| Education is in a state of disequilibrium. The age of accountability that first arrived with A Nation at Risk in 1983 has developed into sweeping reforms that affect students and teachers alike. While the entire education industry continues to adapt, 45 states - including New Jersey - have relinquished control of educational standards and have chosen to adopt the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (CCSS ELA).;The CCSS ELA mandate the literacy skills students should master to function as United States citizens in the 21st century. Additionally, the developers of CCSS ELA decided to link literacy to History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects (CCSS ELA/HST). The CCSS ELA/HST do not replace New Jersey's content standards in these subjects. Instead, they serve as the connective thread that unites them. The merger of ELA and HST has catapulted interdisciplinary strategies back into the educational limelight. While interdisciplinary teaching and learning have never entirely fallen out of pedagogical fashion, they have been revitalized through the CCSS. However, this union is not perfect.;Superficially, the CCSS seems to have relieved ELA teachers from burden of teaching literacy in isolation. However, by baptizing all teachers in the waters of literacy, the CCSS' quite possibly could have opened a Pandora's Box of under-qualified and under-trained secondary content teachers delivering literacy instruction.;School leaders are now left to find ways to effectively connect the disciplines by activating professional learning communities to help integrate literacy across the disciplines. However, these groups cannot operate unprepared. They will need focused, research-based and sustained professional development to assist them.;This mixed-methods, action research study investigates the CCSS ELA and their mandate for interdisciplinary literacy through an examination of teacher perceptions of those topics and the need for continual, collaborative professional development in a suburban New Jersey school district. |
