10 Common Core Essentials: Nonfiction: Selections from New and Classic Books for the English Language Arts Standards for Middle and High School

by Diane Ravitch, Rachel L. Swarns, Richard Wright

The excerpts featured in this free sampler come from some of our most popular nonfiction books for middle and high school classrooms—making them ideal choices to meet the new Common Core Standards for the English Language Arts. From the primary documents of The American Reader to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind—the story of young man from an impoverished African village who built a windmill to bring life-changing electricity to his community—these books will take students across time periods and around the world. They'll grapple with complex ideas and meet people from the past and present who will inspire them. Along the way, your students will come to understand the components of critical thinking and good writing—and why they matter.

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 21, 2013

About the author

Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University, a historian of education, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education.
She was U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991-93.
She was married to Richard Ravitch from 1960 until they divorced in 1986.
She married Mary Butz in 2012.
Aside from her many books on education history and policy, Ravitch writes for The New York Review of Books and maintains an influential blog on education.