Common Core Standard For English Language Arts (Page 29 of 43) in pdf

Common Core State StandardS for engliSh language artS & literaCy in hiStory/SoCial StudieS, SCienCe, and teChniCal SubjeCtS

retaught and relearned in subsequent grades as students’ writing and speaking matures and grows more complex.

(See “Progressive Language Skills in the Standards,” below.)

Making Appropriate Grammar and Usage Choices in Writing and Speaking

Students must have a strong command of the grammar and usage of spoken and written standard English to succeed

academically and professionally. Yet there is great variety in the language and grammar features of spoken and writ-

ten standard English (Biber, 1991; Krauthamer, 1999), of academic and everyday standard English, and of the language

of different disciplines (Schleppegrell, 2001). Furthermore, in the twenty-first century, students must be able to com-

municate effectively in a wide range of print and digital texts, each of which may require different grammatical and

usage choices to be effective. Thus, grammar and usage instruction should acknowledge the many varieties of English

that exist and address differences in grammatical structure and usage between these varieties in order to help stu-

dents make purposeful language choices in their writing and speaking (Fogel & Ehri, 2000; Wheeler & Swords, 2004).

Students must also be taught the purposes for using particular grammatical features in particular disciplines or texts;

if they are taught simply to vary their grammar and language to keep their writing “interesting,” they may actually

become more confused about how to make effective language choices (Lefstein, 2009). The Standards encourage

this sort of instruction in a number of ways, most directly through a series of grade-specific standards associated with

Language CCR standard 3 that, beginning in grade 1, focuses on making students aware of language variety.

Using Knowledge of Grammar and Usage for Reading and Listening Comprehension

Grammatical knowledge can also aid reading comprehension and interpretation (Gargani, 2006; Williams, 2000,

2005). Researchers recommend that students be taught to use knowledge of grammar and usage, as well as knowl-

edge of vocabulary, to comprehend complex academic texts (García & Beltrán, 2003; Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007;

RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). At the elementary level, for example, students can use knowledge of verbs to

help them understand the plot and characters in a text (Williams, 2005). At the secondary level, learning the gram-

matical structures of nonstandard dialects can help students understand how accomplished writers such as Harper

Lee, Langston Hughes, and Mark Twain use various dialects of English to great advantage and effect, and can help

students analyze setting, character, and author’s craft in great works of literature. Teaching about the grammatical

patterns found in specific disciplines has also been shown to help English language learners’ reading comprehension

in general and reading comprehension in history classrooms in particular (Achugar, Schleppegrell, & Oteíza, 2007;

Gargani, 2006).

As students learn more about the patterns of English grammar in different communicative contexts throughout their

K–12 academic careers, they can develop more complex understandings of English grammar and usage. Students can

use this understanding to make more purposeful and effective choices in their writing and speaking and more accu-

rate and rich interpretations in their reading and listening.

Progressive Language Skills in the Standards

While all of the Standards are cumulative, certain Language skills and understandings are more likely than others to

need to be retaught and relearned as students advance through the grades. Beginning in grade 3, the Standards note

such “progressive” skills and understandings with an asterisk (*) in the main document; they are also summarized in

the table on pages 29 and 55 of that document as well as on page 34 of this appendix. These skills and understand-

ings should be mastered at a basic level no later than the end of the grade in which they are introduced in the Stan-

dards. In subsequent grades, as their writing and speaking become more sophisticated, students will need to learn to

apply these skills and understandings in more advanced ways.

The following example shows how one such task—ensuring subject-verb agreement, formally introduced in the Stan-

dards in grade 3—can become more challenging as students’ writing matures. The sentences in the table below are

taken verbatim from the annotated writing samples found in Appendix C. The example is illustrative only of a general

development of sophistication and not meant to be exhaustive, to set firm grade-specific expectations, or to establish

a precise hierarchy of increasing difficulty in subject-verb agreement.

Common Core Standard For English Language Arts Page 29

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