Any educator interested in literacy owes it to the kids to read the standards with the grain, and go to them over and over again to flesh out the actual approach that will be taken. After all, the research and thinking about college and career readiness has been done already by the dreamers of the new standards. We just have to put it into practice.
Often when I come into a conversation about curriculum, I jump into a cycle of talking about "standards". Much of what I and my colleague say about standards comes from a combination of rumors, op-ed pieces, unplanned conversations with others and even some ideas from disappointingly incomplete staff trainings. Lately, however, I have gotten the nerve to say, "Hmm. We should look into what the standards say." It's a simple solution, and seems obvious. But I am constantly surprised by how few people (myself included) relate the standards with fidelity when talking curriculum and instruction.
It is too easy to say, "It's common core!" when we talk about tasks and texts and strategies. It's almost like we depend on the phrase "common core" to refer to a generalized foundation for anything we want to promote. The common core can promote literacy. It can promote literature. It can promote English in math, and math in English. It can suggest creativity and analytics all at once. And while superficial use of the ideas in the common core may support any innovation that anyone has, we must always look at the details and the spirit of the frameworks. There is no substitute for good reading and analysis of what exactly that enormous and credible consortium tried to do when they produced these new standards for American education.
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