Again, after glancing at it, I’m concerned. Many of the skills seem reasonable–that is, I can’t make an argument that you shouldn’t be able to perform certain actions. Something is missing, though. I see no recommendation that students should develop the capacity to read a lengthy book. I see references to a, or the, “text.” In most cases, though, “text” could refer to an excerpt on a standardized test. This may be the influence of the College Board and ACT.

The ability to deduce what a writer means to convey in a short snippet of text is very different than the ability to read, understand, and remember book-length arguments. They do refer to “foundational literary works,” and “substantive contemporary fiction,” but it’s so dry. I’m an education parent, but “career and college readiness” doesn’t stir my blood.

I suppose the intent should be to set a minimum level of complexity expected for high school reading material. It would be better, in my opinion, if a list of writers were appended. As you say, lists of great books are freely available. Yet, in my quick perusal of the document, I didn’t see any mention of plays, novels, poetry–unless we’re supposed to pack all that into “foundational literary works.”

The danger I’d see for these common standards are students driven through weeks and weeks of short story and short essay analysis, with time reserved for work with media, until they give the “right answer.” Until they “meet the standards.” Yet in college they’ll be expected to read long, complicated works quickly and with understanding, and to synthesize their reading with prior knowledge. Their essays will be much longer than 5 paragraphs.

“Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.”

Another would be the Newberry award winners.

If you still need more you might try asking a librarian or English teacher for suggestions.

Finding quality content is easy. What specific skills to be taught with the content is more difficult. The only content I would support is a list of topics the books should cover such as WWII, or Civil Rights, etc.

A bad teacher with a list of books could simple fulfill the state mandated standards by assigning the books and giving an AR at the end of each. Those students who failed would have to re-read the books and fill out graphic organizers over and over again until they could pass the test.

Yes, content is important but I have yet to meet anyone who knows everything. Except of course my wife.

Suggested Authors, Illustrators, and Works Reflecting our Common Literary and Cultural Heritage
Contemporary American Literature
Historical and Contemporary World Literature
One small selection follows, the authors for Contemporary American Literature (no, I don’t know why Saki, a Brit, is on this list). The full list is 14 pages, and includes standards for earlier grades.
FICTION : James Agee Jamaica Kincaid J. D. Salinger Maya Angelou Maxine Hong Kingston William Saroyan Saul Bellow Jon Krakauer May Sarton Pearl Buck Harper Lee Jane Smiley Raymond Carver Bernard Malamud Betty Smith John Cheever Carson McCullers Wallace Stegner Sandra Cisneros Toni Morrison Amy Tan Arthur C. Clarke Joyce Carol Oates Anne Tyler E. L. Doctorow Tim O’Brien John Updike Louise Erdrich Edwin O’Connor Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Nicholas Gage Cynthia Ozick Alice Walker Ernest K. Gaines Chaim Potok Robert Penn Warren Alex Haley Reynolds Price Eudora Welty Joseph Heller Annie Proulx Thomas Wolfe William Hoffman Ayn Rand Tobias Wolff John Irving Richard Rodrigues Anzia Yezierska William Kennedy Leo Rosten Ken Kesey Saki

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:5JDM-bnzensJ:www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/ela/0601.pdf+massachusetts+state+frameworks+language+arts&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

Specifically, this document purports to propose a common standard – and yet it does not contain a particularly meaningful standard (or at least not a useful one). If every teacher in every school is free to choose whatever books they wish to teach, what chance is there their students will walk out of class at the end of the year knowing any of the same information?

As a non-teacher my proposal is obviously lacking in nuance and experience, yet I’ve tended to find that building the plan itself on common sense and then refining the details with all available help from experts still results in something usable, and it frequently has the benefit of making more sense to outsiders (in this case, parents). Why not start with a core list of about 5 “must-teach” books, and a much longer list of suggested additional texts?

The core 5 books provides a standard base which all students and all teachers will share. Augmenting this with a common framework for most of the discussion of the books will mean that all students will be presented with the same core of knowledge. If the books are chosen with an eye to interdisciplinary use they will also enhance the rest of the educational program. For example, if one of the core 5 is a specific history text, then while the students are learning their language skills (this would be an excellent choice for annotation, cross-reference, and citation practice, also) they are also developing a common set of knowledge to apply in their history classes, to be built upon in more depth.

The list of additional texts will provide options for customizing the content to each teacher’s personal strengths, and matching State or local guidelines, and also provide some guidance as to what sort of non-listed texts would be appropriate. My theory is that for testing purposes it would be better to use selections from this list rather than the core 5, so that it’s a better test of skills learned than potentially testing pure memorization of class discussion (note: this is where my lack of teaching comes in – it would be up to educators to confirm that’s a good or useful idea, since I have no way to support it myself).

The trouble is when they teach those same strategies to grade schoolers, which they do in many public schools. Putting the cart before the horse seems to be a hallmark with all of these newer reform curriculums.