— Students coming back to school in the next few weeks might have to change the way they think.

The Common Core Curriculum — a new state-mandated set of learning goals for each grade and subject — is beginning to seep into area schools. The entire curriculum must be in use by the 2015 school year. Teachers say the new curriculum, which replaces  Priority Academic Student Skills Objectives, challenges kids’ critical thinking skills.

“A lot of Common Core is not changing what you teach, but the way you teach it,” said Mandy Bryant, who teaches fourth grade at Hilldale Elementary. “There’s more writing, more reflection. The students do not just have to have an answer, they have to be able to answer how they figured out and solved the problem.”

Bryant said she and other Hilldale teachers took Common Core Curriculum training this summer. She said teachers will incorporate some Common Core elements in their teaching when Hilldale classes resume Thursday.

Fifth- and eighth-graders will even be tested on the new writing standards this year.

“Instead of standalone writing prompts, as in the past, the writing in the new assessments is linked to reading passages,” said Tricia Pemberton, a communications specialist in the Oklahoma State Department of Education. “This will be our first transition to the writing component of Common Core Standards.”

Jennifer Dover, an English teacher at Hilldale Middle School, gave the new test to students last spring.

“Some thought it was harder, some thought it was okay,” she said, adding that “a lot of the students didn’t like to be asked what they thought about a subject.”

Dover said the new writing programs are “definitely more rigorous.”

“There’s more reading, more writing across the curriculum,” she said. “This can be good because it emphasizes critical thinking skills.”

However, many of her students are not used to this added emphasis, she said. “They like to give me a black-or-white answer. They don’t expound on it.”

Dover expects kids to get used to it.

“Kids are very flexible,” she said. “The more they do it, the more they are going to adjust to it and the more they are going to be OK with it.”

Brooke Qualls, a Hilldale High School freshman, recalled taking the eighth-grade test.

“It was a little difficult trying to figure out how to prepare what you’re going to write about,” she said.

She thinks she did well on the test, she said.

“I like to write,” she said. “Some people don’t know how to write well.”

Brooke said she knows the value of improved writing.

“It’s so you can write reports,” she said. “When you have a report, you’ll know how to phrase it correctly.”

Peggy Jones, MPS’ assistant director for curriculum and instruction, said the district has taken several approaches to prepare teachers for the new test and standards.

“The new standards will be more engaging because they make students think and write more deeply with more meaningful content, and they start those skills at an earlier age,” she said.

Jones said writing has become more important as the district prepares for the Common Core Curriculum.

Administrators and teachers have been preparing by writing maps through the curriculum, she said.

“With the maps, we look at what needs to be taught, when it needs to be taught and to what depth,” she said.

Even kids in lower grades will see this extra layer of rigor.

“The rigor means it’s more in-depth,” Hilldale Elementary Principal Kair Ridenhour said. “Kids will have to be able to think and put their thoughts down on paper.”

Ridenhour said teachers of pre-kindergarten through second grade were trained in the new standards over the summer.

Bryant said rigor for her fourth-graders means “asking questions to get them to think a little deeper.”

As an example, she said “instead of asking ‘who were the main characters,’ we’d ask ‘how do the main characters connect with the story.’”

The Education Department also is working on new math standards.

Muskogee already is starting new math programs. For example, Jones said, Muskogee High School is starting a Ramp Up program for ninth-graders “who aren’t quite ready for Algebra 1.”

“It’s a catch-up for students,” said Clayton Blevins, one of the Ramp Up teachers. “The class is set up in two-period blocks, so it gives you more opportunity to work with students. When students leave the class, they’ll be ready to take Algebra 1.”

Muskogee Public Schools math instructional coach Dan Hattaway said eighth-graders were tested last spring to determine whether they’ll take Algebra 1 or Ramp Up. He said 160 ninth-graders, slightly more than one-third of the class, will take Ramp Up this year.

As with other parts of the Common Core Curriculum, the math class seeks to build reasoning and thinking skills.

“The class has more application-based learning, not just information,” Blevins said. “You don’t just ‘solve for x,’ you have to explain how you ‘solve for x’ or why you ‘solve for x.’ A lot of students can generate information back to you, but they cannot go back and apply the information to a situation or solve story problems.”

Hattaway said he expects to phase out the Ramp Up class once students improve their math skills in lower grades.

The district will use the Connected Math program for grades six, seven and eight at Alice Robertson Junior High, Sadler Arts Academy and Ben Franklin Science Academy.

“The program adds relevance and rigor to math,” Hattaway said. “It gives students a mathematic understanding to work with algebra.”

For example, eighth-grade connected math features units on square roots and the Pythagorean Theorem as well as connections among coordinates, slope, distance and area. The Pythagorean Theorem holds that the sum of the squares of the two smaller sides of a 90-degree triangle equals the square of the largest side.

The Everyday Mathematics program, incorporated in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, “deepens understanding of math,” Hattaway said. “It’s more than just working projects. One thing Common Core wants us to use is the structure of numbers.”

Students would learn number patterns.

“Students would understand place value, not just whole numbers, but also decimals,” Hattaway said. “They’ll understand how numbers are put together.”

He said students are used to learning things by routine rather than by reasoning. This will change that, he said.

Reach Cathy Spaulding at (918) 684-2928 or cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com.