The Role of the Professional Literature in Informing Policy Makers About Writing Reforms in the Common Core State Standards

• In Event: 49.079 - A Broad View of the Efficacy of Literacy Programs and Policies

Abstract

We examined the extent to which professional education journals contributed to the discourse about reforms relating to information and argument writing that now appear in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Using content analysis of journals published by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English we discovered four articles about information and argument writing in their journals in the three years preceding the publication of the CCSS. These findings suggest these professional literacy organizations had little voice and offered scant evidence for developing the new writing standards that the policymakers produced, and their absence have likely contributed to the current resistance many educators have expressed about the CCSS.

Authors

• Peter McDermott, Pace University

• kelly lassman, Pace University