From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:25:15 -0400 (EDT)

Thank you Megan and CCBC for giving us the space to talk about NF, or Infor mational Texts as the Common Core has it. I just spent the day at a seminar for academics who train teachers and we heard reports about what is going on in the now 46 states involved with the CC. While the pace and even natur e of state adoption varies, one thing is clear: how we train young people t o read, what we expect them to read, and what we expect them to get out of reading is changing. Some of these changes look wonderful, some may well be misguided. But change is real, here, happening -- and at dead center of it is training young people to research and evaluate complex nonfiction texts , and then, based on their assessment of evidence, to write compelling argu ments. In other words we are training them to do what NF authors do all of the time. Whether it is the INK folks, or those who write series books, or those of us who write trade books -- we and our books are there as mentors for what your students need to learn -- we are at your service, use us.

Marc Aronson
Received on Fri 30 Mar 2012 03:25:15 PM CDT