Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

324 learning.… What is called for is a vision of curriculum that incorporates a socioconstructiv ist view of reading into a curriculum framework that defines the context for constructing meaning in a way that is consistent with the Model Core Curriculum. A New Vision For too long a period of time the reading/communication arts area has avoided the question: Is there a content to reading/communication arts? [emphasis in original]… At the elementary level the predominate focus is process—reading, writing, viewing, listening and speaking. While literature has recently assumed a more prominent role, the ideas and issues that persist and recur over time are relegated to a secondary level of importance. As a result, literature instruction at the elementary level is haphazard at best (Walmsley & Walp, 1992). At the middle and high school levels the emphasis is primarily on content, content which is often narrowly defined by literary studies of the canon. Instruction resembles more of a transfusionist’s perspective in which students receive information much in the same way patients receive blood (Applebee, 1989; Crews, 1992). Taught in this manner, content is memorized, regurgitated, and trivialized. When this occurs, the high school literature curriculum becomes decontextualized and fragmented (Purves, 1992). In this context the primary goal is to understand a novel, short story, poem, or play; the result is that the liter ary work becomes the end rather than a means to the end. What is absent from both the process and content perspectives is the application of knowledge in authentic ways. What is needed is a vision of reading/communication arts curriculum that more explicitly defines the context for constructing meaning in a more meaningful way, one that fosters active learning in authentic contexts such as the home, community, and the workplace. An Expanding View of Text [T]here is more to developing a curriculum than content. The ideas, themes, issues, and problems that make up the content of text must be placed in a framework that is linked to other considerations such as: what is to be learned, how it is to be learned, in what context it is to be applied, and how is it to be assessed? The framework becomes the common thread that ties together all the components of the instructional system. …The context in which this type of learning occurs is prescribed by a reading/ communication arts curriculum that provides students with learning opportunities. These learning opportunities… apply their existing knowledge to issues and problems that result in new understandings, to synthesize and communicate what they have learned, to generate new knowledge or creative applications, and to think critically about the content and make decisions or take actions that relate to it. This type of innovative curriculum points the way toward higher, richer levels of knowing that are assessed in authentic ways. Overview of the Framework The primary goal of the Reading/Communication Arts Framework described in this document is to develop independent, self-sufficient, lifelong learners whose understandings and capa bilities allow them to become personally, socially, and civically involved in the world around them… requires the integration of disciplinary knowledge with learner characteristics that promote positive attitudes and dispositions. These elements… guide the systematic delivery of the curriculum. Student achievement of the goals is determined by an assessment system that uses authentic performances to evaluate student proficiency. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1 Communication Arts/Reading Framework for Curriculum and Assessment GOALS RESOURCES