Meeting Common Core State Standards

The Spaghetti Book Club has been helping students reach the goals of the Common Core State Standards before they were even created. I created the Spaghetti Book Club in 1996, when I was a classroom teacher, as a way to meet the “Standards” that the New York City Board of Education was piloting at that time. The Spaghetti Book Club curriculum was designed to provide authentic opportunities for students to reflect on what they read; analyze; synthesize; and to make meaningful connections to what they read. In addition, my goal was to give students an opportunity to write for a real purpose, express their opinions about what they read using supportive details and examples, and to write for an "intended” or real audience. The Spaghetti Book Club has always been about making reading meaningful to students and making the process of reflecting on reading purposeful. This has been and will always be the goal of all educators and parents regardless of the “Standards” currently in place. 

While our curriculum teaches students sophisticated ways to reflect on literature, our explicit publishing criteria, which students follow as they write their reviews, require students to include summaries, detailed opinions with supportive details and examples, and recommendations. Because this criteria was created with the Language Arts Standards in mind, meeting the Spaghetti Book Club publishing criteria also means meeting Common Core Standards. 

Below is a list of the Common Core Literacy Anchor Standards that the Spaghetti Book Club helps students reach. For information on specific grade level Standards visit Common Core Standards Initiative. I would be happy to discuss how the Spaghetti Book Club can help you help your students reach specific grade level Standards.
 
--Julie Rosemarin
Founder/CEO of Spaghetti Book Club 

 

Reading: Key Ideas and Details

  • Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly
  • Make logical inferences from text.
  • Cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. 
  • Determine central ideas or themes of a text.
  • Analyze central ideas or themes development.
  • Summarize the key supporting details and ideas. 
  • Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. 

 

 Writing: Text Type and Purposes

  • Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topic or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
  • Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

 Writing: Production and Distribution of Writing

  • Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  • Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
  • Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others. 

For more specific grade related Common Core Standards, please visit Common Core State Standards Initiative