Adolescent Literacy at Risk?: The Impact of Standards

As teachers, we live in a world of standards. From local administration to national education policy, standards permeate every aspect of our teaching lives. In Adolescent Literacy at Risk? The Impact of Standards, Rebecca Sipe offers an in-depth look at the world of standards. Throughout the book, she raises questions that are significant to teachers and administrators who are concerned about the direction the standards movement has taken: What do we mean by standards? Why are there so many standards for literacy and where do they come from? How have standards come to be seen as a formula for curricula rather than a platform for collaboration and planning? In addition to her own stories, Sipe takes us into the world of classroom teachers. These stories demonstrate how innovative educators are able to remain true to best practices in adolescent literacy while working within a standards-based framework. Questioning the ways in which the standards movement has played out in classrooms, school districts, and states, Sipe issues a call for thinking about standards differently. She advocates for supporting and trusting teachers to find ways to make standards support the best of what we do. As part of the Principles in Practice imprint, Adolescent Literacy at Risk? situates itself in research-based understandings gleaned from Adolescent Literacy: An NCTE Policy Research Brief and shows how those understandings connect to the standards movement.