California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

            My reaction to the writing template that is meant to be paired with the Common Core State Standards for California is a mixed one. On the one hand, I can see its benefits. It was clearly designed to help teachers, especially new ones with the process of instructing their students about reading informational text and writing about it. But on the other hand, I can also see how many teachers including myself would find a template like this very restraining and limiting in the aspects of personal choice when it comes to determining how to instruct students in the various reading and writing standards, which, goes against the main purpose of Common Core’s ability to allow teachers to teach lessons without being restrained by having to teach subjects a certain way. Because I can see this template’s positive and negative aspects I’m going to discuss them both and let my fellow colleagues decide if one outweighs the other in terms of its effectiveness in teaching.

            Let’s start with the benefits, I can see this being an effective tool for new teachers that struggle with the assessment portions of lesson planning as the template gives them many ideas regarding how to teach and asses their students abilities regarding reading, comprehending and writing about a text. A good example of this is found on page 8 of the template under the subheading of “Mapping the Organizational Structure” in which instructions are essentially spelled out for the teacher in question regarding how to have their students examine the structure of a text and relate it back to their reading of said text. I can see this as a benefit to a new teacher as they may not entirely sure what the best way is to instruct their students on how to do this so the fact that the template spells it out would be very helpful in that case.

            However, this very same aspect could be considered a negative aspect of the template for many teachers which largely lies in how it presents these sections. Under the very same heading regarding mapping out the structure of a text, the template says quite clearly to “Ask your students to map out the organization of a text’s structure by following these steps.” (Template p. 8) The wording and tone of this instruction is one that leaves no room for interpretation of this text as a suggestion conveys the impression that this is the best way to instruct your students during this learning process, and that you are obligated to follow this method. This is something that many teachers would consider to be very ridged and uncompromising, thus taking away their creative freedom to teach their own students in a way that they feel is best. I can see this being an issue for many teachers because as Dr. Agriss has mentioned many times, “You know your students, you know how they work and what is best for them.” (Agriss) But this of course depends on the individual teacher.

            In the end I have discussed one benefit and one shortcoming of this template and it is up to the individual teacher to decide. Hopefully, my colleagues can benefit from my thoughts on this template and decide what they feel would be best for themselves and their students regarding it from reading my thoughts on the matter.