Getting to the Common Core

A volume in Literacy, Language, and LearningSeries Editors Claudia Finkbeiner, University of Kassel;Althier M. Lazar, Saint Joseph’s University and Wen Ma, Le Moyne CollegeThe Common Core Standards have recently been adopted in most states across the nation and teachers are inthe process of getting to the core of these standards. Teaching to standards is not a new concept; teachershave adapted to new standards every few years for quite some time. And teachers are adaptable, as can beseen in this book. We are writing this book to demonstrate how teachers use research-based strategies to meetCommon Core Standards while still focusing on students. Our goal is to help teachers visualize students inaction as other teachers describe the implementation of research-based strategies in their own classrooms,show student work samples, and provide reflections of student success in achieving the standards. ManyCommon Core Standards books focus on the standards, but our approach focuses on strategies that engage the students in the classroom--showing howdifferent teachers at varying grade levels have used the strategies to meet the standards. With this focus, we believe that teachers gain a new andpositive perspective on approaching the new standards and see the flexibility of strategies for meeting standards across subject areas.We have examined research on the strategies with the purpose of giving teachers a brief description of why these strategies work before giving actualexamples from classrooms. We also work closely with teachers in the public schools and have our finger on the pulse of what is happening in thepublic schools-one of the current stressors being unpacking the Common Core StandardsThis book actually focuses on practice. We begin by laying out a rationale in our first chapter---The Core Value(s) of Education. Then, each chapterfocuses on a strategy, including 1) a brief description about the research supporting each strategy and 2) several examples from different greade levels,which include a description of how the strategy was used, student work samples, and a reflection on the use of the strategy. The research descriptionsare fairly short because, while we believe professional educators (aka teachers, in this case) shouldknow the research that supports practice, we know they are not typically interested in long diatribesabout the research.