Common Core

Walk down memory lane with us as we revisit one of our favorite holiday blogs.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Had It Right

(Originally posted Tuesday, December 13th, 2011)

Sometimes a Christmas TV special delivers more wisdom than it intended. Like millions of other parents I watched “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” this past weekend with my kids. They absolutely loved it. My 5-year-old daughter was saddened when the other reindeer teased Rudolph, and touched by Clarice’s affection. My 3-year-old son shouted “SCARY” when the Abominable Snow Monster growled over the mountaintops and swatted at Cornelius. Both keep skipping around the house singing “Silver and Gold.” My kids’ reaction was no different than mine when I first saw the show not long after it debuted in 1964.
What strikes anyone who watches Rudolph today is how basic this stop-motion classic is. The set for the show appears to be made of little more than felt, foil wrappings, beads, and plastic snow. The characters are of course puppets, made of wood, wool, faux fur, and vinyl. If you look real closely you can see the lead wires on the puppets’ hands—and the dirt on Santa’s gloves. This is low-tech.
Rudolph is one of a handful of 60s-era shows that continue to dominate the Christmastime TV lineup. The others—you could name them—include “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” These shows are successful, of course, because they are beautifully crafted interpretations of great stories, either from books or from song. It is the quality of the storytelling that keeps these tales around. They not only don’t suffer from their low-tech-ness, but their simplicity helps us to focus on the story and characters.
Even though the broadcast and cable networks generate oodles of new shows every holiday season that they hope will enter this vaunted lineup, none has made it (though Polar Express appears to be making a good run for it.). Most of these shows are faster-paced than the old stand-byes and, needless to say, far more slick.
My point is that technology is no replacement for quality content. A great story—no matter how simply told—will still shine through. And a poor one—no matter how aided by special effects—will still fail.
One can draw a similar parallel between curriculum and education technology. A curriculum rich in literary, historical, artistic, and scientific knowledge can of course make good use of new technologies, as long as they are smartly used in the service of the content and skills a teacher is trying to teach. Such a curriculum also can work unaided. But a weak, content-free curriculum based on vacant ideas such as “reading strategies” and relying on dry, incoherent basals containing “leveled” excerpts will fail, no matter how actively one tries to animate this dead material on a SmartBoard.

Lynne Munson

Much of the virtual water cooler conversation launched by last week’s Washington Post article entitled “Common Core Sparks War over Words” has focused on who shoulders the burden for teaching the increased amounts of informational text called for in the Common Core State Standards. While important, this debate misses the far more interesting question of why folks insist on so narrowly defining informational text in the first place.

Rather than excising great literary works from the curriculum, Common Core believes the new standards might simply be calling on teachers to expand their repertoire. Evidence that the intent is not to exclude narrative nonfiction is found in the standards themselves (page 5): “Fulfilling the Standards for 6-12 ELA requires much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary nonfiction—than has been traditional.” Literary nonfiction, which includes biographies, memoirs, and autobiographies, also includes accounts of pivotal moments in history, recounted in narrative form, whose purpose is, first and foremost, to impart information. Common Core hopes the new call for informational text will grant teachers the opportunity to seek out engaging nonfiction, which, among other things, has the power to incite interest in otherwise disinterested readers. Exposing elementary school students to such age-appropriate books and stories that include rich illustrations will often engender a drive to learn that more traditional informational text, with technical language and a bunch of graphs, charts, and diagrams can’t.

Early next year, our organization will be releasing U.S. and World History Maps for grades K-5 that can be used to teach history content and ELA skills. The literary nonfiction works selected are as rich as any elementary school teacher could hope to find and yet they impart much needed background information to students. For example, Moonshot by Brian Floca tells the story of the flight of Apollo 11. It is a beautifully written story, full of information about America’s space exploration, but capable of captivating the minds of students in grades 3 to 5 for whom it is targeted.

Let’s seize this opportunity to expand what students read, and select engaging informational texts that encourage students to read to learn. If we seek to inspire our students with engaging texts, making nonfiction selections will not be a chore. It will be a welcomed adventure.

Barbara Davidson