A reader reacted to the post about how Common Core demands equal or greater time for informational text instead of literature:
“So much for inspiring with literature. I had a legendary public high school teacher in Georgia who made us love Shakespeare, and Dostoyevsky and Orwell. Those days are done. He was a “light the fire” kind of teacher. I e-mailed him recently and asked him about all of this. He said that he got out of teaching just at the right time.
“At least reading “1984” prepared me for this America. It never comes like you think it will, but here we are with our own “American” version. Orwell was a genius! Innerparty top 2%, Outerparty was top 13% or so. It works well for today’s America or any modern Capitalistic country, doesn’t it? Our billionaires, super rich, top military and top politicians and propagandists (and moronic celebrities for show) make up the top 1-2%. Other rich, including doctors, lawyers, business owners (corporate class) make up the other 13% or so. Then you have the bottom 85% (proles) who live day to day, low wages, retail and yucky jobs. This uneducated horde spends its days trudging their oversized bodies through big-box, plastic junk stores and watching moronic, action-packed, quick-cut movies. It all eerily fits. The top 15% send their kids to expensive private schools or public schools in wealthy, leafy suburbs. The bottom 85% is seeing their schools turned into militarized charter schools (or destroyed, or online). Who cares what happens to the Proles? The bottom 85% has to know their place and know where they fit in to the grand scheme. Too much human “capital”. The bottom 85% will not have nice lives. The top 15% of society will have lunch, the bottom 85% will be lunch! This is the future evolving.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I see real bumper sticker potential here:
“I am the lunch.” or “Eat the lunch or be the lunch.”
Most days I feel like the lunch. Is feeling being?
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Or….to quote Elizabeth Warren,”If you do not have a seat at the table, you will probably be on the menu.” Lots more of us will be on the menu as Congress sends the TPP to Obama to sign.
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Common Core is 50% non-fiction / 50% fiction only in the early grades.
From 6th – 12th grade, it’s 70% non-fiction, and only 30% fiction
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Meet the new boss…same as the old boss! When has it ever been different for the human race? To quote another pop culture touchstone, the poor have always been f$cked over by the rich…always have been and always will.
The system, every system, breeds apathy and sheepishness in the masses. I tried and will continue trying to reject appr and common core, but not enough people in the education world are willing to fight. We can’t fight battles without armies, without people willing to fight and with the knowledge of why they are fighting.
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Here is my take… common core is the WORST piece of “literary fiction” I have ever read! But now I have clarity reflecting on my early childhood literary reading – stories like Pinocchio and The Emperor’s New Clothes.
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So Orwell’s 1984 can now be considered as non-fiction.
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Yes! Most astute.
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It’s not only non-fiction, it’s a how-to manual.
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“At least reading “1984” prepared me for this America.”
I preferred using comedian Lewis Black’s method of preparation: “I took acid when I was younger just to prepare myself for times like now.”
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My now 6th grader is in a small Catholic school (we are members of the parish, so it was a no-brainer for a woman that went to an all girls’ school through high school), and what our teachers have done is bring in more non fiction and poetry, to the Literature class, but the “informational text” portion is done in history and science. The ask for examples from the text, evidence, but in those areas. They read entire books (we covered 8 great books this year) and do complete reviews, summaries, character and plot analysis, conflict and themes. Very grateful that we are benefiting from strong teachers!
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