American Education in the United Arab Emirates Issue 1 2015 | Page 19

list. Instead, teachers and school leadership are empowered to
define what to teach and how to teach their students within
categories of critical content, which include classic myths and
stories from around the world, foundational US documents,
seminal works of American literature, and Shakespeare.

2. Reading, Writing, and Speaking Grounded
in Evidence from Texts, both Literary and
Informational.
The new standards focus on evidence-based writing and
the ability to inform and persuade across reading, writing,
and speaking. Students must analyze evidence from texts
to present clear arguments and well-defended claims.
Students are expected to answer a range of text-dependent
questions, rather than rely on prior knowledge, opinion, and
life experience.

3. Building Knowledge Through Content-rich
Nonfiction
Students need to become successful readers and systematically
develop knowledge about the world around them. Learning
independently through reading nonfiction is a key tenet of
the new ELA standards. There is also a focus on literature
throughout K-12. It is the core focus of grades 6-12 and it
constitutes half of the reading in K-5, whereas the other half
is on informational reading, which is content-rich nonfiction
in history/social studies, sciences, technical studies, and the
arts. In grades 6-12, the standards for literacy in history/s