1. Comprehension and the Common Core: Can the Romance Survive
P. David Pearson
UC Berkeley

4. Goals for Today
Review what is in and what underlies the CCSS when it comes to comprehension
Examine some emerging evidence about what comprehension in the Common Core might look like
Publisher’s Criteria
Brand new publication by the Aspen Institute:
Close Reading in the Common Core
Discuss some defensible positions to take on curriculum and pedagogy

5. What sold me on the standards

6. What they said about reading
Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the close, attentive, reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature. They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to pick carefully through the staggering amount of information available today in print and digitally. They actively seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens world views. They reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence essential to both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic. (CCSSO/NGA, 2010, p. 3)

7. What they said about teacher choice
By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed. Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning. Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards. (CCSSO/NGA, 2010, p. 4).

8. How we got to where we are…
The historical pathway to Kintsch’s Construction Integration Model

9. Reader
Text
Reading Comprehension
Context
Most models of reading have tried to explain how reader factors, text factors and context factors interact when readers make meaning.

10. Bottom up and New Criticism: Text-centric
Reader
Text
Reading Comprehension
Context
The bottom up cognitive models of the 60s were very text centric, as was the “new criticism” model of literature from the 40s and 50s (I.A. Richards)

11. Pedagogy for Bottom up and New Criticism: Text-centric
Since the meaning is in the text, we need to go dig it out…
Leads to Questions that
Interrogate the facts of the text
Get to the “right” interpretation
Writerly readings or textual readings

12. Schema and Reader Response: Reader-centric
Text
Reading Comprehension
Context
The schema based cognitive models of the 70s and the reader response models (Rosenblatt) of the 80s focused more on reader factors--knowledge or interpretation mattered most

13. Since the meaning is largely in the reader, we need to go dig it out…
Pedagogy for Reader-centric
Since the meaning is largely in the reader, we need to go dig it out…
Spend a lot of time on
Building background knowledge
Inferences needed to build a coherent model of meaning
Readers’ impressions, expressions, unbridled response
Readerly readings

14. A few clarifications of schema theory…
Variation along a continuum of top-down vs bottom-up
Kohlers (1967): Reading is only incidentially textual
Anderson (1977): specific words/ideas instantiate general schemata: the text is the trigger to our knowledge stores
Not completely top down process

15. Critical literacy models: Context-centric
Reader
Text
Reading Comprehension
Context
The sociocultural and critical literacy models of the 90s focused on the central role of context (purpose, situation, discourse community)

16. Since the meaning is largely in the context, we need to go dig it out…
Pedagogy for Critical literacy models
Since the meaning is largely in the context, we need to go dig it out…
Questions that get at the social, political and economic underbelly of the text
Whose interests are served by this text?
What is the author trying to get us to believe?
What features of the text contribute to the interpretation that money is evil?

17. CI: Balance Reader and Text: little c for context
Reading Comprehension
Context
In Kintsch’s model, Reader and Text factors are balanced, and context plays a “background” role--in purpose and motivation.

18. Query the accuracy of the text base.
Pedagogical implications for CI
Since the meaning is in this reader text interface, we need to go dig it out…
Query the accuracy of the text base.
What is going on in this part here where it says…
What does it mean when it says…
I was confused by this part…
Ascertain the situation model.
So what is going on here?
What do you know that we didn’t know before?

19. Kintchian Model Context Does>>>>>>>>> 3
Knowledge Base
Does>>>>>>>>> 1
Text Base 2
Situation Model
Experience
Says
Means
Out in the world
Inside the head

20. NAEP
Locate and Recall
Interpret and Integrate
Critique and Evaluate

21. Common Core Standards 1-3: Key ideas and details
Standards 4-6: Craft and structure
Standards 7-9: Integration of knowledge and ideas

22. CCSS NAEP Key ideas and details Craft and structure
Integration of knowledge and ideas
Range and level of text complexity
Locate and Recall
Interpret and Integrate
Critique and Evaluate
Complexity is specified but implicit not explicit

23. Freebody and Luke’s 4 Resources
Reader as Decoder: Get the message:
Reader as Meaning Maker: Integrate with knowledge:
Reader as Text Analyst: What’s the real message and how is it crafted
Reader as Text Critic: What’s the subtext? The hidden agenda:
SAYS
MEANS
DOES

24. Consistent with Cognitive Views of Reading
Kintsch’s Construction-Integration Model
Build a text base
Construct a “situation” model
Put the knowledge gained to work by applying it to novel situations.
Locate and Recall
Key Ideas and Details
What the text says
Decoder
Integrate and Interpret
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Meaning Maker
What the text means
Critique and Evaluate
Craft and Structure
What the text does
User/Analyst/Critic

25. Says Means Does Kintsch 4 Resources NAEP CCSS Text Base Decoder
Locate and Recall
Key Ideas and Details
Situation Model
Meaning Maker
Interpret and Integrate
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Put Knowledge to Work
Text Analyst
Critique and Evaluate
Craft and Structure
Says
Means
Does

26. Kintchian Model Context Does>>>>>>>>> 3
Knowledge Base
Reader as Text User/Analyst/Critic
Does>>>>>>>>> 1
Text Base 2
Situation Model
Reader as Decoder
Experience
Says
Reader as Meaning Maker
Means
Out in the world
Inside the head

27. New and different
Most important: A new model of the comprehension process
Text (what the author left on the page)
Text base (the version a reader creates on a veridical reading)
Knowledge (what the reader brings from prior experience)
Model of meaning for a text
Dubbed the Situation Model (mental model)
A model that accounts for all the facts and resources available in the current situation

28. What’s inside the Knowledge box?
World knowledge (everyday stuff, including social and cultural norms)
Topical knowledge (dogs and canines)
Disciplinary knowledge (how history or astronomy works)
Linguistic knowledge
Phonology
Lexical and morphological
Syntax
Genre
Pragmatics (how language works in the world): Discourse, register, academic language, intention
Orthography (how print relates to speech)

29. How does a reader build a text base?
Excerpt from Chapter 8 of Hatchet

30. “Some of the quills were driven in deeper than others and they tore when they came out. He breathed deeply twice, let half of the breath out, and went back to work. Jerk, pause, jerk — and three more times before he lay back in the darkness, done. The pain filled his leg now, and with it came new waves of self-pity. Sitting alone in the dark, his leg aching, some mosquitoes finding him again, he started crying. It was all too much, just too much, and he couldn’t take it. Not the way it was.

31. The pain filled his leg now, and with it came new waves of self-pity
The pain filled his leg now, and with it came new waves of self-pity. Sitting alone in the dark, his leg aching, some mosquitoes finding him again, he started crying. It was all too much, just too much, and he couldn’t take it. Not the way it was.

32. “I can’t take it this way, alone with no fire and in the dark, and next time it might be something worse, maybe a bear, and it wouldn’t be just quills in the leg, it would be worse. I can’t do this, he thought, again and again. I can’t. Brian pulled himself up until he was sitting upright back in the corner of the cave. He put his head down on his arms across his knees, with stiffness taking his left leg, and cried until he was cried out.”

33. Building a Text Base
“Some of the quills were driven in (into what? His leg) deeper than others (other what? Quills) and they (the quills that were driven in deeper) tore when they (the deeper-in quills) came out (of his leg). He (Brian) breathed deeply twice, let half the breath out, and went back to work (work on what? Don’t know yet. Suspense. Expect to find out in next sentence). Jerk, pause, jerk (the work is jerking quills out) — and three more times (jerking quills out) he (Brian) lay back in the darkness, done (all the quills jerked out).

34. The pain filled his (Brian’s) leg now, and with it (the pain) came new waves (what were the old waves?) of self-pity. (Brian) Sitting alone in the dark, his (Brian’s) leg aching, some mosquitoes finding him (Brian) again, he (Brian) started crying. It (the whole situation Brian was in) was all too much, just too much, and he (Brian) couldn’t take it (the situation). Not the way it (the situation) was. (What way was the situation? Don’t know yet. Suspense. Expect to find out in the next paragraph.)

35. “I (Brian) can’t take it (the situation) this way (what way
“I (Brian) can’t take it (the situation) this way (what way? Still don’t know. Suspense), alone with no fire and in the dark (now we know “this way” means “alone with no fire and in the dark”), and next time it (the next situation) might be something worse (than this situation), maybe a bear, and it (the problem that will define the situation) wouldn’t be just quills in the leg, it (the problem) would be worse (than quills in the leg). I (Brian) can’t do this (deal with the problem situation), he (Brian) thought, again and again. I (Brian) can’t “do this (deal with the problem situation).” Brian pulled himself (Brian) up until he (Brian) was sitting upright back in the corner of the cave. He (Brian) put his (Brian’s) head down on his (Brian’s) arms across his (Brian’s) knees, with stiffness taking his (Brian’s) left leg, and cried until he (Brian) was cried out.”

36. Some key moves in building a text base…
Processing words and attaching meaning to them
Using syntax to solidify key relations among ideas
Microstructure
Macrostructure
Resolving reference--things that stand for other things (mainly pronouns and nouns)
Using logical connectives (before, after, because, so, then, when, while, but) to figure out the relations among ideas
Inferring omitted connectives (e.g., figuring out that A is the cause of B) based on PK about the world
Posing questions for short term resolution
Identifying ambiguities for later resolution (wait and see)

37. So how about building a situation model?
The knowledge-comprehension relationship
We use our knowledge to build a situation model for a text
The information in the situation model is now available to become part of our long term memory and store of knowledge
To assist in processing the next bit.

38. Situation Model for Hatchet Passage

39. The blurb from the jacket of Hatchet gives a preview of the book:
Thirteen-year old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker and the hatchet his mother has given him as a present — and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart since his parents’ divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self-pity or despair — it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.

40. What a reader knows by Chapter 8
Brian is stranded in the Canadian wilderness with a hatchet and his wits as his only tools for survival. He already has overcome several obstacles, including surviving the plane crash, building a small shelter and finding food.
In chapter eight, Brian awakens in the night to realize that there is an animal in his shelter. He throws his hatchet at the animal but misses. The hatchet makes sparks when it hits the wall of the cave. Brian then feels a pain in his leg. He sees the creature scuttle out of his shelter. Brian figures out that the animal was a porcupine because there are quills in his leg.

41. Some prior knowledge that a 5th grader might bring
What sparks look like
How it feels to be scared by an animal
How big porcupines are
To survive you have to have food, water and shelter
To survive you have to be strong

42. An actual retelling of key parts of chapter 8 from Sam, a 5th grade reader
The same text for which we just examined the text base…

45. Why is this model of iteratively constructing and integrating so important?
The mental (situation) model is central to knowledge construction
Building a mental model transforms new ideas and information into a form that can be added to memory, where they endure as knowledge that can be retrieved in the future. Unless readers build a mental model, the information they derive from the text is not likely to connect to their stored knowledge. The new information will be forgotten or lost.
Key role of knowledge:
Knowledge involved in even the most literal of processing
Knowledge begets comprehension begets knowledge…
Knowledge is available immediately: dynamic store…

46. How can we help students build solid text bases and rich and accurate situation models?
Do a good job of teaching subject matter in social studies, science, mathematics, and literature
Don’t let reading remain our curricular bully!

47. How can we help students build rich and accurate mental models?
Assist students in selecting appropriate knowledge frameworks to guide their construction process
Do everything possible to build as many connections as possible with other texts, experiences, knowledge domains
Do lots of “what does this remind you of?”
What is this like? How is it different from what it’s like?

48. How can we help students build rich and accurate mental models?
A different model of guided reading
Stop every once in a while and give the kids a chance to construct/revise their current mental model
Research study:
interview protocol proved to be very “instructive”

49. Begin with very general probes before getting specific
So what’s going on in this part?
What do we know now that we didn’t know before?
What’s new?
What was the author trying to get us to understand here?
Well!…say something!

50. Invite and support clarifications of tricky parts
Anyone want to share something that was tricky or confusing?
How about this part here…where it says…?
I got confused by… What do you think about this part? What was the author trying to get us to think.

51. Follow up general probes and invitations for clarification with specific probes.
So which of these things happened first? Why is that important?
In this paragraph, they use a lot of pronouns. Let’s check out our understanding of who or what they refer to..
Typical discussion questions are OK too--just to make sure are the tricky parts get clarified.
View questions as a scaffold for understanding the big picture not as a quiz.

52. The general model for guided reading
A set for “stock-taking”
More specific probes to scaffold the construction of the text base and situation model
Results in a pretty good summary of the selection--story, article, etc.

53. Developing Text Bases and Mental Models
Ensure that students have a full “tool” box (set of strategies) to haul out when things don’t just happen automatically…for
Connecting the known to the new
Connecting texts and parts of texts
Working toward coherence among potentially unconnected ideas
Recognizing and resolving ambiguities.

54. MONITORING FOR MEANING…
For a model of meaning to survive, it must
Be consistent with the current text base (square with the “facts of the case” thus far revealed)
Be consistent with the current knowledge base (square with what a reader knows to be true about the world)

55. The Vulnerabilities Clumsiness with motivation
A nod to interest and an assumption that readers are motivated
Gloss over critical reading
Assumes a liberal humanist “critical thinking” perspective, not a post-modern critical theoretical stance

56. Kintchian Model Context Does>>>>>>>>> 3
Knowledge Base
Reader as Text User/Analyst/Critic
Does>>>>>>>>> 1
Text Base 2
Situation Model
Reader as Decoder
Experience
Says
Reader as Meaning Maker
Means
Out in the world
Inside the head

57. These consistencies provide…
Credibility
Stretch
Research “patina”

58. And now… for something completely different

61. Text dependency of questions
Regarding the nature of texts: “A significant percentage of tasks and questions are text dependent…Rigorous text-dependent questions require students to demonstrate that they not only can follow the details of what is explicitly stated but also are able to make valid claims that square with all the evidence in the text. Text-dependent questions do not require information or evidence from outside the text or texts; they establish what follows and what does not follow from the text itself.” (page 6)

62. Stay close to the text
Staying close to the text. “Materials make the text the focus of instruction by avoiding features that distract from the text. Teachers’ guides or students’ editions of curriculum materials should highlight the reading selections…Given the focus of the Common Core State Standards, publishers should be extremely sparing in offering activities that are not text based.”

63. My concern
We will operationally define text dependent as literal, factual questions
Lots of other questions are also text-reliant
Compare
What were two reasons pioneers moved west?
What does the author believe about the causes of westward expansion in the United States?
How valid is the claim that author X writes from an ideology of manifest destiny?

64. A short history lesson
Pearson and Johnson, 1978, Teaching Reading Comprehension.
Question-answer relationships
Text explicit (both the Q and A come from the text and the relationship between Q and A is explicitly signalled).
Text implicit (both the Q and A come from the text but the relationship has to be inferred)
Script implicit (Q from text, A from prior knowledge script, relationship has to be inferred)
TEXT is implicated in all three QARs.

65. Text before all else
“The Common Core State Standards call for students to demonstrate a careful understanding of what they read before engaging their opinions, appraisals, or interpretations. Aligned materials should therefore require students to demonstrate that they have followed the details and logic of an author’s argument before they are asked to evaluate the thesis or compare the thesis to others.” (page 9)

66. My concern
We will view literal comprehension as a prerequisite to inferential or critical comprehension.
Compare
Read X, Read Y, then ask for a comparison on criterion Z
Conduct a comparative reading of X and Y on how they stand on Z.
Sometimes the comparison or critique question better rationalizes the close reading

67. Close reading
The Common Core State Standards place a high priority on the close, sustained reading of complex text, beginning with Reading Standard 1. Such reading emphasizes the particular over the general and strives to focus on what lies within the four corners of the text.

68. Close Reading of text involves an investigation of a short piece of text, with multiple readings done over multiple instructional lessons.
Through text-based questions and discussion, students are guided to deeply analyze and appreciate various aspects of the text, such as
key vocabulary and how its meaning is shaped by context;
attention to form, tone, imagery and/or rhetorical devices;
the significance of word choice and syntax; and
the discovery of different levels of meaning as passages are read multiple times.

69. Steps in t he new Aspen Institute, Brown & Kappes report
Selection of a brief, high-quality, complex text.
Individual reading of the text.
Group reading aloud.
Text-based questions and discussion that focus on discrete elements of the text.
Discussion among students.
Writing about the text.

70. My concern
Lots of things lie within the four corners of the text—some general and some specific.
Ignores other readings of close reading
The text drags prior knowledge along even if you don’t want it to.
Ideas that don’t connect don’t last long enough to allow learning (assimilation or acccommodation) to occur
They drop out of memory pretty fast
The close reading one does to map the ideas of the text onto one’s knowledge base (Standard 7 especially) or the close reading one does from a critical (Standard 8), interpretive (Standard 6), or comparative (Standard 9) perspective comes into play, if at all, only after close veridical readings of the text have been rendered.
In a piece with Hiebert (Pearson & Hiebert, 2013), these variations on the practice of close reading are more clearly laid out, along with what we took to be their implementation within the CCSS for ELA.

71. Monitoring How do we know that our understanding is good enough?
Two standards…
Does is jive with the model of meaning I have built for the text thus far in the reading?
Does is square with what I know to be true about the world?
What are these?
Text base and knowledge base combne to create the situation model
The situation model determines what I put into long term memory

72. Minimizing the role of prior kjnowledge
Can we do it?
Should we do it?

73. Suspense
If John had known just how awful it would turn out to be, he would not have been so anxious to open the door to the room he had been told held the treasure that would change his life. If he suspected that the giant tarantula who guarded the treasure was bigger than an elephant, uglier than a troll, and deadlier than a cobra, he might never have turned that knob. But slowly, methodically, and purposely, he shoved, nudged, and wiggled it till it started to open an inch at a time.

74. It was furry and warm to the touch
It was furry and warm to the touch. Its eyes lay in deep sockets above a protruding snout that was itself dwarfed by the two buck teeth that hung suspended from that protuberance.
And when the rest of the kids in room 225 laughed at it,
Amy picked up her drawing of her favorite mastadon and huffed out into the hall.

75. So what about Prior Knowledge
Maybe we have overindulged
Too much Know, not enough Want to Learn and Learn
Too much time on the picture walk
Too much story swapping about our experiences with roadrunners
Let’s right the wrongs
Need a mid course correction not a pendulum swing

76. But asking kids to hold their prior knowledge at bay…
Is like
Asking dogs not to bark or
Leaves not to fall.
It’s in the nature of things
Dogs bark.
Leaves fall.
Readers use their prior knowledge to render text sensible and figure out what to retain for later.

77. So what’s a body to do? Embrace the construct of close reading
But make sure that it applies to several purposes for reading
Reading to get the flow of ideas in the piece
Reading to compare (with another text or body of experience or knowledge
Reading to critique
how good is the argument or the craft or
what is his bias/slant/perspective)
All of these approaches interrogate the text as an eviidentiary base.
Standards 1-3 yes, but also 5, 7, 8, and 9

78. More a body can do…
Stay closer to the standards than to the interpretations of the standards we have seen thus far.
Pay more attention to the anchor standards than to the grade level instantiations of them.
Why?
I’m not convinced that they got the sequencing right.

79. Table 1. Progression of Standard 3 for Literary and Informational Texts Across Grades K-5
With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. 1
Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. 2
Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges
Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text. 3
Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events
Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect. 4
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions)
Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text. 5
Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

80. Transitional Moves…
Change the level of support: The removal of scaffolding in moving from K-1 for both L and I texts.
Change the number of entities involved in the process. In moving L3-L4, the number of entities increases—from characters in L3 to characters, settings or events in L4.
Change the type of entities: In moving from I1-I2 there is a change from general to discipline-specific entities. In moving from I4-I5, the change is from explaining entities to explaining relationships and interactions.
Increase the cognitive demand of the process: There is a change from description to explanation in moving from L2-L3 and from I3 to I4; also moving from explanation to comparison in L4-L5.
Add evidentiary requirements: This is the move represented in I3-I4.

81. What’s the basis of progressions?
Research?
Tradtiion?
Professional consenssus?
Best guesses?

82. Direct Evidence
The degree to which research is reflected in these progressions is a function of
Whether the models they examined were research-based
Whether the mental models of the authors/reviewers were research-based
Classic consensus process.
Doesn’t distinguish it from most other standards efforts.

83. Issues left inadequately examined in this presentation…
Text complexity:
Yes, but…
Where are the scaffolds to help kids meet the challenge
Teacher prerogative
A promise broken in the Publishers’ Criteria
The more specific the level of specification, the fewer degrees of freedom teachers have

84. Inadequate examination
Vocabulary
Between Reading Standard #4 and Language Standards #4-#6, we can continue to emphasize all of the good stuff we have learned to do in vocabulary development
Conceptually based vocabulary development
Where do words fit in the big “schema” things?
Contextually driven vocabulary development
Between word and within word contexts

85. Words are Concepts Habitat  Morphology Habit Habituate Recognition
Shelter
Water
Food
Light
Desert
Forest
Shoreline
Habitat
Habitat
Recognition
Definition
Relationships
Context
Application
Synthesis
If we wish to maintain a terrarium in our classrooms, we should establish conditions that are consistent with the organisms’ natural habitats.
Morphology
Habitat: the place where an organism gets the food, water, light, and shelter that it needs to survive
A habitat has everything an animal needs to survive.
The grassland habitat is windy with few trees.
All living things exist within habitats and have adaptations that allow them to survive in those habitats. No one habitat can support all living habitats.
Habit
Habituate 

86. Inadequate examination
What do we do about strategy instruction?
In one sense, the CCSS are moot on the topic:
Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning. (p. 4)
Silence PLUS the post standards emphasis on close reading and the primacy of the text and text-based questions this inference:
Champion talk over explicit instruction as a way of enhancing comprehension and metacognitive strategy instruction

87. What to do about strategies?
We need to take the explicit and implicit critiques of strategy instruction seriously.
McKeown, Beck, & Blake (RRQ, 2008)
Wilkinson & Sun, HRR-4 (2011)

88. Current alternatives: Current Critique
Not sure when it starts… circa 2002-now
Strategies have become rigid and reified
Like phonics skills, rigid (i.e., curricularized) strategy instruction has become
An end unto itself,
Rather than
A means to an end…

89. Possible remedies… Post explicit strategies approach
Questioning the author
Rich talk about text
Encounter opportunities to apply strategies on the fly
Make understanding the text at hand the real goal
Avoid decontextualized enactment of strategies
Invoke them to solve particular problems with text.

90. My hope for the strategies
Something in between explicit lessons, opportunistic teaching, and mini-lessons (ala Whole Language)
Examples should ALWAYS be authentic
Lots of group problem solving with genuinely puzzling examples
Don’t know how to do this yet, but we need to help students distinguish between
Nike Reading
Just do it!
Sherlock Holmes Reading
Deliberate puzzle resolution
Reading Like a Detective

91. Hopes for the future I’m hangin’ in there for the near term.
They are still the best game in town
They are moving in the right direction in terms of reading theory and research
Hoping they prove to be a living document
Regularly revised with advances in
our knowledge of reading
research on their “consequences”
I have supported and will continue to support the CCSS movement. Why? For two reasons—one is based on a relative standard and the other, on an absolute standard. First, compared to their alternative—the confusing and conflicting world of 50 versions of state standards, the CCSS are clearly the best game in town. Second, all things considered in my reading of the theoretical and empirical scholarship on reading comprehension and learning, they are definitely a move in the right direction—toward (a) deeper learning, (b) greater accountability to standards of careful reading and the use of evidence to support claims and reasoning in both reading and writing, and (c) using the fruits of our learning to understand and attack important transfer problems out there in the world beyond schooling and text.