2021 ELA Standards Resources

2021 K-5 ELA Standards (Horizontal) (pdf)

2021 6-12 ELA Standards (Horizontal) (pdf)

2021 K-12 ELA Standards (Horizontal) (Excel file)

ELA Standards Crosswalk (Excel file)

NSCAS 2021 ELA Timeline (pdf)

2021 Key Instructional Shifts for ELA (pdf)

An Overview of ELA Standards:

Standards establish what students should know and be able to do by the end of a specified grade level. English Language Arts (ELA) standards are created and revised by stakeholders across the state, and are adopted by the Nebraska State Board of Education at the end of a 7-year cycle. The standards challenge students to develop the essential literacy skills needed to succeed in college, career, and life. They cover a broad array of core knowledge and proficiencies in areas such as reading, writing, and listening and speaking.

Nebraska’s standards are organized with three levels of specificity:

• K-12 Comprehensive Statements – Identify broad, general statements that are not grade-level specific and cover big ides in English Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Multiple Literacies.)

• Grade-Level Expectations – Statements that identify what students should know and be able to do by the end of each identified grade/band. These are organized into categories, but not course specific.

• Curricular Indicators – Specific information to distinguish expectations between grade levels. They are no longer simply examples, but are considered an integral part of the standard to be taught.

Nebraska has historically been a local control state with no mandated curriculum or textbooks. The standards are not meant to be a curriculum. Rather, districts are expected to align their local curriculum to the Nebraska Standards to add more specificity. Nebraska’s draft standards are written using verbiage that describes the knowledge and skills students are expected to master at the various grade levels rather than using performance expectation language. Districts also have the choice to adopt their own standards only if they are more rigorous than the state standards.