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Quantum Shifts
by GeraLd boyd

Even though Georgia is no longer a part of the PARCC 
consortium and the PARCC assessments no longer 
engender fear in the hearts of Georgia teachers, it 
might be a good idea to review what is different about 
the Common Core State Standards and decide what 
the quantum shifts are for the classroom and the 
teacher.

We know what the three big premises for the 
CCGPS are: 1) Regular practice with complex text 
and its academic language, 2) Reading, writing, and 
speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary 
and informational, and 3) Building content knowledge 
through the reading of content-rich non-fiction.

O.K. What do these things really mean? I think we are 
getting used to the idea of text complexity, but there 
is an additional statement in that first premise that I 
consider a quantum shift - academic language. We 
have for many years taught vocabulary in schools, 
and for almost as many years we have been teaching 
vocabulary wrong. (I’m not casting blame here 
because I am guilty of using all of the strategies I 
talk about.) Using a vocabulary list that is unrelated 
to anything else that the students do provides a 
time-filling, but practically useless exercise. This 
practice is not what the CCGPS premise expects. 
Academic language is vocabulary that is used across 
all disciplines, and it includes words that students 
cannot recognize or define through context clues. As 
an example, I use the word “iterative” to describe the 
process for the implementation of the CCGPS. That 
word is an academic word which simply means that the 
implementation will consist of stages of development. 
Teachers will try things, make mistakes, learn from 
those mistakes, improve, and begin again. (That’s 
what they have always done.) 

The teaching of academic language, however, 
requires a different process. In order to scaffold 
the more challenging text required by the CCGPS, 
teachers will need to extract the academic language 
within a text and pre-teach that vocabulary to students 
using the definition of the words implied by the text. 

This process does require a quantum shift from the 
way we have always done things. Nevertheless, 
all research in reading will verify the idea that pre-
teaching vocabulary is important. One teacher I talked 
to recently used the term “front-load vocabulary.” I like 
that term. Virtually all words in the English language 
have more than one meaning, and it is important to 
teach vocabulary terms in the context in which they 
are used in the text.

The next quantum shift I see with the CCGPS is the 
idea of reading, writing, and speaking grounded in 
evidence from the text. Again, we have for many years 
employed a version of this practice, but I don’t think 
many of us are prepared for what it really means. 
Looking at the first standard for reading, students 
are required to extract both explicit and inferential 
evidence from text in order to draw conclusions or to 
determine a central theme or idea.

With the CCGPS, we get a whole new notion of what 
that process should look like. Many times we are 
satisfied, and sometimes we are extremely proud, that 
students can make inferences about a piece of text. 
English teachers always get excited when students 
are able to cite a central idea or a theme about a text. 
The standards, however, go a quantum step further. 
The student actually has to cite the evidence verbatim 
from the text. 

Citing evidence from text has for most been a 
notation function, but with the standards, it becomes 
a direct quotation function. When a student makes 
an inference, that student should be able to read the 
passage directly from the text which has led him or her 
to that inference. Students should be able to read direct 
evidence from the text for explicit details, inferences, 
and central ideas or themes. I have demonstrated this 
process many times in close reading exercises. When 
a teacher asks a text-based question and a student 
gives an answer, the teacher’s next statement should 
be, “Read it to me.” 

Well, if these two shifts aren’t “quantum” enough for 

pre-teach vocabulary evidence from text synthesize ideas



GEORGIA JOURNAL OF READING 7 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1   2014

you, wait until you hear the next one. Even though 
we are no longer a part of the PARCC consortium, 
the assessments created by the Georgia Department 
of Education will have to be rigorous. Otherwise, the 
standards will not be worth their weight in ink. If the 
new assessments are “PARCC-like” in any way, there 
is another major shift that I would call quantum. The 
assessments should require a process called “Writing 
to Multiple Resources and Research.” Again, for 
many years, it has fallen upon the English teacher to 
teach the research process. Along with that process, 
we have taught students how to summarize and 
paraphrase text material and how to synthesize that 
material into a cohesive paper that bears the ideas of 
multiple resources. 

That process, however, only teaches students how to 
take ideas from several texts and put them all together 
in a single paper. That is altogether not the idea of what 
the standards are addressing. The new assessments 
should require the student to analyze and synthesize 
ideas across multiple sources and texts. Now just 
what does that mean? 

First of all, the assessments should require the student 
to read two or more excerpts of text before responding 
to the prompt or the selected response items. The 
prompts will almost always require an analysis of 
the two or more texts, but that is not all. The prompt 
may ask the student to write an analysis of the affect 
one of the texts has on the other. It requires a very 
specific type of analysis which involves a specific type 
of critical thinking. How does text A treat a subject 
differently than text B? Or how is something in text A 
treated differently in text B? This is a quantum shift that 
most students are not prepared for today. I really do 
not know how the new state assessments will shape 
up, but I have heard that they are being structured 
to be similar to the PARCC prototypes that we have 
seen. If that is true, teachers will need to adapt their 
modes of teaching to prepare students for the new 

assessments. I do not worry about this change in 
classrooms because teachers have always stepped 
up to the plate to address the learning that students 
need. The problem is, we don’t have much time.

All in all, the reality is that the standards seek to move 
students to that third premise – Building content 
knowledge through the reading of content-rich non-
fiction. This premise is dear to my heart, because 
since the inception of No Child Left Behind, we have 
engaged in a process of fragmenting and narrowing 
curriculum to the point that the only concern in the 
classroom is the test. I have heard many teachers 
say, “I teach what is tested,” and to some degree that 
statement breaks my heart. There is so much more 
to the curriculum than just what is tested. That whole 
strand of Speaking and Listening is difficult to test, and 
most of the giant test developers simply ignore it. Yet, 
the strand represents some extremely important skills 
for students to develop in life.

I hope as we continue to develop units and lessons 
for the CCGPS, we will recognize the importance of 
addressing the entire curriculum and teaching to build 
the content knowledge students will need to embrace 
the future. I constantly quote Sidney Lanier’s “Marshes 
of Glynn,” and I love the line that (taken out of context) 
says, “I am fain to face the vast sweet visage of space.” 
I want our students to be able to face the vast visage 
of space their futures hold.

This article was first published as “Common Core 
Shifts” in Scribble ‘n Bits, Georgia Council of Teachers 
of English and has been reprinted with permission.

Articles, content, informAtion And services presented 
in the GeorGia Journal of readinG do not constitute or 
imply endorsement, recommendAtion, ApprovAl or fAvor 
by the GeorGiA reAdinG AssociAtion.

Teachers will need to 
extract the academic 

language within a text 
and pre-teach that 

vocabulary to students 
using the definition of 
the words implied by 

the text.

Teachers should  
require students 

to analyze and 
synthesize ideas 

across multiple 
sources and  

texts.

When a teacher asks 
a text-based question 

and a student 
gives an answer, 

the teacher’s next 
statement should be, 

“Read it to me.”


