Common Core Standards

Understanding difficult texts

         Educators are up in arms about the implementation of the Common Core Standards, and the reason eludes me. From what I gather, the Common Core Standards are standards for what children should know at each grade level.  I do not see anything wrong with that. I agree with the fact that all students in the United States should adhere to nation wide standards.  However, what I do not agree with is that all students should be able to read the exact same texts and texts should be appropriate for all different cultures.  Not all students have the same background knowledge to be able to understand all texts.

For example, I was observing at an Early Childhood Development Center in Bridgeport, CT. The classroom in which I was a guest consisted of eight three year olds.  We were looking through a book about a farm.  I showed them a picture of a cow and asked them what animal this was.  No one knew.  If I visited a preschool in the next town over, Fairfield, CT, I can almost guarantee that all children would know what a cow looked like.  This difference in culture should be addressed in the Common Core.  As Jacqueline DeForge tells it: “All students should have the opportunity to see themselves reflected back, as well as to be exposed to cultures and experiences that may differ from their own, in the literature and nonfiction texts we study.” (DeForge, The Open Book) So far, most of the books that are recommended for the Common Core are about and written by white people. This is wrong. All cultures should be represented in the material we study with the students.  Students should be able to recognize themselves and their friends in what they read.  This would create more understanding for other cultures and would celebrate diversity.  Education is not only about being able to understand a difficult text, but more importantly about understanding each other.

Common Core Standard Strands compared

GRADES --à CCSS	K	2	3
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K-6, 2.6, 3.6	With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.	Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.	Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K-1, 2.1, 3.1	With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.	Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.	Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4, 2.4, 3.4	Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.	Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.	Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.

In Early Childhood Education there are no educational shifts, since these students are still learning how to read and interpret texts.  They are building knowledge through content rich non-fiction and informational text. In third grade the teacher starts to touch upon an educational shift, when the student has to find evidence from the text, which they previously did not have to do.

The shift occurs when the students are reading to learn, instead of learning to read. 

Original piece of poetry

Phoenix

Poetry is not for me

No lyrics about a bumblebee

Or shooting stars from way up high,

A gloomy, cloudy, gray-blue sky

Mine is the prose

Reality

The falling leaves from an autumn tree

Beauty around for all to see

We walk together, you and I

And discuss the happiness of days gone by

Blown and shattered on a whim

Unfixable, the light’s gone dim

On the winds our dreams were carried

Our emotions long since buried

Amidst the ruins of yesteryear

And the lakes of salty tears

Now laughter is once again our friend

And friendship the beginning, not the end.

What do I read and why?

These are a few of my favorite books

You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.  –Paul Sweeney

            I love to read! It takes me to a different place, and gives me the opportunity to escape, even if it is just for a little while. 

But that is where the problem lies…it is never just for a ‘little’ while.  Once I get hooked on a book then all I want to do is read it! The characters become very real to me, and I feel like I am a fly on the wall, watching their lives. I can even read their thoughts! I know the characters intimately, I hang out with them daily.  The characters are with me, even when I am not reading the book.  As I am reading, I can’t wait to finish the book, yet I dread reading the last few pages, for that means I have to say goodbye to the characters, never to see them again.  I think this is why, when I was a child, I used to read series, for this meant that I did not have to say goodbye, for there was always the next volume!

Another one of my favorite things to read, since childhood, is comic strips. I know that I am too old to be reading them, but I really enjoy them. My two favorites are Asterix and Obelix and Zits. They are both very different from each other.

Asterix and Obelix is pure fiction. The characters are two lifelong friends

who live in a little village in France.  Obelix is the large man (but don’t tell him he is large, because he is very sensitive about this topic.  After all, he can’t help it that he fell in the magic potion pot when he was a baby!) Obelix’s constant companion is Idefix, his little dog. They are inseparable.  Asterix is small, but mighty, especially after he has had a big gulp of the magic potion, which makes him invincible.  Their mortal enemy is the Romans, and they love to fight them!  I like this comic because of the word choices the author uses, especially for the names of the Romans and the Gauls.  The people who live in the village are far from perfect, but they are perfect for each other.  They stick together through thick and thin and every book always end the same: a big dinner for the whole village, while the minstrel of the village is tied up and gagged, because he can’t carry a tune. This comic strip definitely makes me escape!

The other comic strip I love is Zits.

I do not read Zits to escape, but more to be able to find humor in every day situations while raising an adolescent boy.  I know many people have said this before, but I feel like the author has a camera set up in my house and that he is describing our situation!  Everything is so recognizable. I love it!

Then there is one more favorite book that I love to read and that is a cookbook.  I collect cookbooks, for I love to cook.  I have old cookbooks that

have been passed down to me from my grandmother.  Every time we go on vacation I like to take a local cookbook home with me. When we have friends over for dinner I spend hours looking through my cookbooks to see what I will prepare for them. My mother was a terrific cook and I think I have her love for good food from her.  Food brings people together and it gives me great pleasure to see my friends enjoying what I cooked for them!