Chapter 10: With or Without You: The Common Core Standards and Addressing Global Climate Change

The ninth-graders in this social studies class sit in groups, an open laptop computer for each pair of students. The teacher reminds them the emphasis in class today is close, careful reading of different web sources about global climate change. She points to the Common Core State Reading Standards for Literacy in Social Studies (Grades 6–12) affixed on the sidewall. “We’ll be working with most of these 10 standards during this inquiry activity.” Pointing to standard 1, that states, “Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.” She informs students, “Paying careful attention to details of each source is especially important today.” She also chooses to highlight standard 7, “Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.” She tells the students, “Remember this is a synthesis activity. You will be working across the five different web sources in this activity, carefully evaluating arguments to help you determine a response to our inquiry question about climate change. And you will be doing this with your partners, so you’ll need to figure out together what you want to write based on your analysis and evaluation of the sources.”