Craig,
I've read through some of it, and as a linguist I like much of what they've done. To teach effectively to these standards, teachers will have to know, understand, and teach a fair bit of English grammar. Therein lies the problem. We don't have a core of language arts teachers with the training or disposition to do this. Their training is still fundamentally anti-grammar, and they get very little language content in the teacher ed. curriculum and even less language teaching methodology, for L1 or L2 speakers. Standards can't get set out in such a context and hope to be adopted. School boards, teachers colleges, language arts faculties, etc. will continue to do as they've been doing, paying lip-service to the standards and in most cases not even being aware that they're flouting them.
I hate to sound so negative, but without the governors also investing in training, curriculum revision, and monitoring, I don't see how much will change.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 5:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: common core standards
The National governor's Association's Common core Standards have been
released and can be accessed at www.corestandards.org.
Though they still don't go as far as they ought to in that direction,
they seem a radical shift in favor of knowledge about language (not
just language behavior) throughout the grade levels. This, for
example, is from grade 7: "Explain the function of phrases and clauses
in general and their function in specific sentences." This seems to me
the sort of thing that can't happen solely "within the context of
writing" or through mini-lessons.
Check it out. If I am reading this correctly, they are calling for
far more conscious attention to language from K-12.
Craig
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