Last Saturday I went to hear Kristin Fontichiaro, Clinical Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the School Library Media Program at the University of Michigan School of Information, and Roger Sutton, Editor in Chief of The Horn Book Magazine, talk about the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and how they are going to affect school and public libraries--and already are. This was the spring workshop of the Children's Literature Council of Southern California, held in the wonderful, spacious library at the South Pasadena Middle School.
Kristin's lively talk, peppered with "I'm going to Italy!" in anticipation of her participation in an international conference on this subject in Rome, focused on the features of Common Core and some of the practical and political issues surrounding its implementation. She discussed 10 things you (meaning librarians) can do to support the folks implementing CCSS and their students. The slides for her talk are on the web and you can see them here. Roger focused on how the CCSS are going to impact the publishing of books for children. The emphasis in Common Core is on nonfiction and developing skills for close reading of nonfiction texts--which may mean an increase in the number of nonfiction books being published. Good nonfiction, he said, has a point of view and is scrupulously researched. For nonfiction authors like me, it sounds like nothing has changed--we still must write the very best books we can!
