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Common Core Standards: Back to Literature? 8/20/2013 5:50:22 AM
The Common Core Standards initiative could mean kids' return to more reading. Writers need readers. One of the reasons we writers sit in our lonely garrets day after day, night after night, with little sustenance beyond gallons of weak coffee and poor imitations of Proustian Madeleines, followed by the occasional potty break, or to take a turn at Words With Friends, is to string words together in a way that makes sense. Writing is something we do out of necessity, to either help us make sense of a world that seems to make less of it every day left to its own devices, and to add our words to the cultural narrative. Sometimes we’re more imaginative in finding ways not to write: rearranging our sock drawers, watching Geico ads on YouTube (The camel/hump day ad is a stitch, I’m responsible for a large percentage of views) or taking our turn at Words With Friends. One of my G+ acquaintances calls herself the ProcrastiWriter, so it ain’t just me, the ailment is widespread.
One of the reasons writing is so frustrating is because we’re social creatures stuck in a solitary endeavor. Often, I feel like I’m working in a vacuum. When I get that feeling, I’ll sometimes procrastinate more by running the vacuum.
But the pressing problem writers see is that no one seems to read anymore. If something written is longer than 140 characters, it’s not likely to command readers’ attention. If it’s Moby Dick, forget it. Mr. Melville has a distinction in the literary world. He may have been personally responsible for helping to define a classic as a ‘great book that no one has read.’ Plus, his Bartleby the Scrivener sums up for all time the writers’ schizophrenic dilemma: as much as I need to write, often “I’d prefer not to.”
And the non-reading problem is getting worse, it seems. The reason I’m speculating about this today is that hope may be on the horizon for us writers. A handful of States have banded together to form what’s called the Common Core Standard. The CCS is just what it says, a common curriculum standard, a base of knowledge that students in American schools must meet prior to entering college. And good news, hallelujah, the Core has a strong reading/writing literacy section. Here’s a quote from it: “Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the close, attentive reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature.” (Italics mine)
Aha, ‘complex works of literature. Here’s a phrase that’s near and dear to every writer’s heart. The phrase is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, because whoever established these standards did in fact use the word heart. I like that. Of course I’m biased, but as a writer, I like the linkage between reading and the heart. After all, the last three letters of heart spell out… I’ll let you take over here. Second because the Standards don’t mention any particular works. This is important. The open-ended nature of the phrase gives teachers wide latitude in selecting whatever literary masterpiece they may wish their students to grapple with, be it Chronicles of Narnia, Lolita (though that may raise a few eyebrows) Moby Dick, To The Lighthouse, whatever, or even, though a bit of a stretch, admittedly, someday a book of my very own.
Of course certain political groups are in open rebellion against the Common Core Standards. As Bill Keller writes in the New York Times, these hard-core conservatives claim that the CCS are a government takeover of the school system, the brainwashing of precious young minds, even a pathetically misguided attempt to disparage the current administration by calling the Standards ‘Obama-Core.’ It must be stated here that the CCS initiative originated with the States and the National Governor’s Association, and is endorsed by several conservatives including Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Bill Bennett and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Perhaps those malcontents who disparage Common Core, such as Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin may have benefited from them in their own educational passage back in the stone age?
For writers, the Common Core Standards are good news. In an age when Twitter has codified an abbreviated language, and when hold-in-your-hand books are being relegated to history’s closet like dial phones and dial up internet, exposing kids to ‘complex works of literature’ may revive a love of reading. Could happen. If for no other reason than such works are becoming exotic. And kids love exotic. I’d hold off on Lolita; there’s exotic, then there’s, well…
