It’s the beginning of the school year and you’re being pulled in a million different directions. Your days are full to the brim as you get to know new students and their families, plan curriculum with colleagues, and consider the most effective teaching strategies and cutting-edge resources.

This school year we will be shifting the focus of our column to strategies for integrating curriculum content, Common Core State Standards [CCSS], content standards, and literature. What role can inquiry play? How can we harness an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning as a tool for integrating curriculum? And, what role does literature play in this curriculum?

We’ll be putting these various pieces together, a job that we believe is crucial, yet still largely incomplete. We’ll provide you with snapshots of what inquiry and integration look like when you and your students are studying topics in science, math, and social studies at the primary, intermediate, and high school levels—models and ideas that you can expand and adjust to make your own.

Moving towards inquiry and integration raises a number of questions for us. When we integrate reading, writing, listening, and speaking in meaningful ways, we are meeting many of the expectations of the Common Core standards. But what does using children’s and young adult literature across the curriculum require in an era of the CCSS? How do we teach for depth while also incorporating the standards? Standards are not synonymous with curriculum. Authentic learning can only take place in the context of rich curriculum; it’s about encountering big ideas, raising and answering questions, and making sense of evidence. This is not done in a vacuum, but in the context of the study of science, math, history, literature, and the world around us.

Small Steps, Large Possibilities

We can begin the integration process by taking small steps that have large possibilities for further development. Both of us have used small sets of related books many times over the course of our teaching careers. We’ve referred to them as powerful pairs, triplets, and quads and text sets. Others have labeled sets of related books as clusters. The name is not as important as the idea that even a small group of carefully chosen books can jump-start a meaningful investigation.

Here’s an example of what we mean. In our upcoming columns, you will see the following template. This will be a springboard for ways in which you can frame an integrated unit that utilizes reading, writing, listening, and speaking as a tool for accessing content, and employs quality children’s and young adult literature of all genres to frame inquiry within a disciplinary lens. One month we might consider a sample unit for primary-grade science, another month a unit for high school social studies.

We look forward to journeying with you through this school year, throughout the content areas and up and down the K-12 grade span. In the context of your busy teaching lives, we hope that these curriculum snapshots will help teachers and school librarians to work and plan together to immerse students in investigations that matter.

Librarians are often more comfortable working in the literacy classroom than manipulating mathematical data, but it may be statistics that prove to be our greatest ally. When the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were rolled out two years ago, they were packaged as content standards, and six instructional pedagogical shifts were identified. Those shifts called for additional attention to vocabulary, nonfiction materials, text complexity, literacy across content areas, increased curriculum rigor from kindergarten through high school, and a focus on producing evidence (versus opinion). By drawing conclusions from data extrapolated from the English Language Arts (ELA) CCSS, librarians can build a strong case for a seventh shift: research.

In the world of statistics, occurrence, or frequency, is often used to interpret results. Viewing the CCSS standards through a statistical lens as a body of data and assessing importance based upon word frequency produces results that support that case. Start by assuming that the ELA standards represent the intentions of the authors of the CCSS, and the objectives, learning targets, and pedagogy that they are asking educators to embrace. Investigate the language of the standards and examine the number of times certain words appear; you’ll notice that the term “research” appears 132 times, exceeding the mention of “vocabulary” (79) and “nonfiction” (64), and comes in close to “evidence” (155) and “complexity” (196). The word “information” (244) is used more often than all five, but behind “reading” (388).

Clearly, research is an essential component of the learning process in the CCSS classroom. In most schools, it’s the librarian who teaches the higher-level skills that equip students to access, evaluate, and synthesize information—information that they use to speak and write with accuracy and authority when they produce evidence and draw conclusions for discussions, debates, or written assignments.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, half of this generation’s students will earn their living from the creation, dissemination, analysis, and communication of information. Under the CCSS, students begin exploring multiple points of view and presentations in the elementary years; by sixth grade, they are “researching to build and present knowledge” and by seventh grade are expected to conduct “short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions for further research and investigation.” These benchmarks broaden and expand until 12th grade, by which time students should be “college and career ready.”

In addition, the pedagogy of evidence—text-based answers and the close reading of text—is part of the research process. Approximately half of the Common Core writing standards acknowledge that research is part of the writing process (see, Writing for Information Standards 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10). In the introduction to the ELA standards, under “Key Design Consideration” is this strong indication of that role: “To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old and new….”

Perception data (the court of public opinion) can be as powerful as concrete data. It’s time for library professionals to craft a national message regarding research—in the same way that the arts have implanted themselves into the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) movement in education, turning it into STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, + Art/Design). Formally acknowledging a research shift underscores its function in “building and presenting knowledge” and adds weight to the librarian’s instrumental role within the CCSS.

The time has come to raise our megaphones and strut our stuff. This is an evidence-based claim. We have the data to support it.

Paige Jaeger (pjaeger@WSWHEBOBES.org) is coordinator for school library services, Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY.

Within the CCSS framework, everyone is in the vocabulary business. That’s right—everyone, according to Adams, research professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown University. Adams’s body of research contributed significantly to the six English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core shifts in instruction: the addition of more nonfiction texts, the focus on building knowledge, the escalation of text complexity at every grade level, the increased importance of citing textual evidence, the emphasis on literacy across disciplines, and the attention to academic terminology.

If you read and study Adams’s work, you will note that she distills achievement to its basic elements: the more you read, the greater your vocabulary. The greater your vocabulary, the better you read. The better you read, the more you comprehend. The more you comprehend, the broader your knowledge base, and the broader your knowledge base, the more you can achieve. Therefore, on a rudimentary level, achievement is dependent on vocabulary.

Adams provides plenty of other insights on language, such as the fact that our everyday spoken language is, typically, grammatically incorrect, void of adjectives and prepositions, and includes a mere 10,000 words. In our students’ work, we underscore correct punctuation and grammar, complex sentence structure, and a vigorous vocabulary. This exposes a fundamental dichotomy that we can address by modeling. We need to elevate classroom discussions and articulate and mirror our expectations of our students. Conversely, we need to require a higher level of reading.

The link between poverty and vocabulary deficit has long been acknowledged and accentuates the disparity between verbal and written skills. Librarians actively support programs (Reading Is Fundamental, etc.) designed in part to battle this shortfall. We can further embrace the Common Core vocabulary shift by reenergizing our efforts to select read-alouds with robust language, helping students find engaging (and challenging) nonfiction books that match their interests, carefully choosing titles for reading lists, and initiating independent reading incentives. We can encourage students to “research like a detective and write like a reporter,” as David Coleman, a CCSS ELA author, suggests.

Locally, we have recommended an approach whereby we purposefully integrate academic vocabulary into classroom instruction whenever possible. When students hear unfamiliar terminology, they simply hold up a hand making a “V” sign with their fingers, so teachers will know to flood the conversation with synonyms. It’s a visual assessment technique that enhances instruction without interrupting it. The unknown word becomes part of the student’s receptive vocabulary, and closer to his or her productive vocabulary, leading to comprehension and achievement.

The CCSS also embrace the premise that every subject area has content-specific terms that can be used to assess student understanding, referred to as “tier-three vocabulary.” Content knowledge and understanding is often demonstrated or measured with the correct usage of tier-three terminology. Research has its own content-specific vocabulary such as “credibility,” “bias,” “annotate,” “cite,” and “synthesize.” Terms encountered in the library are the expressions of the Information Age and should not be overlooked.

Librarians can model vocabulary-rich lessons. Start a “word of the day” program. Include games such as Scrabble and Upwords in your lending library. Model a dynamic vocabulary. Simply by holding words in high regard and spotlighting lyrics and language, librarians will begin to embrace the CCSS shift. Even with explicit vocabulary instruction and implicit vocabulary acquisition, most students’ vocabularies fall far below the one million words they encounter in print. It is a mighty high hill for them to climb, but we can be their guides.

Paige Jaeger (pjaeger@WSWHEBOCES.org) is coordinator for school library services, Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY.

The question for educators: what types of instruction help students develop these skills? In an ideal world, it’s instruction that asks students to do something with information: the raison d’être of librarians.  So how do librarians insert themselves into the critical discussions taking place around these instructional shifts?

Professional development is a good place to start—in the best cases, across institutions. In 2011, the New York City Department of Education Office of Library Services formed a partnership with the City University of New York to do just that—to design a community of practice around the Common Core and the high-school-to-college transition.

Participants—teachers, college faculty, and librarians—began the work by identifying the challenges first-year college students face. These included different knowledge demands and task requirements (for example, secondary schools often require students’ reactions to texts as opposed to thinking about texts within the disciplines), the movement from assignments with built-in supports to independent work, and the increasing volume and complexity of readings. (An opportunity to express some of their frustrations allowed participants to build trust and, thereafter, to focus on instruction as the method to change student outcomes.)

A detailed agenda with clear goals kept everyone engaged and focused at each meeting. Five sessions were devoted to revising and aligning a high school curricular unit on Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Algonquin, 1991) to the CCSS and college demands. An instructor introduced the unit and received feedback using a set protocol. A summary, which included the findings and listed next steps, was shared by a documentarian for further learning and reflection.

The Common Core prepares students for college by having them discover and apply critical approaches to complex texts to other primary texts and writing assignments. Participants commented on how this unit, focused on a novel, presented many opportunities to integrate informational texts similar to those a college faculty member used in his class. The librarians provided literary analysis from databases such as Contemporary Literary Criticism and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (both Gale) to incorporate into the unit, which reflected the types of well-structured arguments students will analyze and write in a first-year college course.

Participants suggested various pedagogical methods for integrating text excerpts from the articles. In this case, the group decided to create its own graphic organizer to model the critical reading approaches they wanted students to incorporate, including space for text excerpts, directions for identifying the author’s main points, and unfamiliar vocabulary. A second organizer posed questions to facilitate textual analysis. During the final session, participants structured the order of the texts for the unit and discussed how to use the same graphic organizers to address the increased complexity of the texts.

The Common Core challenges teachers to look beyond the novel or a textbook as the primary instructional source in favor of collections of texts. Students must build strong content knowledge by reading complex texts and developing the critical thinking skills involved in evaluating arguments and evidence. Participants left the workshop knowing that they can turn to librarians for support in identifying materials for instruction and developing assessments.

The Common Core provides no easy answers or ready-made lesson plans because it focuses on the tough task of making students think. This collaborative model is effective because it outlines a process articulating how librarians contribute to this essential work—collaborating across institutions and disciplines to align curriculum and instruction to students’ sense of wonder and curiosity—and to good old-fashioned inquiry.

Leanne Ellis is a library coordinator for the New York City School Library System, NYC Department of Education, Office of Library Services. To submit an On Common Core opinion piece, please contact Rebecca T. Miller at rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

any people still hold to the belief that nonfiction writing is “just the facts,” often synonymous with formulaic, dull writing. Nothing could be further from the truth! For years, authors of all genres have honed their writing by reading literary nonfiction by the likes of David McCullough, Anna Quindlen, John McPhee, Susan Orlean, and so many others.

These same rich reading opportunities exist for students in K-12 classrooms. Writers for young people from Candace Fleming and Patrick McDonnell to Tonya Bolden and Andrea Warren model both substance and style, and can serve as mentors to students. In this month’s column we’ll look at the ways in which these and other authors shape their material.

Substance: Showing “Big Picture” Thinking

Nonfiction writers gather, sift, and shape their material. They answer selected questions, raise others, and provide interpretations of evidence they have uncovered. One author’s view of historical evidence or presentation of scientific information can be quite different from another writer’s. Students can use these nonfiction mentor texts to closely examine how they approach their subjects.

Here are some of the ways in which authors work to clarify and highlight their main ideas.

Dealing with Gaps
Even when writers have a big idea in mind, the information they need or want may not be available. That is, there are gaps in what is known. When this happens, authors will usually confront the issue head-on. In Marticha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl (Abrams, 2005; Gr 4-8) Tonya Bolden comments, “if Maritcha kept a diary, it has yet to surface.” In Alien Deep: Revealing the Mysterious Living World at the Bottom of the Ocean (National Geographic, 2012; Gr 3-6) Bradley Hague writes, “We still don’t know the exact environment where life on Earth began.”

Using an Alternative to Chronology
A big idea does not have to be presented in chronological order. Many authors have taken the scrapbook approach to their subjects. Candace Fleming’s Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life (Atheneum, 2003; Gr 5-9) delivers bits and pieces about the inventor and statesman under headings such as “Boyhood Memories,” “The Family Album,” and “The Writer’s Journal.” Little Kids First Big Book of Animals (National Geographic, 2010; K-Gr 3), by Catherine Hughes, organizes information about specific animals according to where the creatures live: grassland, ocean, desert, forest, and polar settings.

Explaining Personal Relevance
Some authors share why a big idea is important to them or the people they are writing about. They offer personal connections. In Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London (Houghton, 2001; Gr 6-9) Andrea Warren informs readers, “I have always been sympathetic to the plight of homeless children.” Her book explores the issues surrounding child welfare. In The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity (Houghton, 2012; Gr 5-9), by Elizabeth Rusch, readers learn that after seeing Viking photos taken on Mars, scientist Steve Squyres remembers walking “out of that room knowing exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.” Years later, he was building mechanical robots to explore the distant planet.

Writing Partial Accounts
Some authors leave out some of the story. Me…Jane (Little, Brown, 2011; K-Gr 3), by Patrick McDonnell, tells of Jane Goodall’s life up until the time she first arrived in Africa to study chimpanzees. Tanya Lee Stone’s Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors? The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell (Holt, 2013; K-Gr 4) focuses on the life of the first female doctor from her childhood to her graduation from medical school, discussing her later achievements only in author notes. Books such as these conclude when the subject has accomplished a major life goal. That is the big idea of the book.

Rethinking the Past
A big idea can be that the author examines the past through a new lens. In 1607: A New Look at Jamestown (National Geographic, 2007; Gr 3-6) by Karen E. Lange, readers learn that “for generations, historians have blamed Jamestown’s near failure on the foolishness and laziness of its planners, leaders, and ordinary settlers.” Now, “…we have a better understanding of why so many died during Jamestown’s early years.” Archaeological research has yielded new insights.

In Marc Aronson and Mike Parker Pearson’s If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge (National Geographic, 2010; Gr 5-8), the authors relate that the recent discoveries around Stonehenge emerged as a result of a consultation with a scientist from Madagascar who provided archeologists with a totally new way of seeing and understanding the area. Big ideas about the past, we learn, are subject to change.

As you and your students read nonfiction, look for additional ways that authors shape their big ideas. Consider making a collection of mentor texts which students can refer to as they write.

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Eds. Note: In recent months in this column the authors have addressed “Deconstructing Nonfiction,” “Talking about Nonfiction,” and “Inquiry and Nonfiction.”

But, when the crafters of the CCSS came out with “readability” recommendations (Lexile Measures), they did not arbitrarily say, “Kids can’t read. Let’s make it more difficult for them.” Knowing the research behind text complexity is critical to understanding the call for more complexity. The CCSS crafters examined college freshman textbooks and career manuals. These texts typically measure at a Lexile score of 1450. This Lexile measure was used as a benchmark for college and career readiness (CCR). Grade level Lexiles were then scaffolded in reverse, defining grade level Lexile expectations as stated in the Common Core Appendix A.

You may not agree with this direction, but those who create assessments have already increased the reading difficulty on state tests. Students should not see difficult material for the first time on these tests. They have to be prepared to closely read, examine, decode, and digest material that is not within their “fluency” or comfort range.

In August 2012, the CCSSO team (Council of Chief State School Officers) revised Appendix A to approve five additional readability measures. Other “readability” formulas such as ATOS and the Flesch-Kincaid measure within Microsoft Word are now valid as well. These apply a mathematical measure to a linguistic product and are flawed—but they cannot be ignored.

Educators across America know that our transliterate learners have eyes that gravitate to pictures over text, skim and scan Web pages at warp speed, and lack the determination to read difficut material. That is problematic for close reading. Consider this passage from Appendix A (p.4):

Moreover, current trends suggest that if students cannot read challenging texts with understanding—if they have not developed the skill, concentration, and stamina to read such texts—they will read less in general. In particular, if students cannot read complex expository text to gain information, they will likely turn to text-free or text-light sources, such as videos, podcasts, and tweets. These sources, while not without value, cannot capture the nuance, subtlety, depth, or breadth of ideas developed through complex text.

They did not have to say “if.” The triage for our transliterate generation will be embracing complex text and close reading. Two important tactics that will help teachers get there are purposeful reading and tactile reading.

Purposeful reading requires that teachers give students a reason to read. For instance, suggest that they read a passage “as though you were a king” or “as though you were a serf.” Then ask what part of the passage they pay attention to and for them to show evidence in the text that will support the particular point of view.

Tactile reading is reading with a twist. In the New York State training last month, the phrase drilled into turnkey trainers was “read with a pencil”—what we all did in our print textbooks in college. Close reading requires students to jot notes in the margin, write the gist of the text, and make notations. Closely read passages will be copied, distributed, written upon, digested, discussed, and debated. In digital formats, iPads with apps such as iAnnotate will become increasingly popular to give students the ability to read and react to the text.

Why fluency is important

As great as close reading of complex text may be for instruction, we should not measure independent reading. Also from Appendix A (p.4):

Students need opportunities to stretch their reading abilities but also to experience the satisfaction and pleasure of easy, fluent reading within them, both of which the Standards allow for…. Students deeply interested in a given topic, for example, may engage with texts on that subject across a range of complexity.

Many schools are disregarding reading for pleasure. This illustrates a gross misunderstanding of the goals of CCSS. It is in reading easy material that a student enjoys a book and builds fluency. Dare I suggest that everyone have this paragraph from Appendix A ready for the debates that ensue? For independent reading recommendations, students need to read and enjoy whatever they choose, at whatever level for independent reading. That is how we build lifelong readers.

Paige Jaeger (pjaeger@WSWHEBOCES.org) is coordinator for school library services, Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY.

content over coverage

How can teachers and librarians work together to model for students how we talk about texts, how we explore topics of study, and what initiates our inquiry into a topic of interest? Educators have long understood that speaking and listening are essential components of literacy.  But all too often, talking is left out of the curriculum, because talking takes time. With the recent emphasis on testing, we have witnessed too many quiet classrooms, with students silently reading, independent of one another.

To fully access what they are reading, students need time to process it, and that processing is often most effective when done out loud. We need to give students time to dig in and explore, to talk with one another and with adults about what they are reading, to grapple with multiple perspectives, to pose questions, and to examine the writer’s craft.

Fortunately, the Common Core State Standards require that teachers at all grade levels focus on the role of speaking and listening within the language arts and the content areas. Teams of teachers working with librarians can therefore look at their grade span standards and use the Speaking and Listening standards as a tool for meeting the Reading and Writing standards. Each informs the other. Students who talk about what they have read, who use conversation, modeled by their teachers, as a tool to access their reading, are better prepared to do the critical thinking around texts that the CCSS asks of them.

Promote Formal and Informal Conversations

What are some of the ways that school librarians can support student efforts to talk about the nonfiction texts they read? The first step is the recognition that nonfiction texts are not simply fill-in-the-blank resources useful for writing reports or studying for tests. Indeed, the best nonfiction reflects the questing and questioning that the author engaged in while crafting it. Nonfiction is not answers, it is exploration–which readers or listeners are invited to join, whether through swiftly moving, page-turning narrative, or the swell of insights, or vistas of new possibility that it opens. The more go-to favorite nonfiction books that engage, stimulate, and challenge in these ways that you have, the better.

Start your preparation by looking closely at your nonfiction and making subcategories for yourself–this one is an I-couldn’t-put-it-down thriller, that one made me see the world a new way, this one invites readers to join the quest by giving them an expert to identify with, this title is filled with the unforgettable facts my kids will want to share with one another. Then plan a nonfiction story time like a meal: an appetizer of the weird and wacky, a first course of adventure, a hearty main meal of intellectual quest, and a fine dessert of websites and games students can explore on their own. That splendid feast should whet students’ appetites for nonfiction and get them started on the kinds of thinking the Common Core requires of them.

In elementary and middle school, where library is often an integrated arts class, librarian and teacher teams can coordinate the exploration of nonfiction and informational text so that it is aligned with topics, themes, or the types of writing that students are studying in their core class(es). Having a school-wide strategy for implementing the Speaking and Listening standards is as important as having a school-wide strategy for the Reading and Writing standards that often get more attention. Grade level teams can decide which Speaking and Listening standards will be introduced in core classes, and which in the library.  At the high school level, where the library is often a place used by classes for particular academic purposes, librarians can plan with the content area departments on how best to support students in speaking and listening about nonfiction texts.

The following are some general strategies to bring more speaking and listening activities into the school library to support students as they read increasing numbers of nonfiction texts.

Nonfiction Conversation Podcasts

We often ask students to write original book reviews. But what about recording a conversation about a book as a form of book review? Pairs, trios, or even groups of students who have read the same nonfiction book can be recorded, in audio or video, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Students would first have to prepare their own reactions to the text, and then compare and contrast with one another to establish an outline for their recorded discussion.

Younger students will need more support than older students in this activity, and could create shorter podcasts. Upload the recording to a “Book Conversation” section of your school library webpage, and it is ready to be accessed by other students in the school. Such podcasts are also a way to bring community members into the school. Adults from your community can read the same book as a group of students, and their conversation can be recorded and uploaded.

Service Learning Projects

Coordinate with faculty who conduct service learning projects within the classroom, or in a volunteer or service club that meets before or after school, or at lunch. Students can start by reading nonfiction books and articles to learn more about the issues that they are working on. For example, if students are trying to fight hunger in your community, they can read a title or two on hunger and nutrition. Next, they can look at digital newspaper and magazine articles. Subscription databases have magazine articles for even the youngest of readers. Finally, students can read and discuss the information contained on the websites for various organizations that work to ameliorate the effects of hunger. Students will then synthesize their reading, consider what strategies may work best for organizing a food drive or fundraiser, and write and record a public service announcement that can be played on a community radio station, local cable access station, or both, sharing their knowledge as well as details about their project.

Creating Content for Younger Students

We know that in general, children can understand more complex information if they hear it or have it read aloud to them. Primary grade teachers often lament not having enough material that is developmentally appropriate for children, at a level that their students can read independently. Have the older students in your school research and record content that can be used by the younger children in your school. This can occur during library class or in conjunction with classroom research projects at the different grade levels.

Individually, in pairs, or small groups, students can research a topic, and create their own multimodal digital text to share. A project like this asks students to read and take notes on a topic and to compare and contrast the information and source material through careful discussion and deliberation. They will then have to outline and plan what the text will look like visually, negotiating details and differences, and finally, record their piece.

If posted on the library webpage, younger students will have access to the information. This is a wonderful project for Book Buddies. Of course, careful attention has to be paid to the accuracy of the student work. While doing all of this reading, writing, speaking, and listening, the older researchers will be enacting many of the Common Core State Standards.

Oral Histories

Turn your school library into an Oral History Center. By working with grade level teams, see if there are one or two willing to conduct oral histories as part of language arts/English class and/or in conjunction with social studies or science. Primary grade students can interview close family members or neighbors, while older elementary, middle, and high school students can interview community members in conjunction with specific units of study.

For instance, a high school chemistry class might interview scientists in the area if you have a local research center, university or manufacturing plant. Middle school students studying World War II might interview senior citizens in your area who were children at the time. For resources, go to StoryCorps or the Columbia Center for Oral History.

From left to rt: Myra Zarnowski, Marc Aronson, Mary Ann Cappiello

Eds. note: In last month’s column, “Deconstructing Nonfiction,” the authors considered the types of nonfiction texts, their purposes, and their use in the classroom.

In turn, her students have been guided in the inquiry process and taught how to make connections. They are learning how to develop intriguing questions for further discovery and research, investigate a topic, construct new meanings, develop opinions and supporting arguments, apply new understandings, create final products, and reflect on what they learned. These teaching practices, all of which are called for throughout the CCSS, place this school librarian at the core of education in her school and a model for others to follow.

As Poser’s familiarity and understanding of the Common Core grew, she realized she had an opportunity to take a strong role in the implementation of these new standards. With the ongoing support and encouragement from her principal, Lenny Santamaria, she attended several workshops on the Common Core and alignment with NYC’s Information Fluency Continuum. She began to recognize where the information literacy skills she has taught for the past 17 years merge with the CCSS. She also noticed, however, most educators did not express the same confidence.

Success with teachers and parents

To make inroads, Poser started to share her knowledge of inquiry with staff, parents, and students. She gave a workshop on text complexity for staff and attended curriculum-planning meetings, providing resources and informational text to complement instructional units. She expanded her collaborative relationships and developed engaging projects with new teachers in the school.

She analyzed the collection and looked at how to enhance it. The shift to Common Core called for more non-fiction texts, and Poser thought outside the box when it came to expanding the library’s collection. She won a grant for a specialized collection on the American presidency that provided $5,000 for new materials. Then she developed a collaborative inquiry unit with the art teacher around the new collection, introducing students to primary sources, speeches, policies, and biographies of these U.S. leaders.

Meanwhile, Poser created book displays thoughtfully highlighting engaging nonfiction at varying reading levels. The titles circulate often and change regularly, focusing on Poser’s Picks of the Month, which features tie-ins across subject areas with both fiction and nonfiction.

Collaborating with the principal and parent coordinator, Poser helped create an informational pamphlet for parents that explains the Common Core and highlights the resources available through the library. Additionally, she facilitated a workshop at a PTA meeting, introducing parents to the library’s website, walking them through databases, and demonstrating how to use the online catalog from home. She even showed them how to cite sources.

Poser also developed new programming that reached out to parents and students, inviting them after school hours to Warm Up with a Good Book and Vote for Books. Both programs focused on nonfiction titles and brought parents into the physical library space, helping them make connections with their children and the resources available to support the Common Core.

Real-world connections

The Common Core forces students to connect ideas outside of the classroom to the real world. To meet the standards, students and teachers need to develop new dynamics like the ones modeled by Poser. They also require us all to overcome the angst that these changes make many educators feel. Librarians like Christine Poser are key to a successful transition. With the support of administrators, they can have a huge impact on the implementation of the new standards.

Melissa Jacobs-Israel (Mjacobs7@schools.nyc.gov) is Coordinator, NYC School Library System, NYC Department of Education, Office of Library Services. To submit an On Common Core opinion piece, please contact Rebecca T. Miller at rmiller@mediasourceinc.com.

Here’s what Sarah had to say about page four of my book: “There are two paragraphs here, which begin with the sentence, ‘There are two ways to tell the story of America.’ Again I was pulled to an abrupt halt. Really? (I thought) There are two ways to tell the story of America? Two? Not three or six or twenty.’”

Obviously, I don’t agree, and I look forward to a lively discussion with the Flowers team at some future gathering. But I’m restating my point here not to wrangle over my book’s language, but rather to reflect on the recent presidential election and some of the post-election analysis and complaints.

As the New York Times reported, some Republican voters in, for example, Wyoming are discouraged by the election’s outcome. Those businesspeople see what they term “dependency” on the government as “unsustainable” and directly counter to what they’re certain is our nation’s can-do, self-reliant, and individualist core. Of course, it was precisely this split between the 47 percent of takers and, implicitly, the 53 percent of doers that Governor Romney spoke of in that captured video—a split echoed by Bill O’Reilly and many others after the election.

From the Colonial days, when Pennsylvania’s rich lands were called the “best poor-man’s country,” through Emerson’s canonical essay on self-reliance, through the generations of graduation speakers who have used his words as their guide and inspiration, America has stood as a land where an individual has a chance to make good. Our emphasis on the individual as an individual was in stark contrast to the rest of the world, where a nation or empire generally embraced an established religion. In those societies, one was defined as belonging to the prevailing faith or viewed as an outsider. There was also a set class system in which your expectations were defined by your birth—and a strong sense of national heritage in which to be English, or Chinese, or Zulu was defined by not being something else. Of course, this made it difficult to figure out what rights to grant minorities, such as Jews, Quakers, Uighurs (Muslim Chinese), Koreans in Japan, etc.

No wonder the Wyoming voters are angry and feel as if the America they know, love, and believe in is slipping away and joining the muck of the world that their ancestors left behind. But there’s one key flaw in that narrative of American history. When Congress first set rules for how an immigrant could be become a naturalized citizen, it faced a major dilemma. Should just anyone be allowed to come here and join the American experiment, including Jews who could not vote or hold office in England and Catholics who might be beholden to the Pope? In 1790, Congress decided that religion would not be a barrier. Indeed, any free white person was eligible for citizenship. (The rule was amended to include Africans after the Civil War—and thus specifically excluded Asians and later Hispanics; the law was not fully replaced until 1952.)

For some Americans, being an individual has always been trumped by being part of a group: African Americans, Native Americans, LGBT Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist Americans, and even female Americans have always been aware of their group identity—once considered a demerit, now often a source of pride. Here’s the second narrative of American history: no matter who you were as an individual, the shadow of your group defined how others perceived you, and it greatly influenced your prospects. If you identify with any of these groups, American history has only fractionally been a story of individual effort. Rather, it has always been a matter of collective profile.

In the recent election, members of precisely these same groups tended to side with President Obama, and all of the post-election demographic analysis has been about their rising power. One narrative of America’s history that emphasizes collective experience is edging past another that emphasizes that individuals are free to seek their own destinies. But there are, as I said at the beginning, two narratives of our past. Both are, in their own way, true. Indeed, it’s the weave, the intersection, of belief in the individual and the assumption that that individual is white and male, that’s our national story. Both of these stories, taken together, subvert and enhance one another and make up the real pageant of our past.

What a perfect Common Core topic: present your students with a cluster of resources, some that focus on America as the land of the individual and others that focus on our nation as the land of group prejudice and collective experience. Soon, I hope, your libraries will be alive with sound of the resulting questions, comments, and debates. I can hardly wait.

Elementary teachers often feel that it is impossible to meet all the literacy, math, science, and social studies benchmarks for which they are accountable. Middle and secondary content specialists lament the lack of time they have to delve into specific moments in history, concepts in economics, or specialized topics in the sciences that can serve as a catalyst for understanding essential concepts. As a result, students sprint through the content standards, with no time to rest, breathe deeply, or examine closely.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts and Content Literacy, on the other hand, are process-oriented. Teachers have an opportunity to choose broadly the content to examine, and can view the CCSS as a toolkit to explore topics, themes, and genres.

There are practical ways to teach for content over coverage. Primary teachers will want to integrate their teaching and create multidisciplinary curriculum units. Secondary science and social studies teachers can use the CCSS as a vehicle for exploring important topics within their required state content standards at a greater depth and model the ways in which professionals approach their disciplines, as they equip students with some of “the tools of the trade.”

Such work begins with selecting a range of materials for units of study, material beyond traditional basal readers and textbooks. If the educators in your school must use required texts, they can incorporate these resources into a larger curriculum text set. Librarians can help them find books and materials outside the same old parade of facts, and lead them to a variety of fiction and nonfiction genres when possible and appropriate. You can also assist them in locating relevant newspaper and magazine articles in digital databases, and point to museum, library, and research-based websites for examples of available primary and secondary sources. As much as possible, encourage teachers to rely upon a number of formats, so that students can read, listen to, and view texts in more than one modality.

After selecting material for content study, we need to consider approach. One misconception our students often have is that all nonfiction should be read in the same way. They are unaware that historians and scientists approach content differently. We can teach students to read as these professionals do by modeling and allowing them to try out these processes. The CCSS foster disciplinary literacy, recognizing that each field of study has its own framework for asking questions, considering evidence, and creating new content to communicate knowledge.

As educator Sam Wineburg has explained, historians rigorously question what they read. The questions they raise about historical sources are the same questions that our students should be asking. Who wrote it? Why? What do they want me to know? Historians also compare different accounts of the same events.  Do my sources agree on the facts? If not, why not? How do they differ? And finally, they ask about the unique conditions of the era they are examining and consider how these conditions influenced people’s behavior. What is distinctive about the period I am studying? What is familiar? What is unfamiliar? Encourage your students to use these frameworks referred to as sourcing, corroborating, and contextualizing.

Scientists also question rigorously. They evaluate claims being made by others to see if they come from carefully planned observations, and try to determine if inferences are justified. When our students are reading nonfiction accounts of scientists engaged in inquiry, they, too, can pose questions: What is the problem the scientists are trying to solve? Are they collaborating with others? How? Is there evidence that they are willing to reconsider previous conclusions in the face of new evidence? Are the investigative methods they are using creative and imaginative? What have they learned? What else do they want to know?

These queries will move conversations about nonfiction sources well beyond factual recall and remembering. Instead, students will begin to think about how knowledge is created and how scientists and historians continue to refine their understandings. In other words, your discussion will present science and history as subjects that are vibrant and alive.

As we introduce more nonfiction, let’s keep in mind that to engage in critical thinking, we need a robust and varied collection of material to investigate. These clusters of information sources are the foundation of critical conversations.

Librarians recognized the value of information more than 20 years ago when our profession launched the first edition of Information Power as a national library best-seller. It did not make the New York Times’slist, but almost every library in America owned a copy. We recognized the need to move away from media and skills (the wave of the ’60’s and ’70’s) to empowering lifelong learning through information. If the world had only listened then, we could have all been spared No Child Left Behind and the messy race we are now in to the top of nowhere. Despite society’s evolution and pop culture’s transformation, information is still powerful.

It is information that empowers learners to make good decisions. Information empowers us to argue, debate, create, communicate, critique, analyze, support a position, comprehend a topic, formulate a point of view, converse, and more. All these verbs were pulled from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The crafters of the Common Core knew the timeless value of information. That is why you will find the word “information” 243 times in the CCSS for ELA alone.

If you search the ELA Common Core Standards for “technology,” you will find it mentioned only 24 times. Yep: “information” is mentioned ten times more than ”technology.” Technology often gets the spotlight, but it is information that is important. Teachers may not get it, but CCSS architect, David Coleman, got it. He recognized that we live in an Information Age in which technology holds no power without the correct information. Data and information empower technology. Information is at the core of technology, learning, debating, analyzing, developing a point of view, and other Common Core tasks. We knew this 20 years ago. Information Power had the student at the center of learning. It was all about empowering the student to be a lifelong learner. Now, we need to just graduate “college and career ready” (CCR) seniors.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Common Core. I just believe that librarians were light-years ahead. Dig out your old copy of Information Power, blow off the dust, and read the preface. You might be shocked to discover lines that read as though they were from the Common Core. “Broaden access to and use of information by students, teachers, and parents” using information for lifelong learning. The 1998 edition opens by talking about the “explosion of information” and “promoting authentic learning.” The first chapter of Information Power reminds me of the Common Core Anchor Standards. They were so much alike that I went into Appendix A and searched for a citation—nada.

The library world didn’t stop with Information Power. Our professionals went on to concentrate on the “learning” via information when we focused on inquiry and authentic learning. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) spearheaded new standards for the 21st-century learner. The power word that appears there is “conclude” or conclusion. We need to triage instruction to foster higher-level thought; encourage critical thinking skills; empower students to use information correctly, live uprightly, make good decisions, and ethically contribute to society. Information empowers technology, and technology delivers information. This is a match made for us. This is the new recipe for successful instruction. Do we dare say we are 20 years ahead—again?

Paige Jaeger (pjaeger@WSWHEBOCES.org) is coordinator for school library services, Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY. To submit an On Common Core opinion piece, please contact Rebecca T. Miller at rmiller@mediasourceinc.com.

Complexity is not clear cut

What we are most eager to know is how to determine the complexity of any given text. To do so, we must consider the following three factors: quantitative measures, qualitative measures, and reader and task. Where each is concerned, we will need to proceed with full awareness of the fact that the complexity of a text is not static at all. Foremost, we will have to resist any impulse we may have to be reductive about text complexity. As much as we would like to be able to confidently establish specific levels of complexity for each text we work with, we may never be able to do so to our ultimate satisfaction. Why? Nothing about this is clear cut.

First, quantitative measures of text complexity (such as Lexile levels and other readability formulas), while profoundly comforting and easiest to determine, can be largely misleading—if only because our over-dependence on them blinds us to the more subtle qualitative measures. Quantitative measures encourage us to slap a number, letter, or grade level on a text and be done with it. Librarians and classroom teachers know intuitively that these labels do not work—hence our sensible resistance to “leveling” our libraries. Quantitative measures provide a starting place, but are hardly where we will end our work of determining the complexity of a text.

Then, qualitative measures of text complexity ask us to carefully consider levels of meaning, the structure of a text, language conventionality and clarity, and the knowledge needed for comprehension. Of course, determining complexity based on a number of qualitative text features is daunting—plagued by subjectivity and a nagging lack of clarity. The tools/rubrics designed for this task turn out to be most useful for providing a common language to discuss features of the text with colleagues and collaborating teachers. Traditionally, we have just “known” when a text was not appropriate for a particular instructional task or for certain students. When pressed as to why, we might say: “The writing is just too hard…” or “It has too many pictures…” These tools give us a common vocabulary to discuss the basis for determining how appropriate a text is for a specific audience.

The role of the “task”

Lastly, and most importantly, reader and task is where the slope is most slippery. Depending on the abilities of our students and what we ask them to do with a text, its complexity can vacillate wildly. For example, a text with a low Lexile level can easily become more complex if a student’s prior knowledge of the topic is limited. That very same material becomes even more complex the more critically we ask a student to think about it. It is one thing to ask a child to read an article written at a Lexile level of 1000 just to comprehend it. It is rather a different task to expect that same student to read the article to draw a conclusion from it and support that conclusion with evidence from the reading. The task, in this case, has just made the text more complex.

Where does this leave us? Where most of the Common Core leaves us: seeking clarity. Our golden opportunity as school librarians lies in tapping our deep content knowledge to create understanding both for ourselves and our colleagues. The reward will be well worth our efforts—especially if our collective work reinforces our critical place in the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards.

To submit an On Common Core opinion piece, please contact Rebecca T. Miller at rmiller@mediasourceinc.com.

My daughter’s first project was a fact-finding assignment where she was instructed to “go on the Internet with a parent and find out information about the Solar System.” As I read the instructions, my school librarian blood began to simmer. It boiled when I read, “do a Google search.” I wondered what my daughter would possibly learn. Was there any expectation of her developing critical thinking skills? What questions was she answering? How do you find facts without answering a question? What context will five facts have in my five-year-old’s world? Googling Solar System returns 177,000,000 results; how can she possibly narrow the search without keywords teased from a concept map? Okay, maybe I was carried away, because this is was kindergarten, but I have standards: Common Core Learning Standards.

As I helped my daughter finish the assignment, I was left with nagging questions as a parent and as an educator. My distress was weighed down by my knowledge that so many of our nation’s educators now need training on Common Core. This project—while it did not reflect the great teaching and instruction my daughter’s teacher did provide—was representative of the homework teachers are used to assigning and parents are used to seeing.

It reinforced my belief that educators need strong support, training, and guidance, and considerable time to reframe and rethink their teaching methods, assignments, unit plans, and lesson plans. They need to become fluent in the new standards and proficient in scaffolding the skills necessary for their students’ success.

Bringing parents along

Throughout the last two years, the Common Core has been a hot topic among us educators, but what do parents really understand of it? Are parents aware that for the first time in history there is a national movement towards a commonality in educational methods? A lot of new catchphrases are circulating in education and publishing circles, but are they also making the rounds in parenting circles, PTA meetings, public libraries, community meetings, board meetings, parenting blogs, or parenting magazines? Are parents ready for a new type of homework?

Enter school librarians. We have the tools to help parents engage in the Common Core. We are adept at sharing information fluency skills and the need for information literacy, critical thinking skills, and project-based learning with parents. We build and maintain diverse collections of nonfiction materials and can help parents become familiar with the narrative texts that build rigor and engage kids. We also offer online databases and tools that provide access to vetted resources that trump any “Googling.”

We can help parents remain informed and positive about the educational shifts by providing informational brochures and links to Common Core resources, developing a school library parenting blog or newsletter, and makings sure they are familiar with the library’s catalog. We can support teacher professional development and assist parents in understanding the need for change and the time required to make the shift.

Our common project

As a parent, between my two daughters I have another 15 years in the K–12 realm. I often wonder what it will be like. I understand it is beyond my personal capacity to influence every teacher my children encounter, but I can lend my professional insight. We all need to respect and support one another’s role in the Common Core.

Together, administrators, teachers, librarians, and parents will help students reach their final destination of being career and college ready in our global society. Together, we need to challenge their growing minds, encourage their curiosity, move beyond teaching-to-the-test, and more deeply involve ourselves in their education.

Melissa Jacobs-Israel (Mjacobs7@schools.nyc.gov) is Coordinator, NYC School Library System, NYC Department of Education, Office of Library Services. To submit an On Common Core o pinion piece, please contact Rebecca T. Miller at rmiller@mediasourceinc.com.

]]> http://www.slj.com/2012/09/opinion/on-common-core/making-the-parent-connection-on-common-core/feed/ 2 http://www.slj.com/2012/08/opinion/on-common-core/is-a-picture-worth-2500-understanding-facts-visually-on-common-core/ http://www.slj.com/2012/08/opinion/on-common-core/is-a-picture-worth-2500-understanding-facts-visually-on-common-core/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2012 05:05:52 +0000 SLJ http://www.bookverdictk12.com/?p=10992

A picture has always been worth a thousand words, but now they are worth $2,500 or more a pop. According to marketingtechblog.com, “infographics agencies charge between $2,000 to $5,000 to research, design, and promote a fantastic infographic.”

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) ask students to research to build and present knowledge. For years, this knowledge was shared in written form—reports, essays, projects, and concluding paragraphs. Then came technology. The written format was then superseded by interviews, moviemaker clips, wikis, blogs, Animoto flashy packaged images, Vokis, Crazytalk movies, PowerPoints, Museum Boxes, Prezi’s, and more. We have mapped knowledge, created knowledge products, and delivered other educational messages with engaging technology and Web tools.

Deeper comprehension

Now, the newest buzz is about infographics. Infographics, which have been around for years in many formats from graphs to subway maps, are visual images that display information along with a message. Sometimes the message is subtle, while at other times it is stark and compelling. Infographics are easy to read and easy to digest—and the technology to create one is relatively easy to learn. I love them because the level of understanding it takes to condense a vast amount of researched information takes the creator to a new level of comprehension. It’s easy to create a PowerPoint and recall information, but it takes a deep understanding to synthesize and summarize those same facts visually in a graph, image, flowchart, poster, or combination of the above.

We live in a visually dominant society, and research shows that eyes gravitate to images over text. Therefore, any information we can present in picture form is more appealing and more likely to be read. Although infographics are easier to read than text, they are not simple to plan. These images actually hit the top of Bloom’s triangle: build, create, design, develop, devise, generate, compose, construct, adapt, imagine, compile, convince, express, and more! Infographics require deep understanding of the subject, the ability to summarize details and synthesize knowledge, and the creative spirit to wrap that knowledge up in an appealing way.

Strong writing skills required

Please note that as inviting as infographics are. the ability to make them does not replace strong reading and writing skills. The objective of the CCSS is to graduate College and Career Ready (CCR) students, and most students currently lag behind in reading and writing skills upon graduation. Hence the CCSS focus on close reading and writing “drawing evidence from the text.” In our copy and paste world, any assignment that requires students to move away from recall, retell, and rewrite (copy and paste), and instead challenges them to think, is worthwhile. Wrap that up in technology, and you get engagement. One could argue that “drawing evidence from the text” to support a position or point is only slightly better than aggregating facts and rote recall, but, nevertheless, students need to write well.

According to communications scholar Sandra Braman, this hyperconnected generation is losing “the skills associated with print literacy, including the ability to organize complex processes….” Creating infographics gives students the valuable purpose to read closely—to be able to deeply understand the material to represent it differently—visually. When CCSS-aligned lessons are being designed, there must be that element of close reading and research to gather the facts, data, and “evidence from the text” to obtain the substance necessary to plan the visual message.

Venturing down this path of creating an infographic genuinely supports the Common Core Standards for writing 6–10. Not only does it give the students an opportunity to “Research to Build and Present Knowledge,” but it is also challenging in the right way. Students have an easy time drawing that evidence from the text. Placing that evidence into a bigger picture to support a larger cause to convince, debate, or consolidate is the difficult task.

(There are many free and fee-paid tools to create infographics, but two to start with are Piktochart and http://infogr.am/. Piktochart gives 501(c)3 organizations a free account.)

When delivering professional development, encourage teachers to include an infographic in addition to the writing assignments. They each accomplish different CCSS objectives. The writing assignment covers writing standards 1–5 and 7–10. The Infographic will use writing standard six to wrap it up in a nice impressive package–20th-century style.

Jaeger (pjaeger@WSWHEBOCES.org) is coordinator for school library services, Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY. To submit an On Common Core opinion piece, please contact Rebecca T. Miller at rmiller@mediasourceinc.com.

My introduction to the Common Core State Standards was via the now notorious Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks. Back in 2011, I was asked to develop a spreadsheet of the resources included in Appendix B, locate Lexile levels for each, determine copyright dates, verify current print status (most were out of print), and confirm and list ISBN numbers and other bibliographic data. Although seemingly futile, the experience helped me dive into the Common Core with both confidence and concerns.

I worried that publishers were climbing into their attics and warehouses blowing off inches of dust from out-of-print copyright dates and seeing dollar signs. I feared that publishers and jobbers were going to disregard the introductory statement in Appendix B, which clearly states these titles should be considered as samples of what should be offered to students and not a complete reading list. I didn’t want administrators, teachers, and librarians to be sold a bill of goods.

Let me back up: Appendix B and the Common Core resources are arranged in grade bands comprised of dated titles that have few noticeable curricular connections. It is unclear if the writers of the Common Core considered the engagement levels of young adults, contemporary issues, reviews, or other professional selection tools. There are no annotations, summaries, subject headings, keywords, or tags. What are the instructional purposes? Was a librarian consulted? Even as merely models, as stated, the list seemed so narrow that I feared what this might mean for the average classroom and school library.

Out of curiosity, I reached out to vendors and publishers to find out what they were doing to address the Common Core. Strategies were varied. Some were taking time to understand the standards themselves and identifying titles in existing catalogs that may or may not be relevant to the needs of the K–12 market. Some were adding Lexiles. Some were assembling catalog after catalog adorned with shiny gold stickers stating “Aligned to Common Core.” Some were resurrecting out-of-print titles. Some were resurrecting out-of-print titles and ornamenting them with shiny gold stickers. Some were bringing in third-party consultants to help align existing catalogs and forthcoming titles with the Common Core. And some were ignoring the Common Core completely, hoping this too shall pass.

Educators are looking at the guidance coming out of the publishing world and find it confusing and potentially misleading. We are all still in the preliminary stages of unpacking the new standards and grasping the intricacy of text complexity and aligning titles with instructional tasks. I worry that we are vulnerable to the reductive solutions some vendors are bringing to the market.

The instructional shifts taking place in classrooms across the country are monumental and will ripple across the publishing world. Educators need to build students’ stamina for reading nonfiction. Librarians must learn how to create Common Core units and assessments, identify complex texts for instructional purposes, build strategic collections that meet the increased rigor of student assignments and projects, and help them develop the skill sets necessary for reading and digesting informational text.

The past decade in children’s publishing has focused primarily on fiction. Now we need publishers to deliver high quality, appealing nonfiction that can engage students and build rigor. And professional reviewers need to adapt to this change by examining more nonfiction and providing insight into how the title may align to instructional tasks.

To get there, we need publishers to talk to school librarians and other educators to learn what is actually needed as the Common Core standards are being unpacked collaboratively. We don’t need shiny gold stickers telling us that books are Common Core compliant.

Melissa Jacobs-Israel (Mjacobs7@schools.nyc.gov) is Coordinator, NYC School Library System, NYC Department of Education, Office of Library Services.

The seamless alignment of the Common Core with inquiry standards, skills, and indicators allows us to make the case at the center of our work as librarians. Namely: true learning is about internalizing a process for learning that transfers across all content areas, and inquiry is the process at the center of all true and meaningful learning.

Translation required

The only trick is that the language of the Common Core is still largely foreign and threatens to remain so. Comprehension of a foreign language is never improved by hearing it spoken more loudly, nor is it increased by others’ facility with it. When content area teachers bring their language to the table as well, the scene is ripe for the exchange of loud babble.

Our opportunity lies in figuring out how to translate both languages simultaneously for the various constituents we serve. To do this, we must become masters of the language of the Common Core. If we stop at accepting the crosswalks (connections between past and new standards) and then claim we are doing the Common Core, we will miss out on the opportunity to incorporate our understanding of inquiry for others. The commonality that will help us begin the task of translation lies in a deep understanding of the inquiry process, its overlap with Common Core, and how they both apply across a variety of content.

Building a cabinet requires one to learn the process for doing so—namely, the steps and discrete skills involved. Without wood, nails, glue, and stain, however, the cabinet cannot be built. Think of the actual building of the cabinet as the process and the materials used to build it as the content. One needs both the process and the materials. Librarians know this about learning. This is why we balk at assignments that require students to gather material without requiring them to do anything significant with it. “Copy and paste” assignments ask students to simply move the content from one place (in a resource) to another (a “report”). This does not a cabinet make.

On the other hand, when we are afforded the luxury to do so, librarians teach the transferable process of inquiry using whatever content/materials our colleagues ask us to use. It is only in this meaningful wedding of content and process that our students internalize the transferability of learning as a process. That is to say, if we teach the process for building a cabinet with oak, our students can transfer that process to building cabinets with any number of materials.

At the center of learning

To date, the only Common Core Standards that have been released are reading and writing standards steeped in process, and we are all about process. Content, we are being told, will come in time. In the interim, this can serve us well, but only up to a point. It is one thing for us to see our work all over the Common Core, but it is another to get others to see it, and yet another to position ourselves as instructional leaders in the implementation of the standards.

It will not be sufficient for us to guide colleagues in seeing the connections between inquiry and the Common Core. We will have to provide concrete ways to teach the skills embedded in the inquiry process, because at the end of the day, the conversation will have to revolve around how actual lessons will be taught.

With this change will come a wonderful reshaping of our work. If inquiry is everywhere in learning, then our work is everywhere and the work we do is no longer considered the indefinitely postponable “library skills curriculum.”

Nonetheless, it looks like this “opportunity” is all about colossal amounts of work. Joy will come with deeper understanding, greater fluency with the Common Core language, and in knowing that our work is perceived as urgent and critical, and that school libraries and librarians are indispensable.

Also see: Rebecca T. Miller’s Editorial, “‘I Can Help You With That’: Providing solutions puts librarians at the center of Common Core”