I've been doing a lot of reading about the common core, but I have a question for possible discussion. With the goal of the common core being that students read 70% nonfiction by the 12th grade, I'm wondering if English teachers should be spending ANY time teaching literature and poetry at all in high school, despite the NY Times article which summarizes a study that supports the teaching of fiction (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=1&%2339&sq=your%20brain%20on%20fiction&st=cse&%2359;&scp=1<https://outlook.brooklyn.cuny.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=1%26%252339%26sq=your%2520brain%2520on%2520fiction%26st=cse%26%252359;%26scp=1>).

I just read this this morning:

"If you ask students what makes reading hard, they blame the words. And they’re right to place so much importance on vocabulary: Authors introduce their ideas through words and phrases, and if readers don’t know what these mean, there’s little chance that they will make sense of the text. Studies show that higher-order thinking in reading depends heavily on knowledge of word meanings (Shanahan, et al., 2012)." (http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/The-Challenge-of-Challenging-Text.aspx<https://outlook.brooklyn.cuny.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/The-Challenge-of-Challenging-Text.aspx>).

and it made me think that there was a strong need to spend time teaching vocabulary to students as well as remedial reading for I read this as well:

"No matter how successful early instruction in reading is, it cannot fully prepare students for the literacy demands that evolve after 3rd grade. Supporting adolescent literacy requires simultaneous attention to the needs of students who have not mastered basic reading skills and to the common need of all students to master ever-more-challenging texts in ever-changing contexts for increasingly divergent goals (Biancarosa, 2012) (http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Adolescent-Literacy@-More-Than-Remediation.aspx<https://outlook.brooklyn.cuny.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Adolescent-Literacy@-More-Than-Remediation.aspx>).

My question, should English teachers abandon teaching literature and poetry all together and spend their time teaching vocabulary, remedial reading, and complex texts instead? It seems that under the common core state standards that they should. After all now, what is the purpose of teaching literature and poetry if we are trying to prepare students for college and careers where, unless students are to become English or Comparative Literature majors, they won't be reading any fiction or poetry at all?

I'm just curious what others think.



____________________________________________
Patricia Sarles, MA, MLS
Jerome Parker Campus Library
100 Essex Drive
Staten Island, NY 10314
718-370-6900 x1322
psarles@schools.nyc.gov
http://www.scoop.it/t/help-with-the-common-core-state-standards/
http://paper.li/psarles/1332609247

The Internet may be the world's greatest library, but let's face it - all the books are scattered on the floor.  - D.C. Denison, Boston Globe

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. - Mitchell Kapor

To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction ... The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. - Martin Luther King, Jr., The Purpose of Education

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