Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards

When I saw that NCTE had a new series of books focusing on implementation of the Common Core State Standards at different grade levels, I could not wait to read the middle school edition. Tonya Perry with Rebecca Manery wrote Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards: English Language Arts Grade 6-8. I appreciated that the authors emphasized the language in the standards highlighting the intent for the CCSS to provide guidance in what to teach while educators can still determine how to teach it. In contrast to other resources that appear to be disseminating their ideas as the way to implement the standards, this book provided a range of scenarios and contexts.

In the introduction, series editor Anne Ruggles Gere stated, "Regardless of teacher responses, the CCSS are now part of the educational landscape. But these standards do not replace the principles that guide good teaching. Some things remain constant regardless of new mandates. [...] This book is designed to support you in meeting the challenges posed by the CCSS. It stands on the principle that standards do not mean standardization or a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching," (pp. 2-3). These thoughts encompass well what we cannot forget as CCSS implementation rolls out. We should all play a role in considering whether implementations closely examine individual contexts or whether they simply try to seek the answer in how to implement the standards.

Before highlighting implementation scenarios, the book starts with a chapter titled "Demystifying the Common Core State Standards." Last week I was sharing the book in one of my literacy classes because I read it as part of my final project. A colleague stated that a diagram provided was the best she had seen in order to illustrate the set-up of the ELA standards. The question/answer format of the chapter also appealed to her.

In the section sharing how different schools have started to discuss and integrate the standards into their classrooms, the examples are coupled with questions/exercises to prompt other educators/schools to interpret the CCSS and consider their own contexts.

An excerpt from the final section of the book, Building, illustrates once again the emphasis of the text, "[...] building with the CCSS in mind does not mean checking boxes for individual standards; it means integrating a careful examination of the CCSS with the contexts and practices of our classrooms, always putting students at the center," (p. 68).

I thoroughly enjoyed the voice and tone of this book and would be excited to read the others in the series.