This is the second post sharing information from our local San Diego Published Authors Brunch. Today’s topic is the adoption of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and how this affects you as a writer.
Educational standards are goals set by educators to ensure that their students are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the workforce. Author/Educator Virginia Loh explained that there is a movement to have all states adopt a common core of standards for their educational goals. You can read more about CCSS at corestandards.org and commoncore.org. According to the corestandards.org site over 45 states and territories have already adopted these standards.
How does this affect you as an author? In the past if an author wanted to increase the chance that their book was used in the classroom they had to make sure that they met the standards for each state. This was a sometime difficult and time consuming process. CCSS would make it easier for an author to make sure that they met those educational standards and use that information to help market their book.
Commoncore.org has developed curriculum maps, documents that suggest topics and units for every grade level. You can find links to these curriculum maps here. Authors can use these maps to find inspiration for their stories, confident that teachers will be looking for these topics and will be more likely to buy them for their classroom.
Today’s author needs to do more than write their story, they need to know how to sell it. The publishing industry today is more cautious than ever before and knowing that your book could be used in a classroom or school setting can be a great selling point. These standards can also be used to develop curriculum or a school visit program that will coordinate with your book and help meet the academic needs of the school. This translates into more book sales and school visits for you. Sounds like a great deal to me.
Tomorrow I will be discussing the increasing role of ebooks and how authors can take advantage of this new technology.
Happy writing,
Suzanne Santillan
Writing on the Sidewalk
Sue – I hate that we have to figure out how a great book fits into a curriculum – reading a book, enjoying it, and learning from it should really be sufficient. However, with so many administrators wanting to know how something fits into the curriculum, it is a good thing to know about. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Alyson,
I agree with you. I would love to write a beautiful story and send it to a publisher to get printed, I hate that we have to write our books with such things in mind, but unfortunately publishing is a business and the market it tight. Authors need to use whatever tools they can to get a leg up today. Not all schools are lucky to have principals like you who encourage literacy and the love of a good book, curriculum based or not.
Sue
Sue – But even I have to be prepared to defend what I am using and share how it fits into the standards for the grade level that we are using it with. This is sometimes hard to explain to volunteers – each of our Literacy Cafés have lessons that tie into the state standards, key vocabulary – as much as we want to have fun…I have learned to tie it into the curriculum.
Alyson- I think it’s sad that you are limited that way. You do a fantastic job and I can only imagine how many hours you and others put in to do your Literacy Cafés.
Thanks so much for this invaluable information, Sue! Wish I’d known about this years ago!
Clara- I’m glad you thought it was helpful. This was new information for me and I thought it was interesting to share. I love our SCBWI brunches I always learn really great info from some very knowledgable people.