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Common Core Pros And Cons

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Common Core has unfounded negative connotations. Society does not like change and Common Core calls for change. The reality is Common Core changes the way our children learn material and better prepares them for college and a future career. Alexandra Petri laments “70 percent of high school seniors’ reading assignments be nonfiction” (CITE). This is not an unattainable or irrational goal for those preparing to enter college level courses or the workforce. Knowing how to read nonfiction, such as manuals or an autobiography, is an essential skill to learn. Common Core standards include iconic works of fiction, better prepares students for college and work force, and expands reading from English classes only to Math, Science, and History courses. …show more content…

Her goal was to shock her audience. The horror! Who would want a society where adolescents don’t read The Great Gatsby? The author has misidentified texts that were listed under Technical Science as replacements for English Literature. Listed among the various texts on the Common Core website are Homer’s Odyssey, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and many, many more. Under the non-fiction recommendations are great texts from Martin Luther King, Jr., Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Maya Angelou (CITE-COMMONCORE). Who can complain about their children reading these famous texts? If she is this outraged over students reading manuals or technical writing, then society has failed the next generation. Setting recent graduates up for failure is not helping future generations. Common Core is not switching fiction with non-fiction entirely. But it is expanding the breadth and knowledge of adolescents so they are better equipped to read and process technical texts. The technical texts or manuals do not belong nor will they be a part of the English classroom. The intent is for the history, science, and math teachers to assign technical literature separate from English Literature. The …show more content…

Each state is responsible for choosing the texts that are required reading. This is no different from a science teacher assigning an article about Global Warming or Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. According to a 2011 study from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 52% of “twelfth-graders performed at the Basic level in writing” (CITE-GREATSCHOOLS). The levels on the NAEP website from lowest to highest are Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. There was an almost equal percentage of twelfth-graders that scored Below Basic or Proficient, 21% and 24% respectively (CITE-GREATSCHOOLS). There needs to be change made for students to excel. The new standards are expecting students to analyze books with higher expectations for processing their thoughts. It also allows “students to explore and pursue their interests within a broad array of informational texts,” which encourages students to realize there is more to reading than just fiction (CITE-ASCD). Therefore, this can only be an improvement on the old process of reading in schools. Petri’s article is rife with sarcasm as she explains her love of reading began

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