CCC hosted an expert panel of educators to discuss the importance of authentic content and the role it can play in K-12 education. This three-part blog series using excerpts from that webcast will explore K-12 literacy education by comparing the benefits of authentic content with the limitations of synthetic text; demonstrating how authentic text can help districts meet necessary standards while supporting real-world relevance; and sharing best practices for using published content to close learning gaps.
Meet the Educators
Marjorie McKeown: Founder and CEO of ALEE, The Alexandria Learning Ecosystem for Educators. Marjorie brings a wealth of experience as a teacher, principal, and educational leader, with a focus on innovative approaches to curriculum development.
Ellen Brooks: K-12 School Improvement Coach and Educator at Monroe Public Schools in Michigan. Ellen’s expertise spans classroom teaching, digital learning, and professional development, making her a valuable resource in navigating educational challenges.
Kimberly Andersen: Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Twin Valley School District in Pennsylvania. With over three decades of experience in teaching and school administration, Kimberly brings a deep understanding of curriculum design and implementation.
Defining Authentic Content
According to Scholastic, “Authentic text is real, living language written to engage readers and draw them in; it may entertain, inform, or persuade. It invites active reading, robust problem-solving, and deep analysis because it comprises conceptually rich, compelling ideas and language from life.” Authentic text and content provide educators with tools that have the power to deeply engage students in the learning process.
Marjorie McKeown offered a compelling perspective. She emphasized that authentic content is not merely instructional material; it’s a cornerstone of effective teaching. She underscored the importance of content for fostering critical thinking, cultivating a love of reading, enriching foundational knowledge, and affirming personal experiences. For her, authentic content mirrors real-world contexts, presenting students with genuine challenges and solutions.
Kimberly Andersen highlighted the research-based rigor and engagement inherent in authentic content. She stressed the importance of aligning content with educational standards while ensuring accessibility and support for diverse learners. Andersen emphasized that authentic content isn’t limited to textbooks; it extends to a variety of resources that captivate and inspire students’ curiosity. “We want that high-quality content to be engaging so that the students will be able to develop stronger critical thinking skills as they’re engaging with the resources that we’re using in the instruction.”
Ellen Brooks continued to build on the definition of authentic content by accentuating its dynamic nature and role in facilitating differentiated instruction and allowing students to engage with material at their own level. Brooks agreed that content needs to transcend traditional paradigms so that it can ignite a students’ passion for learning and fostering connections across various subjects.
Contrasting Authentic Content with Synthetic Texts
In the article “Igniting Passion: Authentic Content Connects Students to New Ideas,” Kalman says, “Synthetic content is not a new term. Fun With Dick and Jane, a first-grade primer, is a decades-old example. Content like this has been dutifully created to teach a particular language proficiency but is not authored with a use case that extends beyond the walls of a classroom. CCC’s Samantha Kalman, a longtime classroom educator, shares her view on synthetic content, “The issue is that anyone with any interaction with the English language knows, that all things typical quickly become atypical when encountered in text that is written for all other purposes besides teaching.”
Kalman goes on to say that synthetic content has a purpose. “There are very specific circumstances when the best pedagogy requires text that exposes the patterns in language, especially when teaching phonetics, reading, and grammar. But once the skill is taught, the student then needs to learn a skill set that enables them to extract information from real-world texts, only then is literacy achieved, whereby students apply these skills in their everyday lives.”
McKeown agrees that synthetic texts often fall short of providing meaningful learning experiences, in contrast with authentic content. She critiqued the over-reliance on gamification and screen-based learning and cautioned against approaches that prioritize entertainment over genuine engagement. She echoes concerns raised in an MIT Technology Review article by Holly Korbey, which highlights the cognitive benefits of print-based reading over screen-based learning.
Brooks also shared, “Our educators are making connections with students, and they’re doing that with these high-quality authentic sources. It’s the idea of having accessible, engaging, motivating content that no matter [what level a student is performing at] they can come into that experience, own it, be excited about it, and grow their understanding.” She continued to say that as educators have “been handed that textbook, and it’s like, this is what you’re doing…we don’t get the buy-in and engagement.”
Relevant, authentic content increases student ability to connect what they learn in the classroom with their real world experiences.
Easily Incorporate Copyrighted Content into the Educational Journey
Whether you are a curriculum developer in a district or EdTech setting, you can easily incorporate authentic content into your planning. RightFind Curriculum allows users to easily search for, discover, and incorporate high-quality, copyrighted content into curriculum and instruction while managing copyright compliance. RightFind Curriculum includes an advanced search and discovery tool, a curated collection of high-quality, standards-aligned content, consultative support with a CCC content expert, and print and digital rights to use 1M+ copyrighted English and Spanish language works from 90+ leading publishers, including books, magazines, newspapers, and websites. This solution helps provide greater access to high-quality, authentic content across districts and for EdTech developers.
This is part 1/3 of a blog series inspired by the webcast Why High-Quality Content Matters in K-12 Instruction. Attendees included educators, administrators, and curriculum developers from across the United States. We are grateful to our expert panelists for sharing their insights.