Chapter 5: Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: Pedagogical Implications of Language Analysis

This chapter discusses the application of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in regard to English language learners (ELLs) in the United States. We offer sample language analysis of exemplary sample student text types provided by the CCSS. This analysis is displayed in full to provide practitioners a model for conducting language analyses in their own classrooms.

The CCSS have been adopted by 45 states thus far as a measure by which to assess students of all ages, socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. This means that ELLs are subject to the same standards as their native speaking peers, despite the advantage that the latter group may have. The challenges that ELLs may face in fulfilling the CCSS are clearly shown in the writing standards. The CCSS writing standards are designed to prepare all students to build a foundation for college and career readiness (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010a, p. 18) by emphasizing writing as a primary means of demonstrating knowledge of a subject, and the means to communicate clearly to an unknown audience on real and imagined experiences (p. 5). These standards share the same primary writing impetus throughout the K–12 writing standards, and they increase in specificity and detail in their expectations for writing. The means to fulfill these writing standards are not necessarily made explicit in the standards. Students will need to know how to combine different kinds of writing depending on audience, topic, and task, and to implement every element of the ELA writing standards to create comprehensive papers that can elaborate and display knowledge, engage and persuade, and inform. The CCSS describe these various types of writing tasks as text types.