Skip to main content

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12: Origins, Goals, and Challenges By Beach, Thein, and Webb

Beach, Thein, and Webb’s “The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12: Origins, Goals, and Challenges”, and English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, gave me a strong introduction to Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Reading CCSS allowed me to begin building connections between lessons I’ve done in my education class and how those lessons will look in my classroom. Also, reading the article informed me of the many different organizations that formed together in order to create the CCSS. I never knew how many people were involved when trying to create these state standards. Understanding the foundation for the CCSS allows me to see why the CCSS is enacted and how it was designed to help.
Furthermore, I wasn’t expecting to learn about how the 21st Century effects education and CCSS. Knowing that our curriculum is consistent with “living 21st century based on a knowledge economy” (Beach et al) is extremely important. It proves how education consistently changes as humanity evolves, even more, rapid then I thought. Additionally, this means that teachers need to build the connection between content in a classroom and how that content relates to everyday life. Building this connection engages students because they see the significance of the content and why it is important to learn.
Next, this article brings up the different financial backgrounds of students and how that can affect the classroom you are in. Coming from a poverty school means that students are more likely to underachieve in CCSS standards. It was surprising to see how much more income a median wealth white U.S. home had when compared to the other ethnicities.
Lastly, the online website was able to help answer the questions my text haven’t been addressing. For instance, I didn’t realize that CCSS wasn’t governed by the United States Government. Knowing states are responsible for CCSS changed my whole perspective on the standards.

Reading both of these pieces have taught me just how important the CCSS is for teachers. Understanding how the CCSS came to be and how students are affected by the CCSS will shape my classroom environment. Overall, reading both of these readings have sparked my interest in further discovering information on the CCSS.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“Graphic Novels: An Alternative Approach to Teach English as a Foreign Language” Öz, Hüseyin; Efecioglu, and Emine

“Graphic Novels: An Alternative Approach to Teach English as a Foreign Language” Öz, Hüseyin; Efecioglu, and Emine challenges the effectiveness of graphic novels being used in English as a first language classrooms (EFL). Their findings revealed that using graphic novels in the classroom had many different benefits. These benefits were caused because graphic novels raised the confidence of students, they can understand the graphic novels because of the pictures. Giving students a visual representation of what is occurring within the story makes translating the English language much easier. Also, pictures often engaged students with the story. Similar to these EFL classrooms, normal classes will take interest in these novels because of the visuals. Additionally, the study discovered that “it was also seen that they play an important role in shaping one’s language” (87). Graphic novels can be used in English classrooms today to help shape a student’s language. When reading a more comp...
Post a Comment
Read more
“Night” by Elie Wiesel demonstrates the true horrors that Jewish people lived through during World War II. Never having read this book before, I wasn’t ready for the emotional experiences this book has to share. Consistently I found myself full of emotions as I read Wiesel’s words. My father has always been obsessed with WWII and he constantly is watching the History Channel’s programming on the various concentration camps that happened. Therefore, I have plenty of background with the concentration camps that were happening throughout the war. Yet, reading this book and experiencing them through the eyes of Elie, was truly horrifying. Listening to what these people had to go through in order to survive in this period of time changed my perceptive on the world. Seeing the process actually take place in the eyes of the Jewish people was surprising. At first rounding all of the Jewish people from the Ghetto was peaceful, but that soon changes. Seeing how the German army was able to...
Post a Comment
Read more

“Music Teacher Educator Perspectives on Social Justice” by Salvador

“Music Teacher Educator Perspectives on Social Justice” by Salvador and colleagues is an interesting read when trying to discover the role of social justice in the classroom. Salvador and colleagues sought to find the commonality of teaching social justice topics in the classroom and how familiar music teachers were with the concept. They had sent out a few hundred surveys asking teachers on their experience with social justice in the classroom. What they discovered was that more than half of the respondents reported having some background on the topic but weren’t currently teaching that in their classrooms. The rest of the participants either didn’t know about the topic of social justice or didn’t have a well-rounded understanding of what social justice was. Some teachers even reported saying that is wasn’t their responsibility to teach social justice but to teach music strictly: “I do not believe that we as music educators need to teach lengthy units on social justice. For example, ...
Post a Comment
Read more