California Common Core Language Standards
At the outset of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the research and writing committees latched upon the California and Massachusetts state standards to serve as reference points for establishing the Common Core State Standards. Both of these states’ standards were deemed to be the most rigorous and comprehensive in the nation. Both California and Massachusetts state standards followed a similar design and degree of specificity, unlike say the detailed Texas state standards.
Some educators in California and Massachusetts feared that the end product of the Common Core State Standards would water down the high expectations of their state standards, especially in the math strands. Scores of articles urged their respective state departments of education to head off the gutting of their standards at the pass. State Department of Education officials promised to red ink plenty of revisions to maintain the rigor of their standards. However, the final product (actually the revised draft) of the Common Core State Standards that was inadvertently leaked out to the press actually maintained most of the rigor of these two sets of state standards.
Teachers in California and Massachusetts are asking plenty of questions. For example, how do the Common Core State Standards differ from those of their states. How much red ink was used before the state legislatures of California and Massachusetts adopted the Common Core State Standards in the rush to qualify for the federal Race to the Top funds? In this article, I answer that question specifically with respect to the language strand of the California ELA/reading standards. To be short and to the point—not much.
In fact, only six additions (and no deletions) were made to the language strand of the English-language Arts/Reading Common Core State Standards. Each addition is relatively of minor concern and three reflect California’s unwavering support of penmanship.
Here are the differences:
1st Grade L.1.d. The addition clarifies pronouns as including “subject, object” in “Use personal (subject, object), possessive, and indefinite pronouns.”
2nd Grade L.1.a. The addition inserts “Create readable documents with legible print.”
3rd Grade L.1.a. The addition inserts “Write legibly in cursive or joined italics, allowing margins and correct spacing between letters in a word and words in a sentence.”
3rd Grade L.1.c. The addition inserts “Use reciprocal pronouns correctly.” Author’s Note: I am the author of a comprehensive grammar and mechanics program and I had to look these up to find that there are but two: each other and one another. Whew! Now I can teach third grade.
4th Grade L.1.a. The addition inserts “Write fluidly and legibly in cursive or joined italics.”
4th Grade L.1.b. The addition inserts “interrogative pronouns” next to the existing “relative pronouns.” Author’s Note: Interrogative pronouns stand without antecedents; relative pronouns have antecedents. Examples: What did you say? I said our car, which is old, still runs.
6th Grade L.1.b. The addition inserts “all pronouns” and “correctly” in “Use all pronouns, including intensive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves), correctly.”
*****
Pennington Publishing Grammar Programs
Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics (Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and High School) are full-year, traditional, grade-level grammar, usage, and mechanics programs with plenty of remedial practice to help students catch up while they keep up with grade-level standards. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep lessons in print or interactive Google slides with a fun secret agent theme. Simple sentence diagrams, mentor texts, video lessons, sentence dictations. Plenty of practice in the writing context. Includes biweekly tests and a final exam.
Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Interactive Notebook (Grades 4‒8) is a full-year, no prep interactive notebook without all the mess. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep grammar, usage, and mechanics lessons, formatted in Cornell Notes with cartoon response, writing application, 3D graphic organizers (easy cut and paste foldables), and great resource links. No need to create a teacher INB for student make-up work—it’s done for you! Plus, get remedial worksheets, biweekly tests, and a final exam.
Syntax in Reading and Writing is a function-based, sentence-level syntax program, designed to build reading comprehension and increase writing sophistication. The 18 parts of speech, phrases, and clauses lessons are each leveled from basic (elementary) to advanced (middle and high school) and feature 5 lesson components (10–15 minutes each): 1. Learn It! 2. Identify It! 3. Explain It! (analysis of challenging sentences) 4. Revise It! (kernel sentences, sentence expansion, syntactic manipulation) 5. Create It! (Short writing application with the syntactic focus in different genre).
Get the Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments, Matrix, and Final Exam FREE Resource:
