WASHINGTON — As states across the country implement broad changes in curriculum from kindergarten through high school, English teachers worry that they will have to replace the dog-eared novels they love with historical documents and nonfiction texts.
The Common Core State Standards in English, which have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia, call for public schools to build up nonfiction so that by 12th grade, students will be reading mostly ‘‘informational text’’ instead of fictional literature.
Comments
My initial reaction after reading this piece is disappointment in the educational "establishment." Lack of good communication coupled with a "silo" mindset on the part of teachers seems to be undercutting the intent behind the new standards.
There are many nonfiction historical biographies that woud present great insight(s) into timelines of American history. Almo any of the decent, well written biographies of Abraham Lincoln would get the students observing the various theories of the causes of the Civil War, slavery, states' right and Lincoln himself. "The Diary of Anne Frank," a true book if there ever was one is currently on many school reading lists. Also, some extremely well written fiction stories show deep veins of truth, I.e., "To Kill a Mockimgbird," by Harper Lee. Fine aspects of both the law and civil rights history of the South just at the time of the real civil rights era of the 60's, etc. Develop solutions not problems, if you please.
Also...
It is completely insane that administrators are telling English teachers to cut literature. In my district, admin has been very clear that the 70% refers to the entire curriculum, NOT that 70% of English class should be technical journals or whatever. other subjects (besides English) should be reading discipline-specific texts, and English classes should be reading some literary non-fiction and more difficult texts. The teacher complaining about cutting legends of King Arthur should be moving that down to lower grades and replacing it with content more appropriate for 14 year olds. Our kids can't read difficult texts because they aren't exposed to them young enough. I've had 17-year-olds give up on Poe because the vocab is challenging. That should improve when Poe is moved down to 7th grade where it belongs. The only thing wrong with the common core is bad administrators misinterpreting the standards.