Get past the trees of Common Core State Standards to the forest that can tell you what these changes are and why they are good for history teachers. History is now front and center in teaching literacy as a key player in the ELA Anchor Standards. In reading “students must grapple with works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries” which is history class. And in writing, where students “have to become adept at gathering information, evaluatin