Investigating Valarie Strauss's "Common Core's Odd Approach to Teaching the Gettysburg Address"

The article I chose to examine was Valarie Strauss's “Common Core's Odd Approach to Teaching the Gettysburg Address”.  I was originally drawn to the article because I really liked learning about the Civil War when I was younger, so I wanted to see how they want to teach it now.  Little did I know that they aren’t teaching about the Civil War at all and I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed! 

The idea of teaching the Gettysburg Address without giving students any background knowledge is insane to me!  Strauss writes, “The idea here is to plunge students into an independent encounter with this short text.”  But how can they have an independent encounter if they can’t connect with the text.  Not knowing or understanding exactly what it’s about will not help them gain any knowledge on what was going on in our country at that time. 

What also irritates me with this goal is that it expects students to get frustrated and struggle.  I know that when I had to read in school I would just give up if it was too difficult or uninteresting to me.  The article states, “Some students may be frustrated, but all students need practice in doing their best to stay with something they do not initially understand.”  Strauss goes on to write that the close reading approach levels the playing field because it does not give any background knowledge.  I understand the students need to persevere through difficult work, but not all students can cognitively handle a piece of writing like the Gettysburg Address without any additional information. 

What I find very interesting is that it seems that Strauss agrees with me.  She understands that giving students tasks such as this makes school “wildly boring”.  They are not expected to make any connections in what they are reading, just draw from the text itself without knowing any other information.  It also makes sense that she believes that this standard mimics standardized testing where students are expected to answer questions from a text that they have never seen before.   

Ultimately, what I really appreciate about this article is that Strauss understands the missed opportunity that we will have as teachers by not being able to help our students form a connection with this text.  This standard believes that asking students to make a connection will not bring them closer to understanding the Gettysburg Address, but I have to disagree.  The point of this speech was a memorial service to all the fallen soldiers of the war.  By asking students if they have attended a funeral before or experienced death, the teacher is helping their students make a critical connection to the text.  This connection breathes life into the speech and helps the reader gain a deeper understanding.