Teaching What Matters Most: Standards and Strategies for Raising Student Achievement

In Teaching What Matters Most, education specialists Richard W. Strong, Harvey F. Silver, and Matthew J. Perini effectively collaborate to draw upon ten years of research and professional experience in three hundred schools to develop four standards that classroom teachers can utilize to help their students meet the scholastic standards established by districts, states and regions. These standards include: Rigor (helping students make sense of challenging texts and ideas); Thought (helping students become adept users of powerful learning disciplines); Diversity (helping students understand themselves and others); Authenticity (helping students apply what they learn to the real world). Coherent, accessible, and readily understandable, these standards are thematically applicable to all of the diverse communities and constituencies that compose the American educational landscape today. Documented lessons from real classrooms showcase and illustrate the application of these standards as applied to curriculum development, instruction, assessment, and student state test performances. Teaching What Matters Most is a strongly recommended addition to teacher education curriculums, classroom instructors K-12, and school administrators at all levels of responsibility from department heads to school district superintendents.