ELA+Standards+-+RM

The NCTE/IRA Standards are very succinct and straight to the point. I think all of the twelve standards are necessary, but I'm surprised that there are so few. Although there are so few, important topics are addressed. For example, culture, diversity, technology, and ELL students are all mentioned. These standards also seem quite vague. They not only leave a lot of the interpretation open to the reader, but also give no indication of how these standards should be met in the classroom by the teacher. This gives us more freedom, but also a bit less direction, which can be intimidating for novice teachers.

The Common Core Standards for ELA make up for the briefness of the NCTE/IRA Standards. I much preferred reading the Common Core Standards. They are more detailed and broken down into grade level. Since they are age specific, the Common Core provides certain goals for students and teachers to have accomplished by the end of each grade. This includes things they should understand, as well as be able to do.

Like I mentioned above, I definitely think the Common Core Standards are more useful, if only because they are structured by grade level. Both sets of standards leave a lot of room for teachers to be creative and unique in their pedagogy. These are only the standards - the teacher determines how these standards and goals will be met. However, while reading over the two sets, I felt that the NCTE/IRA Standards reached higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy (they actually use the words "analyze" and "evaluate") while the Common Core seems to focus more on understanding and applying.