When the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS) were unveiled in 2010, they were met with considerable, widespread ire. Complaints about the new standards ranged from “Students are too far behind to meet the grade appropriate standards,” to “Teachers aren’t adequately trained to teach to the new standards,” to “This initiative will only last for as long as this administration lasts.” Based on educators’ and administrations’ philosophies on education, they decided to embrace, dismiss, or halfheartedly implement the Common Core Learning Standards. As this presidential administration comes to a close, the fate of the Common Core Learning Standards is uncertain.Common Core has become somewhat of a political buzzword, with most of the criticism surrounding its implementation and assessment. There are many misconceptions about the Common Core Learning Standards inside and outside of the field of Education, the biggest being the amount of time that should be devoted to teaching to CCLS in isolation. Educational leaders and planners increased the amount of time spent in discrete reading, writing, and math instructional programs, mostly to the deprivation of the arts and humanities. These actions proved counterintuitive as they resulted in greater frustration, widespread rejection, and the imminent failure of CCLS.
When the Common Core Learning Standards were officially introduced to New York City Public Schools, I didn’t have to same visceral response as my colleagues. At the time I was teaching English Language Arts/English as a Second Language, and had an exceptionally malleable class. As I combed over the new Reading and Writing Standards, I was actually enthused. While my colleagues floundered, I realized that I had to make very few shifts at all. I had already been teaching to the Common Core Learning Standards by virtue of the fact that I incorporated Theatre, as well as many Theatre approaches, into my practice. My colleagues (and their students in turn) were at a disadvantage because they lacked the breadth and depth of knowledge of literature that I received from my Theatre training. I successfully utilized Theatre in my English Class not just to supplement, but as part of the core of my instruction.
It seems a fallacy that Theatre programs were cut or reduced in order to accommodate Common Core aligned instruction when a comprehensive Theatre education easily integrates with and facilitates the Common Core Learning Standards. Through reading, performing, producing, and viewing Theatre, students can access CCLS through multiple points of entry.
Key Ideas and Details:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.1
Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- Students explore Hamlet’s Act 3, Scene 1 “To be, or not to be” soliloquy based on the given circumstances, create subtext, and defend their interpretation of the speech, culminating in performance.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
- Students use Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred” as a lens through which to analyze a central character’s journey in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.3
Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.
- Students debate whether the events and Lenny’s actions in Of Mice and Men left George with no alternative but to take Lenny’s life, or Jason’s betrayal of Medea justifies the murder of her children, in Medea by Euripides.
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
- Students analyze Shakespeare’s use of metaphor and word play, and how context drives the meaning of the words, as well as the effects they have in a particular scene. (e.g. Katherine and Petruchio’s Act 2, Scene 1 argument in The Taming of the Shrew)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.5
Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.
- Students critique For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner representations of the American female experience, and how they compare to other plays that explore the topic in more traditional dramatic structures, like Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart, and Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.6
Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.
- Students assess the use of verbal, situational, and dramatic irony within Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and the effectiveness of these devices in creating humor.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.7
Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.
- Students compare the musical adaptations Big Fish, The Color Purple, Big River, or Oliver! to the original source material, and films adapted from those novels, assessing how true they remained to the novels and the effectiveness of the liberties taken in recreating and conveying the overall theme of the story.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.9
Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.
- Students explore the use of archetypes in modern Theatre and Film that originated in Shakespearean or Greek plays. They can create modern adaptations of these works or incorporate these archetypes into their original plays.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.10
By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
It says so right in the standard. Dramas should be imbedded in a comprehensive Common Core aligned curriculum. When it exists, it often takes the form of English teachers giving students plays to read, but students who are more visual or kinesthetic may have trouble accessing the material in this manner. Plays are published for the purpose of preservation and reproduction, but they are meant to be performed, not read. Often, English teachers don’t have the necessary context, understanding, or passion for the material that a Theatre teacher would, or the play requires. One of the biggest misnomers about the Common Core Literacy Standards is that they have to be achieved solely in an English Class rather than span across all content areas. Schools should take advantage of the natural synergy between English Language Arts and Theatre, and find ways to connect them in a comprehensive Common Core aligned curriculum.
My school is currently in great need of restructuring, to put it bluntly, but mildly. The way we have operated is not sustainable, or productive. We are struggling in most areas. The only aspect of our school that is consistently successful is the Arts. Through our dogged determination, we have managed to sustain these programs while academic, and even sports programs have fizzled. That is a testament to the strength of Arts Education, particularly Educational Theatre. The students who have excelled academically are those who were active in the Arts Department. These students and programs have succeeded while much else has failed because these students are receiving a performance based instructional program, which is the major shift of the Common Core Learning Standards. No one does performance better than Theatre Educators. Whatever may come of the Common Core Learning Standards, neither this nor any other education policy should adversely impact Theatre Education. Our role as Theatre Educators in the future may need to expand beyond the students to reach those in authority. Then they will learn what our students have known for years: learning thrives in a creative environment.