Who Wrote the Common Core State Standards?

Diane Ravitch has a post giving us the most-accurate list yet of who actually may have crafted the CCSS. Click here to get the link to the list, but please read some of the comments on the page before the jump.

English teachers and teacher educators -- especially those of us not behind the curtain -- might gain valuable information from Bob Shepherd and Yvonne Siu-Runyan especially, who discuss naming, authorship, NCTE, IRA, and how some education scholars and "experts" get paid more for their reputation than for their actual work.

Renewal for IRA MIA for 2012

The envelope reads "Now It's Time to Renew." Not so fast, there, Sparky. That's up to me.

I am the 66.6%: Frustration with the "2/3's Curse"

I just received notification that my proposed session on graphic novels and the common core has not been accepted to IRA. Surprise, surprise. I've yet to crack the International Reading Association's code of acceptance. What makes this year's rejection sting all the more is something that has happened to me too often in recent years:

The two-thirds curse.

The two-thirds curse has affected me in this way: I write a book proposal, an article, or a conference proposal, and 2 out of 3 peer reviewers have something very positive to say. The third is either not positive or downright damning, and the publishing house, journal, or conference editors or higher-ups decide to side with the minority opinion.

For example, see the reviewer feedback for the GN/CC proposal:

Proposal: Grading Form for Graphic(a) To the Core: Comics, Graphic Novels, and the Common Core

Comments for Submitter

1. The proposal gives a lot of background information on graphic novels and their importance, but does not describe what the attendees will "do" in the session.

2. Very relevant and provocative and timely session! Well written proposal - clear, substantive objectives!

3. As educators "scramble" to understand the Common Core Standards every strategy that is presented is worth examining. The conversation about student achievement, teacher performance and the Common Core takes classroom instruction to the level that has not been thought of in previous years. Hopefully with the method presented, the audience will grasp a clearer understanding of the Common Core and see its alignment with students academic achievement.

Two of those statements seem fairly positive, eh? Alas, it was not enough.

Some will say it is unprofessional of me to share this information, but I've established a record of peeling back the curtain on academia since I've established this blog, and I won't stop now.

I think I'm also going to start putting my money where my mouth is. Conferences are so expensive anyway, and so are membership fees. Add in the costs of journals that my university library already subscribes to or can get me through ILL, and I have to wonder why I keep shelling out dollars and getting a frustrating "return" on my investment.

Ah, the duality of the academic: complaining about not getting into a conference while simultaneously complaining about how much it would cost to attend it!

But, one has to show affiliations to national organizations in academia. It's just sort of a fact.

Maybe it is time for me to seek out a new one and let IRA be for a year or so.

Any takers? Maybe I should just shop myself around to different organizations like a free agent and see if they'll take me. My guess? 2/3's of their membership would be glad to have me, but the key decision-makers will have reservations about associating with someone so clearly exhibiting "self-destructive" behavior like letting the cat out of the bag....

Heck, maybe this is just a little birdie's way of telling me now is the time to get involved with ALA, YALSA, and their new graphic novel subgroup. And haven't I been thinking about joining a middle school-centric organization for a while anyway?

Plus, isn't this the sort of thing that led me to founding SANEjournal? Seeing that a process seems to be broken and instead of *just* complaining about it, trying to do something about it? Yeah, it is.

Yeah... :)

IRA Pre-Conference Institute, We Hardly Knew Ye

This April 25, there was supposed to be an all-day preconference institute on the graphic novel at the International Reading Association's conference in Chicago, IL. Katie Monnin organized the event, which featured many leading figures in comics-and-literacy scholarship, such as Michael Bitz, Katie, yours truly, and others, as well as actual comics creators/graphic novelists and leaders from the publishing field.

Alas, after almost all arrangements were made, including flights and hotel room bookings, we received word that the event was cancelled. (Thank goodness I was able to cancel my room reservations without penalty and my university was able to eat the cost of the plane ticket. Others might not have been so lucky).The reason given was low numbers of folks registering.

Only a sign of the economy, something more, or a combination of factors? Who is to say?

I'm sure there will be folks at IRA talking about graphic novels. I hope they enjoy being the representative experts, as I'm sure they will have great things to say and will give wonderful presentations, but nothing on the program regarding the topic could have equalled the combined knowledge and interests of the group Katie assembled. It's a missed opportunity not just for the presenters, but for IRA and its audience at the conference.

Of course, IRA is a selective group (I say everything herein as a current member) , and there seem to be channels to make sure things happen within its influence (this selectivity as it pertains to comics and literacy, might be observed by looking at the works cited lists of the articles on graphic novels that have appeared in JAAL over the last eight months or so. Got some time? Look at the names that are cited over and over, and also apply your knowledge of the arguments being made regarding comics and literacy and who all are making them, and compare who is being noted and who isn't). Perhaps those of us involved just didn't know how to best utilize those channels.


BUT, I can tell you the institute is not dead yet. Not its mission , members, and desires, anyway. Simply reformed. Some members will be at the convention in other capacities. And other plans to keep the collection of talent together to make their points and share their expertise are afoot. More as more develops!



(Picture: According to this paperwork from IRA, which arrived in my mailbox the day after I received the news that the pre-conference session was cancelled, I'm all good to go for my trip to Chicago, where I would have joined perhaps the best single group of comics and literacy scholars ever assembled in one place)

Fightin' Fallacies Again: Mythbusting with Bucky

It's been a while since I posted something on fighting' fallacies associated with comics in education, but I think it may be time to revisit the topic based on certain ideas, trends, and opinions I've noted over the last six months or so.

1. Talk about how graphic novels match up with local/national standards is moot because of the new CORE standards being developed by the National Governors Association and the CCSSO.

I have seen much hubbub about how the CORE standards being developed under the Obama administration are going to obliterate any and all other lists of standards available nationwide, and while the CORE documents will certainly influence state and organizational standards, I think it might be a bit of hyperbole (at least I hope it is) to suggest that states will drop years of work on crafting standards to adopt the CORE standards. Rather, what I think we'll see is that the CORE standards will be suggested as THE BARE MINIMUM, and states will be encouraged to adapt -- not adopt -- them to the standards documents they've already crafted.

As for standards like those for the English Language Arts that have been published by NCTE/IRA, I have it on good authority from a representative at NCTE that these standards are not being updated in response to the CORE standards, not yet anyway.

Several recent and upcoming publications deal with how comics and graphic novels can be used to meet state and national (NCTE/IRA) standards. Brian Kelley recently published a document relating to New Jersey's ELA standards. Michael Bitz's recent book and his upcoming book, as well as a couple of his articles, reveal how using comics as composition meet many of New York's state ELA standards. Katie Monnin will soon publish a book that deals explicitly with NCTE/IRA's standards for ELA. All of these are and will be valuable to teachers and will help make the case for comics' worth in America's school rooms.

I've also heard folks try to make a distinction between having standards and the phenomenon of standardization. The problem is in interpretation. Too often, once standards are set, they become the rationale for standardization of curriculum. This leads to stolid curricula that focus more on the standards than on best practices, and after time, this also forms a sort of indoctrination that state education leaders accept and then feed their teachers. The "cure" for this, of course, is trusting teachers to be intelligent enough to see any set of standards as a bare minimum rather than the "gold standard" and having leadership that finds ways to assist teachers in being critical thinkers and experts in their fields.

2. Graphic novel proponents seek to supplant traditional print-based literature with graphic novels.

I think I can speak for most of my colleagues who advocate for using graphic novels and comics in the classroom when I say we probably all support a supplemental or complimentary approach, one where graphic novels are integrated into the ELA classroom along with traditional-based print texts.

I get it from both ends, it seems. I've read criticism of my edited collection Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels that suggested I and my contributors wanted to replace canonical texts with graphic novels. This isn't the case -- not in every possibly exigency, anyway. On the other hand, folks wonder if I and my co-writers aren't suggesting that comics and graphic novels aren't good enough, strong enough, to stand alone and be taught on their own. I think folks need to give comics-in-literacy scholars and teachers the benefit of the doubt (and read their texts more deeply).

I think most of us seek a balanced approach, where comics are used in pre-existing curricula where they fit best and with students who they can best engage (read "all students" on one level or the other) and only replace a text when a teacher was already looking to do so before considering a sequential art narrative as the replacement.

I think most of us do feel that certain graphic novels are good enough to be taught in their own right. I just think most of us are knowledgeable enough as pedagogues to know that teaching any text in isolation is not the most effective means of teaching.

3. The argument has been won. There is no need to continue work that falls under the rubric of "graphic novel advocacy."

There are so many of us using comics in the classroom now, so many blogs, so many books coming out, so much attention from MLA and YALSA and the ALA and NCTE, etc., and so many articles on sequential art in the classroom that it may seem that everyone has gotten the message. Especially for those of us who live and work in progressive environments where all or most of the people we see everyday are the kinds who readily accept comics' place in the classroom, this is dangerous thinking. Your world may not be my world may not be the world of a teacher in rural Wyoming or even in Washington, D.C.

As someone who lives in Texas, as someone who has, since 2000, taught in the states of Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas, and as someone who travels the country talking with teachers about comics' use in secondary education, I can tell you that it is a Manhattan-sized assumption to think that everyone everywhere -- whether "everywhere" pertains to state, k-12 school, college of education or university English department -- is on the same page or at the same level of their development when it comes to graphica. Austin is not El Paso is not Houston is not San Diego or New York.

While I get as frustrated as anyone when newbies try to reinvent the wheel regarding comics terminology, use, and advocacy in the classroom, especially when they do this in print (and especially when that print doesn't cite previous writing that has established a groundwork), I accept that, nationally, we see a range of acceptance of the form, ranging from elective courses on GN's at the high school level and courses focusing on them at colleges like Stanford, MIT, and Yale, to fogies still afraid to accept the form as viable for their sixth graders and considering it a threat to literacy, intelligence, and quality living.

The battles are still being fought in k-12 and university departments near you, whether it seems that way or not. So, there's plenty of room for more advocacy work regarding the sequential art narrative, and any work that deals with it in a positive light, even if it is crafted by those who believe the good fight has been won, might be said to be advocacy literature anyway.

(*draft. I may revisit this for edits later)