Think of what you've read in recent days, and the list might include a Facebook post about a friend's Grand Tetons vacation, an online review of the Droid X phone and an explanation of why your insurance isn't covering your latest doctor's visit.
Yet children in school read mostly fiction, from "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to "Macbeth."
In a few years, K-12 students' reading lists may expand to include more of that other stuff: more multimedia texts, scientific and technical articles, persuasive arguments and other nonfiction — and fewer storybooks and novels.
On Aug. 2, the state Board of Education will consider this major shift in how California's public schools teach reading when it votes on a controversial set of national Common Core Standards. If proponents prevail, California will join the majority of states in adopting the first nationwide standards for public education.
The goal in adding informational texts to the English-language standards is to prepare students for real-world reading, to use other courses such as science to teach reading, and to improve literacy and comprehension.
Although California standards currently include nonfiction — by 10th grade, for example, students are supposed to be able to analyze some workplace documents — the proposed standards progressively shift the focus.
"By grade 12, it's closer to 50-50" literature and information, said Gregory Geeting, a Sacramento County school board member and chairman of the state's 21-member California State Academic Content Standards Commission that this month recommended the standards.
If the state Board of Education approves the Common Core Standards, it likely will be several years before new curriculum will appear in classrooms and on state tests.
But particularly at a time of budget distress, why would California rewrite its 1997 standards and embark on an expensive venture to redo curriculum? For one, meeting next month's deadline will strengthen the state's résumé to compete for federal stimulus funds known as Race to the Top.
Still, some say California's current standards are just fine. A new study by the Thomas Fordham Institute said California standards already deserve an "A," ranking among the most rigorous in the nation.
But those stellar standards have failed to produce stellar students. California pupils languish near the bottom on national comparison tests.
One theory is that "California standards seem to be a mile wide and an inch deep," said Kathy Harris, a Santa Rosa teacher and member of the state commission that reviewed them.
California children are adept at learning grade-by-grade skills but don't master them, she said. In reading, for example, they focus on phonics, word recognition and other discrete skills, but not on comprehension. "They start to falter pretty much as soon as comprehension is addressed" in higher grades, she said.
And it's the same in math, as kids power through fractions and then decimals, but too often arrive in middle school without a solid footing in either. The Common Core Standards simplify standards and deepen learning at each grade level so students have more time to nail ¼ < ½ and to apply other new concepts.
Studies have shown that teaching reading through subjects such as science or social studies can be more effective partly because they reinforce words.
"In a book about electricity, you're going to see the word 'electricity' 15 times. Informational texts are a terrific way for kids to learn reading and vocabulary," said Jacqueline Barber, associate director of the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley and codirector of a science-literacy project.
The Common Core Standards will likely involve science and social studies teachers at all levels in teaching literacy rather than just content. Experts believe this will help address a problem reflected in another dismal statistic: about 60 percent of California State University freshmen last year needed either remedial English or math or both.
As Harris put it, "They know what mitosis is, but they get into college and can't read the text."
While perhaps the most visible shift in the curriculum will come in English, the most heated debate on the commission focused on math. The commission ended up tacking on California's requirement for eighth-grade algebra to the Common Core's regimen that allows students to take the course in the ninth grade.
That means that the K-7 curriculum will prepare students for eighth-grade algebra, but those students who still aren't ready may take some pre-algebra in eighth grade. In effect, the state will no longer insist that every California student take algebra by eighth grade.
Williamson Evers, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a commission member, voted against the math standards. "This will have the effect of destroying the algebra in eighth grade program as we have known it," he said.
Literature advocates were less vociferous. But those concerned about the Great Books losing out to iPhone diagrams in the high school curriculum shouldn't worry, commission members said.
The standards still are more focused on preparation for college rather than the workplace, said Kenji Hakuta, a member of the national committee reviewing the proposal. "There's a very thin representation of auto-repair manuals in the Common Core."
Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775.
SAMPLE PROPOSED READING STANDARDS
For informational text
Grade 6: Determine an author"s point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed.
Grade 8: Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas or events.
Grades 9-10: Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums.
Grades 11-12: Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning and the premises, purposes and arguments in works of public advocacy.