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Reading on Science, Social Studies Teachers' Agendas

Arnett Elementary 2nd grader Jalynn Miller explains a subtraction problem to Makaya Sims, left, while Ms. Ball and David Butler observe. Teachers at the School in the Erlanger-Elsmere district are asking students to help design their "learning targets."

—Pat McDonogh for Education Week

To meet the expectations of the common standards, Kentucky's science and social studies teachers are incorporating language arts into their classes

By Catherine Gewertz

Taylor Mill, Ky.

Beth Fahlbush is moving from desk to desk, helping her high school juniors sharpen their essays. They're zeroing in on their lead paragraphs and hunting for the evidence they must marshal to build the bodies of their essays.

"If the evidence does not directly relate to your thesis, cut it out," Ms. Fahlbush tells one girl, who listens as she twists a strand of hair in her fingers. "Remember," the teacher says to a tall boy slouched in a nearby seat, "you are writing an argumentative essay. So you need to defend each of your points."

The teenagers in Room 122 of Scott High School, here in northern Kentucky, are not in English class. They're in U.S. history. And what's happening represents a leading edge of key changes that are taking shape as states and districts put the Common Core State Standards in...