Adolescent Literacy at Risk?

I originally checked Rebecca Bowers Sipe's Adolescent Literacy at Risk? The Impact of Standards out from the library, in an attempt to not spend as much money on books; however, I quickly realized that I would want my own copy. I already have others in the NCTE Principles in Practice Adolescent Literacy series, and similar to those I already had, this book was thought-provoking and an important voice to add to the discussion on the current context of adolescent literacy.

When one of my professors saw the title, he was worried that the book might be too skewed against standards, rather than a balanced view. I explained to him that it actually was not. Far from it, Sipe provided a knowledgeable voice sharing her rich experiences with and historical information about the standards movement. While she discusses a range of standards, one large focus in the book outlined her experiences co-authoring Michigan's English standards and then seeing implementation into classrooms.

While reading the book, I thought about how standards in and of themselves are not necessarily good or bad, but rather the process involved with implementation is vital. This will be key to keep in mind with the Common Core State Standards. As educators we need to advocate for dialogues about how to implement the standards into our contexts with a close eye on our students needs, rather than seeking one-size-fits-all solutions.

Here are some quotes that stood out to me from the text:

"As standards came to represent high expectations, it became increasingly clear that for higher standards to succeed, we could never entertain notions of standardization in our interpretation or delivery of them," (p. 11).

"The movement to more finite descriptions was intended to offer teachers of definition of what should be considered across a program of study, not a prescription for what had to happen in a particular unit of instruction. This is an important distinction, and one we felt strongly about. Standards, not standardization, drove our work," (p. 32).

"To our frustration, the message that was so central to our work--local development of curriculum based in these inclusive standards--has gotten somewhat lost along the way," (p. 33).

"Standards provide a definition of what is possible, but standards are not curriculum documents," (p. 41).

"If standards are to achieve even a portion of their early promise--and I still believe this is possible--educators everywhere must consider carefully the role of standards in curricular planning, and collectively we must avoid being bogged down in an assembly line approach to covering expectations that fails to fully account for organic and fluid instruction that good teaching represents," (p. 43).

These are just a handful of excerpts that caught my attention while reading that are even more powerful when read in context of the whole book. Throughout the text Sipe emphasized the need for dialogue.

We can all ask ourselves:

What am I doing to influence the way in which Common Core State Standards are implemented at my school/in my community?