Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement [Paperback]

Lucy Calkins (Author), Mary Ehrenworth (Author), Christopher Lehman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 2012 | ISBN-10: 0325043558 | ISBN-13: 978-0325043555

"As challenging as it must have been to write and finesse the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, that accomplishment is nothing compared to the work of teaching in ways that bring all students to these ambitious expectations. The goal is clear. The pathway is not."
-Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman

The Common Core is written, but the plan for implementing the Common Core is not.

Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at the Reading and Writing Project have helped thousands of educators design their own pathways to the Common Core. Now, with Pathways to the Common Core, they are ready to help you find your way.

Designed for teachers, school leaders, and professional learning communities looking to navigate the gap between their current literacy practices and the ideals of the Common Core, Pathways to the Common Core will help you:
* understand what the standards say, suggest, and what they don't say;
* recognize the guiding principles that underpin the reading and writing standards;
* identify how the Common Core's infrastructure supports a spiraling K-12 literacy curriculum; and
* scrutinize the context in which the CCSS were written and are being unrolled.

In addition to offering an analytical study of the standards, this guide will also help you and your colleagues implement the standards in ways that lift the level of teaching and learning throughout your school. Specifically, it will help you:
* become a more critical consumer of the "standards-based" mandates that are flooding your desk;
* craft instruction that supports students in reading more complex texts, developing higher level
comprehension skills, and writing at the ambitious levels of the CCSS;
* develop performance assessments and other tools to propel Common Core reforms; and
* create systems of continuous improvement that are transparent, collegial, and accountable.

Above all, this book will help you interpret the Common Core as a rallying cry that ignites deep, wide and lasting reforms and, most importantly, accelerates student achievement.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I love Pathways to the Common Core! The way it explains how the standards work will correct many misconceptions and go a long way toward changing literacy instruction for the better, a primary intent of the standards. It will help people know how to read the standards, and will help teachers see how they already address this new view of comprehension and what more they need to do. This book is an amazing reference for any teacher working to accelerate student achievement, and it is a must-read for those facing the challenge levels of the Common Core State Standards.
---Sally Hampton, member of the writing team for the Common Core ELA standards and member of the Pearson Foundation curriculum design team

With piercing insights, Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman dive deep into the CCSS to debunk myths, extract meaning, and provide needed guidance for each and every standard. Pathways to the Common Core is a necessity for the principal, curriculum leader, professional developer, and teacher seeking a thorough analysis of the standards from which to launch an informed approach to this critical initiative.
---Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, author, consultant, and director of the Curriculum 21 Project

Teachers across the country yearn for a road map to navigate the Common Core State Standards. Search no more. Pathways to the Common Core is the CCSS GPS. The authors do a thorough, extensive analysis of every aspect of the ELA CCSS. Pathways charts a course for effective, thoughtful teaching and top-notch student learning. I was blown away by this smart, artful, enthralling book.
---Stephanie Harvey, educator and co-author of the Comprehension Toolkit series

While acknowledging the ambivalence swirling around the Common Core State Standards, Pathways to the Common Core takes a proactive stance, encouraging us to scrutinize the standards carefully and accept the challenge to raise expectations for all children s literacy learning. It reminds us that it is up to schools and districts to decide how to implement the standards and choose our own way forward.
---Ellin Keene, consultant and author of Talk About Understanding

I began reading Pathways to the Common Core in my favorite chair, music playing, dinner cooking on the stove. I ll just read a couple of chapters, I thought. I finished the book hours later, sitting at my desk, a legal pad filled with notes of all I had learned, and hungry for conversation with colleagues (and for dinner that had long-ago burned). Pathways to the Common Core sets you on a path for thinking more deeply about the standards, for teaching more inventively with the standards, and for helping students achieve the goals of the standards.
---Kylene Beers, consultant and author of When Kids Can t Read

The success of the Common Core State Standards will depend largely on how teachers implement them and whether they are able to resist narrow interpretations that could lead to increased failure rates and achievement gaps. In the hands of informed teachers the standards could promote deeper thinking and higher classroom performance. Read Pathways to the Common Core and be informed. --
Tom Corcoran, Co-director of CPRE, Teachers College

The Common Core State Standards are here and, as with any new initiative, there are the inevitable questions and concerns, debate and discontent. Pathways to the Common Core does not take sides; rather, the authors acknowledge the range of opinions swarming around the CCSS and wisely focus their energy on making sense of the standards. They provide a clear examination of what is and isn t stated and then invite us to seize this opportunity to reflect on our practice and to become co-constructors of the --
Terrence P. Carter, Ph.D., Curriculum & Instruction Department, Academy for Urban School Leadership, National Teachers Academy, Chicago

The Common Core State Standards are here and, as with any new initiative, there are the inevitable questions and concerns, debate and discontent. Pathways to the Common Core does not take sides; rather, the authors acknowledge the range of opinions swarming around the CCSS and wisely focus their energy on making sense of the standards. They provide a clear examination of what is and isn t stated and then invite us to seize this opportunity to reflect on our practice and to become co-constructors of the future of instruction and curriculum. Let s take up that challenge.
---Lester L. Laminack, author, educator, consultant

Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman have taken up the challenge of the Common Core standards in a most valuable way. Pathways to the Common Core provides a context for teachers and administrators to advance productive instructional strategies while offering the critical language and logic needed to stand up to unfortunate interpretations and nonsense.
---Peter Johnston, Professor, The University at Albany

Pathways to the Common Core invites teachers and principals to welcome the Common Core standards and take them seriously, while recognizing them as a substantial challenge to business as usual. It offers wise advice on how to move ahead, building on strength and engaging the entire school community in a joint effort of continuous improvement. The authors know no one yet has all the answers for reaching such ambitious goals, and suggest deep suspicion of anyone who claims otherwise. It is must reading for responsible educators, and it wouldn't hurt if policymakers took a look as well.
---Fritz Mosher, Senior Research Consultant, Consortium for Policy Research in Education and the Center for Continuous Instructional Improvement

I love it when I sit down to view a table of contents and end up reading the whole book. Pathways to the Common Core is the most useful unpacking of the Common Core State Standards available to date. Lucy, Mary, and Chris help us understand what the standards emphasize and how this emphasis might lead us down different paths of instruction than we ve taken before. With generous wisdom and experience, they help us keep one eye on rigor and the other on meaningful reading and writing.
---Gretchen Owocki, Ph.D., Director, Reading and Writing Clinic, Saginaw Valley State University

Some of our most valuable resources in supporting a child s journey toward college and career readiness are the teachers who propel that journey. If the standards specify what every child needs to know and be able to do to be college or career ready, then Pathways to the Common Core specifies what every educator needs to know and be able to do to implement the ELA standards effectively.
---Meghan Berry, CPS, K 5 Writing Content Lead, Office of Reading and Language Arts, Chicago

While the standards may be daunting and technical, I am inspired by the way Pathways to the Common Core eases the reader through the concerns we all feel and supports us as we come together to take an honest look at our instructional practices and create systems that will accelerate student achievement. This book is encouraging and supportive; I feel prepared to roll up my sleeves and get to work alongside my staff. --
Liz Tetreault, Principal, Port Salerno Elementary School, FL

Combining research, experience, and common sense, Pathways to the Common Core is a GPS providing step-by-step navigation through the new Common Core standards. It is a must-read for teachers, administrators, and instructional leaders looking to effectively implement the standards.
---Dr. Tom Bulla, Director of Elementary Education, Union County Public Schools, NC

Pathways to the Common Core is a road map for school leaders and teachers looking to navigate the bends and twists encountered in implementing the Common Core State Standards. It is the perfect blend of instructional theory and classroom practice. This book has already become my most important resource.
---Christine Capaci, Principal, West Windsor Plainsboro Regional School District, Village School, NJ

If after reading, rereading, and discussing the CCSS you continue to grapple with how they change or support current practices in your district, school, or classroom, read Pathways to the Common Core. Follow Lucy, Mary, and Christopher s critical examination of the standards and you will be empowered to approach curricular alignment with richer perspective, clearer purpose, and greater confidence.
---Rochelle DeMuccio, Coordinator ELA and Reading, Half Hollow Hills Schools, NY

At last a book that inspires educators to raise their sights above the politics of the Common Core and focus instead on the unprecedented opportunity these new standards create. Loaded with practical examples, Pathways to the Common Core provides detailed explanations of the standards and thoughtful considerations for implementation. It will propel educators toward the rigorous, ambitious teaching that can truly accelerate student achievement.
---Dr. Erin McGurk, Director of Educational Services, Ellington Public Schools, CT

Lucy, Mary, and Christopher take us on an intellectual journey inside the Common Core State Standards, pausing to examine each standard with the eyes of teachers in real classrooms. Brilliant and accessible, Pathways to the Common Core gives a voice to our profession and invites us to reflect on the Common Core State Standards as an opportunity for collaboration and celebration.
---Lydia Bellino, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, Cold Spring Harbor Central School District, NY

Once again Lucy and the Reading & Writing Project blaze a trail for us all this time as we enter the new terrain of the Common Core. Pathways to the Common Core helps teachers recognize that this work is not new; rather, it takes what we have already been doing and provides a road map for ways to make the work deeper and more rigorous.
---Phyllis Harrington, Ed.D., Superintendent, Oyster Bay East Norwich Central School District, NY

Lucy, Mary, and Chris have decrypted the CCSS. Pathways to the Common Core is a must-have addition to every educator s library.
---Vincent M. Iturralde, Principal, Tarkington School of Excellence, Chicago

Engaging and intriguing, Pathways to the Common Core reads like a novel. You won t want to put it down.
---Sheila R. Cole, Ed.D, Principal, Franklin School, NJ

Pathways to the Common Core is not a love letter to the CCSS; instead, it is a critical dissection of the standards focusing on what they include, what they marginalize, what is neglected, and what is ineffective. It shows what the standards look like in practice. --
Terrence P. Carter, Ph.D., Curriculum & Instruction Department, Academy for Urban School Leadership, National Teachers Academy, Chicago

About the Author

Lucy Calkins is the author of the popular firsthand classroom materials Units of Study for Primary Writing and Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3–5, as well as several companion resources for literacy coaches and principals. Most recently, Lucy has published a curriculum for the reading workshop, Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades 3-5, and she has written the Common Core Reading & Writing Workshop series for Grades K–8. In addition, Lucy is the author of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including The Art of Teaching Writing and One to One. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. She is the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University's Teachers College. For more than twenty-five years, the Project has been both a think tank–developing state of the art teaching methods–and a provider of professional development. In these capacities, the Project has supported hundreds of thousands of educators. As the leader of this world renowned organization, Lucy works closely with policy-makers, superintendents, district leaders and school principals to instigate and sustain school-wide and system-wide educational reforms. But above all, Lucy works closely with teachers and with their classrooms full of wise and wonderful children. Lucy is also the Richard Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, where she leads the Literacy Specialist program.

Mary Ehrenworth is Deputy Director at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University. She studied history and literature at Harvard and then curriculum theory and adolescent literacy at Columbia, where she received her doctorate - and then has been lucky to work with three subjects she loves - books, children, and teachers. Mary has authored and co-authored numerous books, including: The Power of Grammar; Teaching Reading Through Fantasy Novels; Constructing Curriculum and Tackling Complex Texts from Units of Study in Reading; and Looking to Write. Mary is also offering support to educators with the Common Core Standards through an online course entitled Harnessing the Common Core Standards to Achieve Higher Levels of Reading and Writing in Your Classroom and School offered through our new Digital Campus.

Christopher Lehman (@iChrisLehman) taught middle and high school and was a literacy coach before joining the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. He currently staff develops across the country in elementary and middle schools, supporting teachers and administrators in developing rigorous and passionate literacy instruction across content areas. Additionally, Chris has been deeply involved in developing new teaching practices in Jordan, in partnership with the Reading and Writing Project, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, and the Queen Rania Teacher Academy. He co-authored an article on the experience in NCTE's Voices from the Middle. He presents regularly at Reading and Writing Project events, writes curricular materials, leads institutes sections, and has presented at NCTE's annual convention. A graduate of UW-Madison, he went on to receive his M.A. in Teaching at NYU and his Ed.M. in Education Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Chris' scholarly interests include child and adolescent literacy, school leadership, and the implications of standards and testing on instruction. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, a pre-school connoisseur of princesses and a toddler extremely fond of letters and numbers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann (March 30, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0325043558
• ISBN-13: 978-0325043555
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Education & Reference > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > Assessment
  • #3 in Books > Education & Reference > Schools & Teaching > Professional Development
  • #4 in Books > Education & Reference > Schools & Teaching > Pedagogy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Newly-Windexed Window into the Common Core May 28, 2012

By Ken C. TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Already, before they've even been implemented, the words "common" and "core" have moved into our schools, unpacked their stuff, and begun to act in general like they own the joint. Where exactly did these standards come from and what do they mean to teachers, administrators, parents, and students?

Ask no more. PATHWAYS TO THE COMMON CORE is 197 pages of concise elucidation, making it one book you'd love to put into the hands of everyone associated with education. With its short introduction, the book claims we can bicker and carp about the new standards or we can look for the silver lining and make something of them -- something that can actually help our students. From there, Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman take us on a tour through the reading, writing, and speaking/listening and language standards, laying it on the line in simple terms: This is what they say, this is what they DON'T say, and this is what they mean for us if we're going to do the job right.

One interesting implication of the CCSS is how they bring us back to the heyday (30s and 40s) of the New Criticism, when text was king. Close analysis of text is back, meaning some common (and beloved) practices associated with reader response will be downgraded and outright eliminated. Included in this would be practices like connections to self and accessing students' background knowledge on a topic before starting a reading. The Common Core has little patience for such truck, instead asking students to read, retell key points in the text and, once understanding is established, move on to interpretation of key ideas and analysis of structure. Somewhat confusing still is the CCSS architects' suggested texts -- almost all classics -- which go against the authors' suggestion that children enjoy choice in reading selections -- almost all YA lit works. It appears the two can be done at the same time, but to my mind, using classics as the sole means of "increasingly complex text" might lead to additional hits for Spark Notes and sites of its ilk. More exciting is the CCSS's advocacy of contemporary journalism and feature writing, especially on topics of high interest to students. Some good writing is going on in contemporary journalism and nonfiction texts, and it is with open arms that we should be receiving these works into the classroom.

While the work of English teachers is daunting, it's nothing compared to the work of the content area teachers. In fact, this is the greatest danger lying ahead for the CCSS. It rightly promotes much more reading and writing and the in-house DOING of both. The trouble is, there aren't enough hours in the school day if it's to happen solely on the English teachers' watch. Instead the CCSS depend upon science, social studies, and even math teachers assuming some of the load by assigning much more informational and persuasive text as well performing more writing in their classes. Will these teachers take the task on, set aside process-writing time in their classrooms, and collect class sets of papers, thus walking a mile in the English teachers' shoes when they are already stretched to the max with their own curricula? The answer is in the question, I fear, unless there is a huge shift in educational thinking and the content area teachers take a serious look at how their teaching priorities must evolve.

Complete with examples of how the CCSS might be implemented and what it might look like in classrooms, PATHWAYS TO THE COMMON CORE is a bit of a no-brainer in the buy or don't buy department. If nothing else, administrators and curriculum leaders should read it, but it's really not going to have an impact unless teachers read it and buy in, too. Informational text itself, this book is clear, concise, and a wake-up call of sorts. If you thought you understood the CCSS because, well, they seem simple and straightforward enough, read this book and think again. I did, and I feel like my eyes are open for the first time, I have a much better picture, in other words, of what to do next as I move forward.

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Them Or Not, Here They Come April 30, 2012

By Kelly Gallagher

Format:Paperback

We all know there are problems with the CCSS, but this book gives me hope that the new standards can be used as a lever to improve our students' ability to read, write, speak, and think. Pathways to the Common Core is essential for any teacher, administrator, curriculum leader, and school board member who wants to get out ahead of the CCSS curve. A very smart book.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read! May 16, 2012

By flatrockrosie

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have learned so much from reading this book. Many things have been clarified. I don't feel quite so overwhelmed about common core standards starting next year.