New Social Studies & Updated Literacy Standards are Now in Curriculum Manager

The new Social Studies standards that were adopted by the state last Spring are now loaded into Curriculum Manager for your teachers to use and align to their units of instruction! 

 

You will find the Standards in the MISIC Benchmark area with all of the other subjects. They are labeled as ICC Social Studies in the drop down list of subjects. Much like the other core subjects, when a teacher selects a MISIC Benchmark the program will automatically pull in the linked standard in the Iowa Core field.

 

We have not removed the old Social Studies standards. We want to allow plenty of time for teachers to transition to the new standards.

 

You can view the standards here: 

• Social Studies – New Iowa Standards – Final Draft 2017

 

Updated Literacy

The state also reviewed the Literacy standards last year and made a few changes. Those updates have also been made in Curriculum Manager. You can view the complete report here: Literacy Review Team Report to the State Board of Education

The standards updates are summarized below. MISIC has created a spreadsheet that has all of the updates marked in red text for each grade level. You can download that document on the By Subject page of the MISIC Website. When you get to the page, click on the Literacy tab.

The review team recommended the following five items that were changed in the standards:

1. Eliminate specific text titles and authors throughout the Iowa Core Literacy Standards but maintain genre references. Survey and focus group participants said they saw the specific titles as required reading rather than examples of possible text options.
2. Clarify the use of the terms perspective and point of view throughout the standards. This will be done by inserting the proper term in parentheses within the standards statements and including the terms point of view and perspective in the glossary. The authors of Common Core failed to accurately differentiate between the two terms “perspective” and “point of view” in the Reading Standards.
3. Eliminate IA.1 in grades K-12 under Standards for Literature and Informational Text. Survey participants indicated they found this standard to be redundant.
4. Realign Standard IA.2 as a substandard of Standard 10 of the Reading Standards for Literature and Informational Text Standards 6-12. Feedback indicated that Standard IA.2 was a better fit as a substandard than a stand-alone standard. 
5. Revise Speaking and Listening Standard 6 to include the content of the Iowa-specific standards IA. 5 and IA. 6. Feedback indicated that settings for public speaking should be incorporated into Standard 6.

Let us know if you have any questions!