What Is Not Covered in the Standards
Keep in mind that the standards themselves are end-point results. It has been left to educators, instructional leaders, collaborative planning teams, and curriculum developers to design the ways to get there. The CCSS state, “The Standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach” (NGA & CCSSO, 2010a, p. 6). This is intentional, as it is essential for educators at the local, state, and national levels to engage in dialogue about essential topics related to content and scope, intervention, methods and materials, and supports and expectations for English learners, students with special needs, and students who struggle.
The Content and Scope
The Common Core ELA standards describe essential outcomes, but do not address all aspects of learning, or even disciplines, that are important for learners. Even within the scope of the English language arts, not all aspects are featured. Consequently, some states have supplemented the standards with additional content. For example, California added 15 percent of content to the CCSS, such as career development documents to the domain Text Types and Purposes in W.8.2 (California Department of Education, n.d.; Sacramento County Office of Education, 2012). The Common Core State Standards are intended to guide the development of formative and summative assessments. It is important for states to cap their additions to ensure they do not undermine this design and make it impossible to develop meaningful assessments that can be used across states. This process will ensure that assessment results based on the CCSS will allow for comparisons of student performance across states. PARCC and SBAC, the two consortia developing standards-based assessments, consist of representatives from states that provide additional opportunities for collaboration among states. Teachers should check their state’s department of education website to determine any content that’s been added to the CCSS.
Intervention Methods and Materials
The standards should be viewed as end-of-grade expectations, but they do not in any way describe either the approaches for intervention or the materials used to accompany them. In every school, some students perform well below grade-level expectations, and some currently benefit from a response to intervention (RTI) approach to learning. RTI involves identifying whether, and to what extent, a struggling student is responding positively to intervention that has been designed to meet the individual learner’s needs. His or her responsiveness (or unresponsiveness) to intervention is determined through dynamic, ongoing assessment that monitors student progress and shapes modifications to the assessment plan. The CCSS ELA do not discuss RTI; however, we will explore this topic in chapter 5.
Supports and Expectations for English Learners
The NGA and CCSSO include people knowledgeable about issues related to English learners. NGA and CCSSO acknowledge that students acquiring English require supports and that these supports should be carefully designed to meet the needs of these students (see “Application of Common Core State Standards for English Language Learners,” www.corestandards.org/assets/application-for-english-learners.pdf). They caution, however, that accommodations should not result in a reduction of expectations, which could severely compromise students’ educational progress. The limited information about supports and expectations for ELs in the CCSS implies that meeting the needs of these students is a local responsibility.
Supports and Expectations for Students With Special Needs
Similarly, the CCSS do not define supports for students with special needs beyond assistive technologies such as Braille, screen-reader technologies, sign language, and so on. Use of such devices is determined through an individual education program (IEP) and supersedes educational standards. These devices and approaches are more commonly used for students with sensory or motor disabilities, or in some cases, for those with mild disabilities that involve reading and learning (see “Application to Students with Disabilities,” www.corestandards.org/assets/application-to-students-with-disabilities.pdf). What has not been determined is how these supports and expectations might be adapted for students with more significant cognitive and intellectual delays and disabilities. It is likely that development of these systems will continue as general and special educators collaborate. Participation and access are priorities, and the CCSS language mirrors that used in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (http://idea.ed.gov): “The Standards should also be read as allowing for the widest possible range of students to participate fully from the outset and as permitting appropriate accommodations to ensure maximum participation of students with special education needs” (NGA & CCSSO, 2010a, p. 6).
Support and Expectations for Students Who Struggle
The Common Core State Standards do not provide specific advice about supporting students who struggle with school. Instead, there is recognition among educators that reduced expectations often cause students to fail to reach high levels of achievement. Support for students who struggle with school should be part of the ongoing conversations within collaborative planning teams. As Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, and Robert Eaker (2008) note, collaborative teams should discuss what to do when students fail to achieve the expected learning targets. During discussions, team members can identify additional instructional interventions to close the gap between students who mastered the content and those who did not, just as the tenth-grade English team did at the beginning of this chapter. This may involve reteaching content through guided instruction or targeting students for response to intervention efforts (Fisher & Frey, 2010). A pyramid of response to intervention that provides teams with systems for intervention can be helpful (Buffum, Mattos, & Weber, 2009). In this book, we focus on quality teaching for all students and encourage the development of collaborative planning teams to monitor and adapt instruction to ensure learning for all students. This systematic approach to students who struggle in school has a better potential to result in positive outcomes than reducing expectations or preventing students from accessing high-quality instruction aligned with the Common Core State Standards. That’s not to say that teachers should avoid scaffolding or support. As we will discuss in each of the teaching scenarios in this book, teaching Common Core ELA well requires a deep understanding of the content as well as skills in responding to students’ understanding and misunderstanding.
Conclusion
The Common Core State Standards for English language arts present high school English educators with challenges as well as opportunities. The shifts in our ways of thinking about literacy development are considerable, and require us to collectively look at our own practices and plan collaboratively with our colleagues. These expectations can pose a major roadblock for schools that do not have a forum for conducting this important work. It is not the kind of work that can be accomplished with a few workshops and some follow-up meetings. Determining how these changes will be implemented, as well as identifying the effective practices that have already proven to be successful, will require focused and sustained attention as educators develop curriculum, design formative assessments, and interpret results. Collaborative teams within a PLC are an ideal forum for accomplishing this work. Indeed, the major shifts described in this chapter parallel the characteristics of successful PLCs: they emphasize collaboration and communication across disciplines and grade levels, and they reward those who seek to deepen their understanding of their professional practice.
CHAPTER 2
Implementing the Common Core State Standards for Reading
KEY QUESTIONS
• To what extent does your team understand the Reading standards What is familiar? What is new? What may be challenging for students? What may be challenging for teachers?
• Examine current