Using the Interdisciplinary Approach to Education to Meet the Literacy Standards in the Common Core: and Ensuring Graduates are College and Career Ready
The implementation of the new Common Core State Standard Initiative (CCSS) warrants changes to current curriculums. This paper establishes the interdisciplinary approach to education as an effective method of instruction for the delivery of the new standards. The CCSS define literacy and college and career readiness anchor standards that students must meet in order to be successful post-secondary. The new English language arts (ELA) literacy shifts include: literacy instruction, content area vocabulary, increase in non-fiction or information texts, increased text complexity, and 21 st century skills are all successful skills to be taught using the interdisciplinary approach and team teaching. The paper establishes a definitive basis for students to have these skills in order to be considered college and career ready in accordance with the new Common Core state standards. This approach can includes collaboration, thematic units, cross-curricular projects, or integrated in order to meet the standards.
'From ‘splendid isolation’ to productive alliances: developing meaningful cross-curricular approaches'
Some history departments find themselves under pressure to incorporate skills and competences from alternative curricula. Others find that with the pressure to ease transition issues in Year 7, history can almost disappear into an amalgam of rather random subjects taught by one overarching teacher. Steve Illingworth describes a department that faced both of these issues, but endeavoured to make the best of the situation. While the new 'Project Time' curriculum was certainly enhancing pupils' group work and presentation skills, there was concern that some of the challenge and excitement of history lessons could be disappearing. This article describes the planning behind a series of lessons which tries to promote historical learning while learning from the successes of the competence-based curriculum.
Crossing Digital Bridges for Global Understanding
Everyone who has ever been to Disney World's Epcot Center and visited the Small World ride leaves with the song "It's a Small World (After All)" ringing in their ears. Never has the central message of this song been truer than it is today. Was Walt Disney a prophet of global connectivity? The international fantasy world he developed, and others like it, are designed to create a global community experience for amusement park visitors. Disney's portrayal of many nations-their colorful dress, musical traditions, and unique native cuisine-is many students' only "foreign travel," and the experience may leave them with lasting stereotypes. So what? Is this bad? Isn't this a good hook to generate interest in other cultures? Indeed, it's a great hook, but fantasy worlds promote an idealized portrait of the world: no real people, no trash, no problems, and no worries. It is our charge to see that students grow beyond the superficial and begin understanding real-world peoples, problems, and issues. How do we help our middle grades students, many of whom will never actually travel the world, achieve a deeper understanding of other cultures? Making virtual cultural connections offers the best alternative to experiencing travel firsthand. In this article, we discuss why young adolescents need to develop a global perspective and how we can help them do that. We examine the difference between surface and internal culture learning and offer digital bridges to one important country, Russia. I have taken a dozen "Great Adventures" to Russia and have worked with thousands of North Carolina students and their teachers, all of whom have traveled with me virtually. With each trip, I have found that teachers have welcomed the opportunity to move out of "textbook Russia." A former sixth grade social studies teacher, Natalie Bates (Author 2), joins me to share with you what we have done and learned and to offer suggestions about how to infuse authentic voices-in this case, Russian-into your own curriculum. Two-way stereotypes Teachers know that students learn best if they can relate what they are learning to themselves and their own worlds. From the earliest grades on up, children examine themselves in the context of their families, their schools and communities, cities, countries, and, finally, the world. This article offers your students the chance to cross a digital bridge and hear the voices of children from Russia. We are especially mindful of the need to raise the level of learning beyond the stereotypes so that we may know what the Russian people are really like. Stereotypes go both ways. I once walked into a sixth grade classroom in Volgograd, Russia, just as the children were reading in their English textbooks about the Garrett family of Atlanta. I listened as they read about the typical American home and possessions. The Garrett's house had three stories, a long driveway filled with cars, a well-manicured lawn, and a swimming pool and deck in the backyard. For the next 30 minutes I fielded questions about rich Americans. I informed them that neither my school teacher friends nor I lived like the Garretts and that most people I knew were not wealthy enough to have large homes with swimming pools. These Russian school children had bought into the stereotype because it supported TV and videos about American sports and rock stars. Didn't all Americans live that kind of life? Interestingly, the shoe was on the other foot later in my trip when I was asked to speak to parents whose children had just entertained me with their considerable musical talents. Sheepishly, I noted that my evolving cultural understanding had started with a 1950 Russian stereotype built on Cold War misinformation. In my elementary school, bells alerted our second grade class to darken the room and hide under desks in case Soviet planes dropped bombs from the sky. Russian parents in the audience smiled and shared similar stories about the possibility of American air raids. …