Delaware

The organization of Delaware’s ELA standards is almost impossible to follow. At every level—standard, category, and grade-level expectations—they are vague, providing scant guidance about what, precisely, students should know and be able to do. Here is a smattering across the levels:

Standard 2—Students will construct, examine, and extend the meaning of literary, informative, and technical texts through listening, reading, and viewing (overarching standard)

Students will be able to critically analyze and evaluate information and messages presented through print by (b) formulating and expressing opinions (category for all grade spans)

Compare personal experiences and knowledge of the world (text-to-world connections) to make and support judgments about concepts in:

• Literary text (e.g., character’s actions, morals of narratives or poems)
• Nonfiction (grade 7)

Nowhere among these statements is a clear student outcome described. The grade-level expectations, which we might expect to be the most specific, are often vague and repetitive. A typical expectation is:

Create meaning from a variety of media (grades 4-12)

Worse, it is repeated verbatim every year from fourth to twelfth grade.

Other times, the expectations are simply incomprehensible, as in this one repeated verbatim, grades 5-12:

Listen to and critique opposing interpretations of the same reading and consider how these opinions were formed through classroom dialogue and independent writing (grades 5-12)

The Delaware standards need a serious revision to identify and streamline any good content and reformulate it into a comprehensible framework that teachers could actually follow—and know when students have met them. It fails to do this, and thus earns zero points out of three for Clarity and Specificity. (See Common Grading Metric.)

Content Strengths

Some good vocabulary content can be found within the reading and written and oral English strands. In particular, despite their heavy emphasis on context clues and other strategies in the early grades, the standards address word analysis and etymology in the upper grades.

The reading standards beyond the earliest grades outline some specific content, though it is very difficult to find. The following standard, for example, calls out specific text structures:

Identify text structures in informative/technical texts (e.g., sequence/chronological order, classification, simple definition, simple process, description, comparison, problem/solution, simple cause/effect)
(grades 3-4)

Expectations for persuasive, informative, and expressive writing are generally thorough, as in this multi-part grade 5 standard:

Present reasons in a logical order (e.g., weakest to strongest argument, strongest to weakest argument)

• Organize writing by selecting text structures that strengthen the argument
• Develop an introduction, which is separate from the body, that presents a simple thesis and
  • takes a clear position
  • clarifies the issue
  • provides necessary background
• Use transition words/phrases that show order (e.g., in conclusion) or relationships (e.g., on the other hand)
• Develop a conclusion that begins to move beyond summary (e.g., “call to action” or “next step”)
  (grade 5)

Standards for group discussions are addressed, as are those for active listening. Conventions are adequately addressed as well, in standards both for oral and written language. Research standards are included, and, despite heavy repetition, are thorough.

Content Weaknesses

Delaware’s coverage of essential phonics, phonemic awareness, and fluency content and skills is inadequate. In addition, the Delaware standards require that students read a variety of genres from many cultures, but contain no requirement that American literature be studied.

Text complexity is defined in a graphic that illustrates the range of lexiles at which students should be reading. The graphic further notes that certain characteristics of text, such as setting, can make the text more difficult. If, for example, the setting is “distant” or “unfamiliar,” the text will be more difficult than if the setting were familiar. On its face, that may make sense, but in reality, a text with a familiar setting could still be quite difficult if the syntax, vocabulary, and themes were complex.

In addition, the reading standards focus almost exclusively on students’ personal reflections and “personal connections” to texts, as demonstrated in these standards, which are repeated verbatim across grades 3-12:

Find and explain personal connections to the topics, events, characters, actions, ideas or information in the text (grades 3-12)

Sympathize with the experiences and feelings of fictional characters based on age, gender, nationalities, races, cultures, and/or disabilities (grades 3-7)

Read stories and relate characters’ experiences to shape own decisions by asking questions:

• I felt like that character when I…
• If that happened to me, I would…
• I can relate to that character because one time…(grades 2-12)

Delaware also fails to prioritize which genres should be emphasized at which grades. Too many genres and writing products are expected at every grade level, and the state provides little guidance (rubrics, sample writing, etc.) to clarify expectations for products across grades.

Standards for oral presentation do not include specific targets for analysis, and no rubrics are provided for their evaluation. Finally, media standards are given short shrift, as in the following standard, which also repeats with little variation across many grades:

Use various forms of technology
•• word processing
•• presentation programs
•• digital cameras
•• scanners
•• multimedia […]to formulate writing and/or communicate knowledge of products (grades 5-12)

What appears here is unmeasurable and doesn’t hold students accountable for anything specific.

A few areas of strength save the Delaware standards from being utterly unhelpful, but at least 65 percent of important content remains missing, giving Delaware two points out of seven for Content and Rigor. (See Common Grading Metric.)