The Transition from Content to Skill Standards in High School Planning and Practice

As high schools around the country transition to the Common Core standards, history teachers will grapple with how to balance content, literacy, and thinking skills in their classrooms in order to best prepare students for success in college. As a high school history teacher and department chair in Washington, D.C., I have been an active participant in my school's transition to new standards. A mix of D.C. Public Schools content standards, Common Core standards for reading and writing, and historical thinking standards derived from How Students Learn: History in the Classroom now anchor and guide our courses. My presentation will focus on how the shift to these new standards changes planning, instruction, and assessment in my own and otherhistory classrooms in my school. I will also discuss how this approach better prepares students for thinking, reading, and writing in college and what challenges remain.