Book excerpt: Timely, thoughtful, and comprehensive, this text directly supports pre-service and in-service teachers in developing curriculum and instruction that both addresses and exceeds the requirements of the Common Core State Standards. Adopting a critical inquiry approach, it demonstrates how the Standards’ highest and best intentions for student success can be implemented from a critical, culturally relevant perspective firmly grounded in current literacy learning theory and research. It provides specific examples of teachers using the critical inquiry curriculum framework of identifying problems and issues, adopting alternative perspectives, and entertaining change in their classrooms to illustrate how the Standards can not only be addressed but also surpassed through engaging instruction. The Second Edition provides new material on adopting a critical inquiry approach to enhance student engagement and critical thinking planning instruction to effectively implement the CCSS in the classroom fostering critical response to literary and informational texts using YA literature and literature by authors of color integrating drama activities into literature and speaking/listening instruction teaching informational, explanatory, argumentative, and narrative writing working with ELL students to address the language Standards using digital tools and apps to respond to and create digital texts employing formative assessment to provide supportive feedback preparing students for the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments using the book’s wiki site http://englishccss.pbworks.com for further resources