Common Core and Humanities Education: Are WE "College-Ready"?

Common Core and Humanities Education: Are WE "College-Ready"?
Date
Thu April 14th 2016, 5:30pm
Location
Pigott Hall Building 260, Room 252

Speakers): Russell Berman, Emma Dunbar, Dan Edelstein, Deborah Tennen

Why Should we Care about Common Core? A two-part series co-sponsored by the Humanities Education Focal Group and H&S Dean's Office. 
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is currently implementing a new K-12 curriculum across public schools in California. Common Core will significantly change how children learn both humanities and STEM. In English and Language Arts, for example, the standards suggest that high schools students should be reading up to 70% non-fiction texts by their senior year, in order to learn how to work with "complex texts and their academic language," with the aim of developing "college- and career-level reading." Recent op-eds in the PMLA and the K-16 Alliance at the MLA has made clear that, as educators,  we must become informed about this policy.  We invite everyone in the DLCL and humanities community to join us for an informal conversation about the ripple effects of K-12 Common Core Standards for the college classroom, particularly for freshman teaching.  
 
Roundtable featuring: 
Professor Russell Berman, Director of Thinking Matters and Introductory Seminars
Emma Dunbar, Assistant Principal, Presidio Middle School, San Francisco
Professor Dan Edelstein, Faculty, Summer Humanities Institute and Stanford Humanities House
Dr. Deborah Tennen, Chief Content Officer at Shmoop e-learning platform
Our discussion will be based on readings from PMLA:
Lisa Zunshine, "The Secret Life of Fiction,"
John David Guillory, "Common Core and the Evasion of Curriculum"
We will also continue our exploration of the Common Core State Standards themselves, available here (please see pg 46-54): 
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf
April 14th, 5:30 pm, Room 252, Building 260
RSVP: http://goo.gl/forms/BmlRMHLDAk
The panel will be followed by hors d'oeuvres and conversation.