Uncommon Core

Michael W. Smith, a professor in Temple University's College of Education, joined the ranks of college teachers after eleven years of teaching high school English. His research focuses on understanding both how adolescents and adults engage with texts outside school and how teachers can use those understandings to devise more motivating and effective instruction inside schools. Deborah Appleman is Professor of Educational Studies and Director of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Her primary interests include adolescent response to literature, multicultural literature, and the teaching of literary theory to high school students. A high school English teacher for nine years, Deborah works weekly in urban and suburban high schools. A classroom teacher for fifteen years, ?Jeffrey D. Wilhelm? is currently Professor of English Education at Boise State University. He works in local schools as part of a Virtual Professional Development Site Network sponsored by the Boise State Writing Project, and regularly teaches middle and high school students. Jeff is the founding director of the Maine Writing Project and the Boise State Writing Project.

Foreword by Grant Wiggins Acknowledgments Chapter 1. The Promise and the Peril of the Common Core State Standards What's to Like About the CCSS What's to Worry About What the Standards Leave Out Chapter 2. Old Wine in Broken Bottles: The Common Core State Standards and "Zombie New Criticism" A Lesson From the Classroom Where the Authors of the Standards Go Wrong About Connecting Texts With Lived Experience How You Can Get It Right Sticking With the Standards (Not With the Instructional Mandates That Showed Up Later) Chapter 3. Using the Most Powerful Resource We Have for Teaching Students Something New: The Case for Background Knowledge Where the Authors of the Standards Go Wrong About Pre-Reading Instruction Why It Matters Preparing Students to Comprehend How You Can Get It Right: Five Strategies That Connect Students With Critical Concepts Moving Students to Independence Chapter 4. Teaching for Transfer: Why Students Need to Learn How to Attend to Any Text Where the Authors of the Standards Go Wrong About Closed-Ended, Text-Based Questions Why It Matters How You Can Get It Right: Six Strategies That Increase Comprehension and Independence Moving Students to Independence Chapter 5. No Text Is an Island: How to Get Students Farther With Text-by-Text Sequencing Where the Authors of the Standards Go Wrong About Text-to-Text Connections Why It Matters How You Can Get It Right: Three Strategies for Developing Knowledge Across Texts Chapter 6. Aiming for Complex Interpretation: How to Be Street Smart About Choosing Complex Texts Where Interpretations of the Standards Get It Wrong Three Ways to Choose the Right Books for Your Kids Chapter 7. Putting Our Money Where Our Mouths Are: Our Unit for Teaching "Letter From Birmingham Jail" David Coleman on King's "Letter" An Alternative Approach: Our Unit for Teaching the "Letter" A Sample Unit: "Letter From Birmingham Jail" A Summary of This Unit's Approaches Principles of Practice Accountability and Assessments Final Thoughts References Index

"This book represents what we should all be doing with the CCSS-making suggestions for modifying them so that they stand a chance of achieving the goals behind them. Unless the CCSS are a living document that can be shaped and reshaped by the educators and students who are held accountable to them, they will fail. Read this book to help them succeed." -- P. David Pearson, Professor of the Graduate School of Education "Finally! A book with more light than heat on the issue of standards and their implications for learning. This is a well-argued, even-handed, and clear-headed look at the need to distinguish the value of the Common Core Standards from some of the questionable views of teaching and learning that standards writers and promoters have been expressing. . . . Every teacher of reading, supervisor, and district leader will find value in this text." -- Grant Wiggins, Coauthor of Understanding by Design "Talk about overdue! This book is an urgently needed corrective to the oversights, overreaches, and idiosyncratic weirdness of the Common Core Standards and what their authors say about how they should be taught. These authors aren't standards-bashing; they stipulate that the Common Core has 'the capacity to provide a real opportunity for progressive change.' . . . Thank goodness three of our best teacher-thinkers have come forward to speak truth to Zombie literacy. " -- Harvey "Smokey" Daniels, Coauthor of The Best-Kept Teaching Secret "Michael Smith, Deborah Appleman, and Jeff Wilhelm seek to salvage the Common Core State Standards from both their friends and their enemies. On the one hand, they systematically debunk the destructive pedagogy that many friends of the Standards have advocated. . . . On the other hand, they demonstrate to those who would reject the standards how they can enrich good practice as it has emerged from the last thirty years of research in reading and writing instruction. Readable, classroom friendly, and realistic, Uncommon Core is a must read for everyone struggling with the current wave of curriculum reform." -- Arthur Applebee, Distinguished Professor & Director "Prompted primarily by David Coleman's ill-informed interpretation of the instructional implications of the CCSS, Smith, Appleman, and Wilhelm have written an important and compelling book describing the kinds of instruction that will help teachers and students actually achieve the goals of the Common Core. With lucid descriptions and a host of classroom-tested examples, the authors demonstrate 'Where the Authors of the Standards Go Wrong About Instruction and How You Can Get It Right.'" -- Michael F. Graves, Emeritus