Social Justice, the Common Core, and Closing the Instructional Gap:
Empowering Diverse Learners and Their Teachers
Edited by Janet C. Richards, Ph.D. and Kristien Zenkov, Ph.D.
(Forthcoming from Information Age Publishing)
Chapter proposals due Friday, February 28, 2014
Chapter drafts (for accepted proposals) tentatively due June 27, 2014
Book Premise
There is little doubt that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a controversial entity. They are
provocative for the way in which they have been developed, for the ways they are being implemented and
evaluated, for their content, and for their failure to explicitly consider the needs, interests, and histories of
diverse populations. While the CCSS continue to be problematized by critics around the country—
including the editors of this volume—it is evident our nation is moving toward (some would argue we
have arrived at) a national set of standards and/or a national curriculum. This text will be an important
volume for multiple audiences, in large part because it will bring together critical perspectives on the
CCSS and the notion of national standards/curricula. It will simultaneously provide a social justice
orientation as a way to interpret the CCSS and respond to their limits, while presenting practical examples
of social justice-oriented, CCSS-focused curricula that empower diverse learners and their teachers.
Social Justice, the Common Core, and Closing the Instructional Gap will consist of chapters by
classroom teachers and university scholars who portray honest, engaging, first-person accounts of their
successes and challenges connecting a social justice pedagogical orientation to the Common Core State
Standards. These authors will candidly and passionately share the challenges of navigating between a
social justice curriculum and high stakes standards- and test-driven environments. They will highlight
their accomplishments that include effectively supporting students to consider social injustices and devise
plans to work toward a more equitable world.
Despite criticisms of the CCSS, tenets of the Common Core can connect to social justice pedagogies. As
such, the following ideas and practices will be highlighted in this volume:
1) Moving from instruction to inquiry. More than ever, curriculum will start with questions
rather than the delivery of information. Subject matter is important, but teachers need to
know how to apply knowledge through designing a problem solving process. Teachers might
begin by posing a significant challenge to students and capturing the challenge in a
manageable problem statement or driving question. The question frames the project while the
problem sets the solution process into motion. Choosing and crafting a suitable problem
requires experience, curiosity, and passion, as well as thorough knowledge of the discipline.
2) Balancing knowledge and skills. The CCSS rebalance the equation between content and
skills. The emphasis is on a blend of knowing/doing and learning/demonstrating, in which
students apply what they know and demonstrate mastery of 21st century skills such as
presentation and collaboration. This shift changes expectations for mastery, rearranges
assessments and grading systems, and relies on coaching students for better performance.
3) Going deep. “Deep” thinking sounds good in theory, but it takes time, making it problematic
in the context of a 48-minute period or a 180-day school year. Deep thinking also conflicts
with current testing requirements, which do not reward insight and analysis. The CCSS
suggest that teachers overcome these problems by assessing fewer standards (the goal of the
Common Core), using a variety of proven thinking tools, and designing a controlled process
that helps students focus their thinking on the driving question.
4) Teaching teamwork. The CCSS identify collaboration and teamwork as 21st century skills to
be taught. This is laudable, but something bigger is underway. As the outside world shows
us, we are moving into a collaborative culture of continuous learning within networked
communities. Teachers might meet this goal of teaching collaboration by using team
contracts, peer collaboration rubrics, and work ethic rubrics to turn group work into effective
teams. This guidance is a necessity for a curriculum that emphasizes problem solving and
inquiry, now often utilized in the real world through work projects that require teamwork.
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5) Establishing a culture of inquiry. Inquiry is central to of the CCSS. It challenges teachers by
removing a convenient and traditional means of being in charge—because inquiry cannot by
taught by a teacher standing in front of the classroom. Instead, to remain in charge we must
teach students how to take charge of themselves, to respect the inquiry process, and become
self-directed learners. This requires time, patience, and a blend of assessments and tools that
promote the development of self-awareness, respect, self-control, and other attributes of a
functioning community.
6) Blending coaching with teaching. This tenet requires that teachers often work shoulder to
shoulder with students, giving them feedback, questioning them, and urging them on to the
next level of achievement. It is a collaborative, communal form of teaching and learning that
requires good listening, appropriate praise, and focused criticism (Markham, 2012).
Opening Chapters
This book will open with an accessible chapter that focuses on the development of the CCSS and the
content of these standards. Given their centrality to the future of our schools’ curricula and teachers’
pedagogies, it is vital that academics and teachers engage thoughtfully with the motivations behind and
the development of these standards. The second chapter will explore the notion of social justice
education, including a bit of history and detailing just what a social justice stance looks like in practice
and in terms of standards and curricula. The third chapter will be another accessible and not too lengthy
exploration of the intersections and tensions between the CCSS, their development and content, and the
social justice notions explored in the second chapter. This chapter will examine both ideas and practices,
beginning to introduce the types of explorations that will comprise the remainder of the book.
Body of the Book
The bulk of the book will be 12-15 relatively brief (15-20 pages) explorations of the CCSS as they
intersect with and enact a social justice orientation. These chapters might include descriptions of how
educators are critically examining and implementing the CCSS, with particular emphases on particular
grade levels, content standards, classroom strategies, and assessment practices. These chapters will be
written by university- and school-based authors, but the focus must absolutely be on K-12 practices.
Combined these chapters will depict what the CCSS look like in practice, guided by a social justice
orientation. Each chapter must include the following elements:
• 15-20 double-spaced pages; 1-inch margins; 12 pt Times/Times New Roman font
• Description of the authors’ contexts—urban, suburban, ex-urban, rural—and factors teachers are
facing, including CCSS, high stakes testing, district and school regulations, etc.
• Explicit description of the author’s notion of social justice in relationship to the author’s
teaching/learning context, with relevant references
• Explicit focus on one specific grade level—elementary, middle school, or high school
• Explicit identification of the specific CCSS authors utilize for their social justice-focused inquiry
projects and pedagogies
• Written for teacher/academic audience with authentic lessons for K-12 curricula and pedagogies
• Related in active and authentic voice and through the lens of actual classroom practice (i.e., what
happens in social justice classrooms when they extend CCSS into equity-focused educational
activities)
• Tools teachers utilize that illustrate how they enact CCSS-oriented social justice pedagogies in
their classrooms
• Explicit discussions of the tensions teachers and academics face when implementing social
justice-focused pedagogies and how they might respond to direct instruction and standardized
assessment pressures with more holistic, social justice-focused assessment methods
• Poignant, compelling, insightful, aesthetic representations as valid data (e.g., visual art, poetry,
photo-art, memoirs, e-mail messages, in-class student discussions, and comments, etc.) from
diverse students, families, and future teachers that portray their experiences, feelings, and
perceptions in their quest for social equity in the classroom and in communities
Maximum 500 word chapter proposals due Friday, February 28, 2014 to
Janet Richards at janetusm@me.com and to Kristien Zenkov at kzenkov@gmu.edu
