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We Are Not Alone: National Curricular Reform Around the Globe | Consider the...
Designing and implementing core standards for ELA, math, science, and social studies in the United States has been a huge challenge—as many educators know from their daily experience. But, as I...
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RE: Reading | Consider the Source
New York State has just finished its first round of Common Core ELA testing, and the feedback is beginning to pour in. The comments I have read are mostly very critical of the test. But, let’s approach...
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Constellations | Consider the Source
In my last column, I began exploring nonfiction passages that require and reward rereading—a key focus of the Common Core (CC) English Language Arts (ELA) standards. As I was writing that piece, I was...
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The Road Ahead: Common Core Insights | Consider the Source
For the past two weeks I have had a strange feeling—a combination of déjà vu and the sense that I am a visitor from the future. I say that because since November 2011, I have been traveling around New...
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Syria, Spain, and the Eternal Present | Consider the Source
Photographers Gerda Taro and Robert Capa It’s been my experience that when the tests are over and the school year is winding down, librarians want a nonfiction author to charge up the students, and a...
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Convention Blues | Consider the Source
The American Library Association (ALA) annual conference is upon us, and I’m vexed with both Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) and Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)....
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Lessons from the IronPigs | Consider the Source
Anyone who has attended one of my talks or workshops has probably heard me rail against state history assignments. I have never understood why they exist in the curricula of all 50 states, at a...
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Book Camp | Consider the Source
Yesterday, my-about-to-be 13-year-old and I visited the Great Books Summer Program at its Amherst, MA, location. It made sense to bring Sasha because he was just back from three weeks at the John...
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Ferment: Where, When, and Why Great Minds Gather | Consider the Source
Recently, several books focused on a neglected period of history have received review attention. Together these volumes suggest new ways that we might think about, and present, history to young people....
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Trouble: Learning from the New York State Common Core Assessments | Consider...
Stop, put down your device or magazine, and read The New York Times article announcing the statewide results of Common Core testing in New York. New York spent a great deal of time, effort, and money...
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Current Events and the Common Core | Consider the Source
s I write these words the United States and France are presenting forceful arguments in favor of an attack on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s assets, claiming that they have confirmation that he...
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“I Want a Real Picture of a Dinosaur”| Consider the Source
The title of this essay came to me from one of my students, who was passing along a comment made by one of her middle-graders. It gave me an idea. Here’s the background: this semester I am teaching an...
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Strike Up the Band | Consider the Source
We have all heard about how poorly some students, and even schools and districts, are performing on the Common Core State Standard [CCSS] assessments. While we need to look closely at those numbers,...
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Bragging Rights | Consider the Source
I don’t like to boast in this column, but this semester my Rutgers online MLIS students are working on versions of a project that was developed by our crack (online) educational team, and I am so proud...
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The Elephant in the Reading Room | Consider the Source
If you have attended a Common Core professional development session, you’ve heard someone talk about what today’s students are reading compared to earlier generations. A frequently quoted National...
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The Gateway Drug | Consider the Source
One of the big questions for nonfiction lovers was posed by Jonathan Hunt a couple of years ago. He suggested that the “Harry Potter” series had opened up fantasy for generations of readers. What kind...
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Robots and Rising Stars | Consider the Source
You could not have a more vivid demonstration of what I wrote about in my last column–the compelling appeal of DIY–do it yourself–than the robotics competition in which my 4th grade son is taking part...
View ArticleBlinded by Blockbusters | Consider the Source
After putting my wife and sons off for too long, I finally gave in. My own Blackberry was hardly working, and they enjoyed none of the features they wanted in a phone. We switched services and...
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New Year, New Possibilities | Consider the Source
It’s the end of the year, and this column is both a wrap-up and, I hope, a first step toward a new path. First, I was thrilled to see Tanya Lee Stone’s Courage Has No Color, the True Story of the...
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The Google Djinn | Consider the Source
What do we feel connected to, embedded in, surrounded by? What is the ground on which we stand? Let me put that question in context: I recently read about The Aztecs (Thames & Hudson, rev. ed.,...
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