I’d bet a Galapagos Tortoise that no one decides to become a teacher based solely on the prospect of adhering to a list of teaching standards. So, here’s a great question: why in the heck should we care about them? (Hint: It’s not because some armageddon is coming in the form of a standardized test […]
fahrenheit 451
Common Core R.CCR.4 Explained
R.CCR.4 — that’s the fourth College/Career Readiness anchor standard within the Reading strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — reads as follows: Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone. This standard […]
Common Core R.CCR.3 Explained
R.CCR.3 — unabbreviated, that’s the third College/Career Readiness anchor standard within the Reading strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — reads as follows: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. Within this standard, I see a lot of questions we could ask […]
Fahrenheit 451, the Butchery of Figurative Language, and the CCSS
Every time that I’ve taught Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, one of my opinions of the book remains the same: Bradbury horridly overuses figurative language. Once I finish reading Fahrenheit 451 each year, I don’t want to see another example of simile, metaphor, or personification for at least a few months. Why Teach a Book You […]