Ed Week has a column here advocating that the country adopt not
just the academic goals of the Common Core, but a common curriculum as
well. This would save students from the
horrible possibility that they might have Charlotte’s Web read aloud to them in
second grade, and then transfer schools and have to hear it in third grade as
well. (I’m not making this up.)
Oh my heavens! Thank
heavens I have already retired! This suggestion—that all titles students read
be decided by some central committee--will really put the lid on any hope of a
significant gain in reading scores.
There is a multitude of research showing that the best
readers are the avid readers. Check the
work of Professor Stephen Krashen, of the University of Southern
California. And that has certainly been
my experience, during my 37 years of teaching high school English.
We need to help students acquire a love and habit of
reading. In our video culture, this
doesn’t happen naturally anymore, for most students. Unless students already have a rich,
independent reading life, assigning them titles to read in class will simply
harden their dislike of reading. And
most students simply won’t do the assigned reading. With the whole country assigned the same
book, there will be so many videos of the story, so many “study” notes, so many
Internet summaries, that avoiding the text will be the easiest thing in the
world. Most kids won’t read anything.
Read this current English teacher’s take on material
developed for the Common Core standards in English: http://literacyinleafstrewn.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-common-cores-supposed-emphasis-on.html
And I don’t even begin to address the impossibility of ever
picking out titles appropriate for the whole country.
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