersey Board of Education on The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS), which might mark the beginning of a wider discussion how these standards will change the curriculum.  We think it's important that those in education looking to improve college readiness get involved in the process, especially before major corporations begin selling their solutions.   Ultimately, the spirit of the Common Core can only be honored if we find a way of communicating its standards to teachers so that they can put them into practice themselves rather than purchasing some "one size fits all" solution.

As a slide in Professor Strickland's presentation cautions, it's important to "Establish a long-term program of information, communication, and active collaboration with all stakeholders" before buying into the "mass delivery of standardized instruction."  After all: "Knowledge and understanding of the Standards and the new Assessment Programs will be critical for good consumerism."

The Rutgers Writing Program is definitely a stakeholder in seeing that students are honestly made ready for college success.  We hope that the Common Core does not go the way of No Child Left Behind and become just another test-focused program.  As you move from recommending pedagogy to developing assessments, though, there is always the danger that standards will get boiled down into bubbles that #2 pencils can fill and a large corporation can sell.   And then the teachers become simply the means of delivering content.

Some of the news coverage of the Common Core suggests that we should be cautious about it being hijacked by the education-industrial complex.  Though the CCSS initiative began about two years ago and its standards, released last year, have been adopted by 44 states, it seems it only began to make the news when corporations began showing interest, as when the Gates Foundation announced that it will partner with Pearson Publishing to develop Common Core materials for classroom use, or when other potential content providers sent out press releases about their plans (such as: "LitLife to Assist Schools with Common Core Compliance").

Newspapers have been late to cover the CCSS, but a few have done a good job of reporting its calls for change.  Some of the better recent stories include "A Trial Run for School Standards That Encourage Deeper Though" (The New York Times), "Education Standards to Be Unveiled" (Charleston Daily Mail), and "Will Common Core Standards Make Students College-Ready?" (Huffington Post).  Last week's story in the Charleston Daily Mail emphasized the need for more complex non-fiction readings and more expository writing in the English and language arts curriculum: 

Assistant State Superintendent Robert Hull says changes to [English and language arts] will primarily involve the use of more 21st century literature and nonfiction, rather than just fiction. Educators also want a better focus on the writing process.

The amount of informational texts (nonfiction) compared to literary (fiction) found in classrooms is not known, but Edwina Howard-Jack, English/language arts coordinator for the state office of instruction, says the new standards place much more emphasis on informational texts.

Even in kindergarten, the new English/language arts standards call for half of the texts to be informational and the other half literary. By senior year, that would become 70 percent informational and 30 percent literary.

Another change will be reflected in increasing the difficulty in the required texts. Howard-Jack says there is generally a two-grade difference in the level of difficulty of most required texts currently offered.

'In working with teachers within the West Virginia framework, the teachers are just thrilled with these new standards and objectives. This is the direction we need to go and will make a difference in public and higher education,' Howard-Jack said.

Tightening the standards to become more focused on factual texts is also reflected in changes to writing expectations. Less emphasis will be placed on narrative and more on argumentative and explanatory writing.

The Rutgers Writing Program has long advocated the use of non-fiction prose about complex ideas and the need to emphasize the reading and writing of expository (rather than narrative) prose in high school.  The only way to engage students with this literature and the ideas it contains is to get them writing on their own, applying those ideas in novel ways, and making connections across multiple complex texts.  It's not something you can boil down to filling in bubbles with a number two pencil.  And it requires knowledgeable and engaged teachers to administer.  We hope everyone keeps that in mind.