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.

The authors start by outlining legitimate reasons why many teachers express reluctance about getting onboard, such as lack of resources, effects of poverty, and technology challenges. Nevertheless, they recommend that it’s time to put reservations aside, take a positive leap forward, and treat the standards as “gold,” packed with the potential to spark real school reform. Teacher collaboration across and within grades is a key ingredient.

Focused on literacy instruction, Pathways is divided into three main sections: “Reading Standards,” “Writing Standards,” and “Speaking/Listening and Language Standards.” Each begins with a close reading and practical analysis of the related Common Core standards, defining what is and isn’t expected of students and teachers, followed by ideas for implementation.

Collaborative study exercises for teachers are incorporated as needed. Text complexity, “the hallmark of the Common Core State Standards,” and nonfiction reading are given due attention. Readers are assured that the Fountas and Pinnell system for leveling text need not be abandoned, though other methods are cited by the CCSS. And recognizing the challenge of getting more nonfiction (which is not quite so easy to level) into the hands of young readers in a time of squeezed budgets, the authors propose solutions, from adding quality magazines to tapping digital resources. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of drawing on school library resources.

When addressing writing, the authors point out that the CCSS clearly emphasize students’ ability to write evidence-based arguments, and it’s likely that assessments being developed by PARCC and SMARTER Balanced (the authors recommend that teachers become familiar with both agencies) will test those skills. Here the path to instruction and increasing student achievement is not quite so clear-cut, and caution is advised against jumping on packaged materials that promise success. Instead, instruction should begin with evaluating students’ skills (Common-Core-Aligned Performance Assessments for grades K-8 are available at the TCRWP website).

The third piece of the ELA pie, Reading/Listening and Language, is described as clearly intended to make students “independent word solvers and writers and speakers.” Teaching grammar and vocabulary via isolated workbooks isn’t the answer; integrating and developing these skills across the curriculum, as in reading and writing, is a better approach.

Whether or not a school follows the TCRWP model, Pathways analyzes the ELA standards with clarity and makes a convincing case for tapping into the CCSS as a route to thoughtful school reform at a local level spurred by the high expectations of teachers who are committed to honing their craft.

What is reassuring is that we know that children of all ages can think critically about the world in creative ways, particularly when they are given robust and developmentally appropriate texts as part of a well-crafted, student-centered curriculum. These specific groupings of books or multimodal digital texts are referred to as clusters, or text sets. Situating students within the context of a text cluster allows librarians and teachers to use their collections in new ways. Teachers already have tried-and-true books and can use their library to build outward—moving from highlighting a single text to using a text cluster.

Not only do clusters offer an opportunity to differentiate reading, they create a synergy within the curriculum, allowing students to consider multiple perspectives. When readers see that knowledge is not fixed, that there is no single way to represent an idea, a literary theme, a historical event, or a scientific concept, they see the role of the author in new and exciting ways. When given the opportunity to pen their own works, they can apply what they have learned about a variety of different genres and text types.

Text clusters, or text sets, offer rich opportunities in science, language arts, social studies, and the related arts such as music and art. Here are specific ways to use clusters in your library and classroom, and in your work with grade-level teams.

Clustering Concepts: Ecosystems

Text clusters can be used as a tool to teach science content standards as well as the Common Core State Standards for language arts and content literacy. Let’s say you are working with a third grade teacher who is teaching ecosystems or animal habitats. Most likely, your library has a variety of books on different ecosystems and animal habitats to support student inquiry. But to explore that topic with a tighter focus, and model the thinking across texts, the unit could launch with an exploration of how ecosystems change over time.

First, recommend that the teacher read aloud Joyce Sidman’s Song of the Water Boatman (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), illustrated by Beckie Prange. Moving from spring to winter, the book carries readers through four seasons in the life cycle of a pond. On each spread a poem, a nonfiction paragraph, and a woodcut illustration can be found.

Follow that title with the nonfiction picture storybook The Wolves are Back (Penguin, 2008) by Jean Craighead George, about the restoration of wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Students will understand what happens when one animal is removed from an ecosystem, and how that ecosystem shifts its balance when the animal returns.

Finally, the class could explore Thomas F. Yezerski’s Meadowlands (Farrar, 2011), an illustrated history of the wetlands region in northern New Jersey. In small groups, children can discuss how an entire ecosystem can suffer extensive damage and yet manage to rebuild itself over time. Each of these titles offers a different perspective and models a different text structure (poems and paragraphs; narrative; exposition) that youngsters can reference as they they compose in response to the study.

Clustering Biographies: Powerful Pairs and Triplets

Since biographies of the famous and infamous are abundant and ever increasing, it’s easy to put together “bio-clusters.” Start small with two titles that can be compared, and then build larger collections of books, and primary and secondary sources (photographs, prints, letters, newspaper articles, maps, political cartoons). Here are a couple of book clusters to get started.

Powerful Pairs: Beginning with Biographies

The CCSStandards call for us to begin comparing two texts on the same topic with students as early as kindergarten. Picture books are a good place to start because it’s easy for young readers to spot the differences in illustrated works. Using biographies about the same person is one way to show children that informational texts on the same topic are not the same.

For example, two picture books about Jane Goodall, can be used to highlight different approaches to the same information. That is, not all authors select the identical information to spotlight. Me…Jane (Little, Brown, 2011) written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell ends with a young Jane Goodall going to sleep and dreaming of her future on the continent of Africa where she studies animals. When readers turn the page, Goodall, wakes up as an adult. The dream has been realized.

In contrast, Jeanette Winter’s The Watcher (Random, 2011), children receive a fuller story of how Goodall saved her money, traveled to Africa, and met the scientist Louis Leakey. It was Leakey who suggested that Goodall study chimpanzees in Tanzania.

Both books also provide unique kinds of visual information. Me…Jane contains actual writing and illustrations by the young Goodall, who as a girl, organized a group called The Alligator Society. The Watcher presents pictures of Goodall’s early life in small, tightly framed images. In contrast, once the woman begins working with chimpanzees, the pictures burst out of their frames and become two-page spreads. Her joy and sense of the freedom are obvious.

Terrific Triplets: A Cluster of Biographies

In books for older readers, bio-clusters raise additional questions about how history is written. The following titles bring readers face to face with contradictory information. In Amelia Lost (Random, 2011) author Candace Fleming casts doubt on Earhart’s claim that she saw her first airplane at the 1908 Iowa State Fair when she was 11 years old. According to Fleming’s research, there were no planes in Iowa at that time. She suggests that the aviatrix fabricated stories to suit an image she wanted to project.

Two other books, Amelia Earhart (Abrams, 2008), by Shelley Tanaka, and Corinne Szabo’s photobiography, Sky Pioneer (National Geographic, 1997), report that Earhart saw a plane at the fair as fact. The authors of these titles relied on Earhart’s own writings. Here is an opportunity to discuss with students that the sources authors consult can matter and that they may present conflicting information.

This cluster presents many additional opportunities to make comparisons. There are differences in text organization, visual information, theme, and more. Using these books, educators can initiate important conversations about craft and structure, the use of evidence to support ideas, and point-of-view.

Professional Sources Can Guide You

There are many ways to use text clusters or text sets in the library and in the classroom. What we have offered is a mere starting point. Professional resources are available to provide additional guidance as you begin working with clusters.

Eds. Note- two of the authors of this article have written relevant texts on the subject.

Myra Zarnowski’s History Makers (Heinemann, 2003) outlines how to compare biographies using such criteria as accuracy, style, illustration, theme, and selection and interpretation of information. A data chart is provided for gathering information and student samples show how it is done. In Making Sense of History (Scholastic, 2006) Zarnowski describes a hands-on approach for learning about multiple perspectives in history books.

For an up-to-date source on planning with clusters of nonfiction material, see Mary Ann Cappiello & Erika Thulin Dawes’s Teaching with Text Sets (Shell Education, 2012). This book describes innovative ways to incorporate nonfiction literature, as well as other genres, in the classroom while achieving CCSS and content standards. It provides both ready-to-use ideas and guidance for developing your own units of study using specific text models.

So, let’s slow down and think about how even small steps can have large consequences. In this article, I want to discuss how nonfiction series—those books kids love to both linger over and browse—can help move us ahead. Why use nonfiction collections? Because the very features that they are known for can easily be helpful to teachers and librarians as they put the CCSS into practice. Remember, the new standards place an emphasis on reading, writing, and discussing nonfiction.

From Simple to Complex

A brief look at recent reviews of recommended nonfiction sets reminded me of their useful components: fascinating information, introductions and conclusions, engaging formats, interesting visuals, glossaries, indexes, and recommended books and websites, among other elements. These features are precisely what we need when focusing young readers on the big ideas inherent in the CCSS.

But let’s get specific. What simple steps can we take to use nonfiction series to reach Common Core goals? First, we can capitalize on the predictable structure of nonfiction sets. We can show students how chapter organization, time lines, charts, etc. are used in similar ways across different books. Second, we can combine nonfiction collections with stand alone titles and related materials, illustrating out how different authors approach the same topics. In each case, we purposefully utilize these volumes to meet the standards.

Capitalizing on Predictability

To make use of predictable formats, closely examine several titles in a strong series in order to:

Emphasize key ideas and details. The best nonfiction series are clearly written and contain key ideas and supporting details. Find the big concept in each book and have children point out the details that support it.

Find examples of craft and structure. Pay attention to features such as tables of content, headings, subheadings, captions, illustrations, diagrams, and end matter. Make a list of elements that occur across the set. Encourage students to use similar features in their own report writing.

Focus on integration of knowledge and ideas. Many collections have excellent photographs and diagrams that support the texts. Ask students to examine how illustrations and words work together. Do the images extend the text information? If so, how?

Look at text structure. How is each title in a series organized? Is there a main subject and several subtopics? This is a very common approach. Or, is the book arranged according to chronological order? Cause and effect? Problem and solution? A well-constructed volume contains much more than a haphazard collection of facts.

Seeing how nonfiction works across volumes will help children understand how information can be conveyed with clarity and style.

Combining Series Books with Other Nonfiction Materials

Beginning in kindergarten, the new standards suggest that we engage students in comparing texts on the same topic to one another—an essential exercise to help students understand that authors have unique points of view and offer different interpretations of facts. One of the simplest ways to do this is to make groupings of material for children to examine. Here are some ways to begin to incorporate nonfiction series volumes into book clusters.

Make your own book clusters. Find two, three, or four titles on the same subject. Science and social studies topics are natural choices. One volume should come from a nonfiction series. Look for similarities and differences among the books.

Develop collections of books on themes. Incorporate series nonfiction titles into larger collections used for thematic studies. The Common Core supports staying on a topic to build content knowledge. Use these collections to support rigorous reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities.

Fostering an Appreciation of Nonfiction

Above all, the CCSS promote reading nonfiction for in-depth knowledge and enjoyment. Since the standards are about the process of learning, we have a new justification for selecting the best, most interesting, most useful titles we can.