Tennessee ELA standards committee finalizes glossary, approves revised K2 standards
October 30, 2025 | State Board of Education, Deparments in Office of the Governor, Organizations, Executive, Tennessee
This article was created by AI summarizing key points discussed. AI makes mistakes, so for full details and context, please refer to the video of the full meeting. Please report any errors so we can fix them. Report an error »
The Tennessee State Board of Education's English Language Arts Standards Recommendation Committee finalized glossary language and voted to approve revised K2 ELA standards at an electronic meeting on 2025-10-29.
Brianna, the department staff member who read the meeting notice, opened the committee's orientation by saying, "This meeting is called to continue proposing revisions to the ELA standards." The committee moved quickly into detailed line-by-line work on the glossary, references and several "parking garage" items — technical edits the group left for final review while drafting the standard text.
Why it matters: The committee's decisions shape the language districts and publishers use to develop curriculum and instructional materials statewide. The approved standards and glossary language provide the state board and local districts with the normative definitions and progressions schools will follow, and the executive summary the leadership team will draft is intended to explain the committee's rationale to the full board and the public.
Most substantive changes and decisions
- Glossary: Members adopted a set of new and revised entries drawn in part from a committee email by member Miss Dockery. The group added a definition for "rhetorical techniques," changed the wording of "premise" to emphasize a "line of reasoning," and revised the proposed "stance" entry to use the term "perspective" instead, noting overlap with existing "point of view" language. The committee removed a separate "author's purpose" entry and retained a single "purpose" definition because the two were redundant. The "perspective" entry was broadened to refer to author and character perspectives; a longer explanatory paragraph was deleted as unnecessary.
- References: Committee members conducted an exhaustive search of the draft references list and agreed to remove items not cited in the standards texts or appendices (examples discussed verbally included Stanovich/Seidenberg and several other research citations). Staff will keep a record of removed items so they can be reinstated if new appendices are added.
- Formatting cleanup: The committee standardized glossary formatting, removing inconsistent italics and insisting on intentional use for titles (for example, book titles remain italicized).
- Roots and affixes appendix: The committee asked the department to assemble a non-exhaustive progression chart of roots and affixes that covers the relevant grade band (committee direction: K with clear language that the list is illustrative and not exhaustive).
- Electives and credits guidance: The group removed a separate 'credits' column from the electives guidance (award of credit is a district determination) and instead directed that a single statement appear with the electives table: multiple iterations of the same course may be offered if each iteration has a distinct focus or task; students may build upon work from one iteration to another. The committee added a short example (genre literature: one iteration could focus on historical fiction, another on young-adult literature) to illustrate the guidance.
Committee process and votes
- The committee approved use of the meeting recording as the official minutes by voice vote early in the meeting.
- Toward the end of the session the committee voted by roll call (7-0) to direct the leadership team to draft an executive summary that will accompany the standards when materials are transmitted to the State Board. The motion specified that the summary should reflect committee feedback and be consistent with applicable open-meeting rules.
- The committee completed its work with a final roll-call vote to approve the revised K2 ELA standards (7 ayes, 0 nays). Chair Kurnegas declared the standards recommendation committee adjourned after the vote.
What the committee flagged for follow-up
Members asked staff to: keep a clear record of any removed bibliographic items in case they need to be restored for newly drafted appendices; finalize the roots-and-affixes progression chart as non-exhaustive K guidance; and incorporate the agreed elective-credit guidance language into the standards package and the supporting standards guide. The leadership team will draft the executive summary and collect any additional editorial, technical or policy-oriented input from committee members before delivering the full package to the State Board.
Committee members and staff said they intended only non-substantive, technical edits after the vote (formatting, citation corrections, appendix figure numbering) and that any unresolved policy-level changes would require the committee to reconvene.
Ending
The leadership team will draft the executive summary and circulate it for review as directed. The full standards package, including the adopted glossary, appendices and the executive summary, will be transmitted to the Tennessee State Board of Education for the next steps in the adoption process.
Brianna, the department staff member who read the meeting notice, opened the committee's orientation by saying, "This meeting is called to continue proposing revisions to the ELA standards." The committee moved quickly into detailed line-by-line work on the glossary, references and several "parking garage" items — technical edits the group left for final review while drafting the standard text.
Why it matters: The committee's decisions shape the language districts and publishers use to develop curriculum and instructional materials statewide. The approved standards and glossary language provide the state board and local districts with the normative definitions and progressions schools will follow, and the executive summary the leadership team will draft is intended to explain the committee's rationale to the full board and the public.
Most substantive changes and decisions
- Glossary: Members adopted a set of new and revised entries drawn in part from a committee email by member Miss Dockery. The group added a definition for "rhetorical techniques," changed the wording of "premise" to emphasize a "line of reasoning," and revised the proposed "stance" entry to use the term "perspective" instead, noting overlap with existing "point of view" language. The committee removed a separate "author's purpose" entry and retained a single "purpose" definition because the two were redundant. The "perspective" entry was broadened to refer to author and character perspectives; a longer explanatory paragraph was deleted as unnecessary.
- References: Committee members conducted an exhaustive search of the draft references list and agreed to remove items not cited in the standards texts or appendices (examples discussed verbally included Stanovich/Seidenberg and several other research citations). Staff will keep a record of removed items so they can be reinstated if new appendices are added.
- Formatting cleanup: The committee standardized glossary formatting, removing inconsistent italics and insisting on intentional use for titles (for example, book titles remain italicized).
- Roots and affixes appendix: The committee asked the department to assemble a non-exhaustive progression chart of roots and affixes that covers the relevant grade band (committee direction: K with clear language that the list is illustrative and not exhaustive).
- Electives and credits guidance: The group removed a separate 'credits' column from the electives guidance (award of credit is a district determination) and instead directed that a single statement appear with the electives table: multiple iterations of the same course may be offered if each iteration has a distinct focus or task; students may build upon work from one iteration to another. The committee added a short example (genre literature: one iteration could focus on historical fiction, another on young-adult literature) to illustrate the guidance.
Committee process and votes
- The committee approved use of the meeting recording as the official minutes by voice vote early in the meeting.
- Toward the end of the session the committee voted by roll call (7-0) to direct the leadership team to draft an executive summary that will accompany the standards when materials are transmitted to the State Board. The motion specified that the summary should reflect committee feedback and be consistent with applicable open-meeting rules.
- The committee completed its work with a final roll-call vote to approve the revised K2 ELA standards (7 ayes, 0 nays). Chair Kurnegas declared the standards recommendation committee adjourned after the vote.
What the committee flagged for follow-up
Members asked staff to: keep a clear record of any removed bibliographic items in case they need to be restored for newly drafted appendices; finalize the roots-and-affixes progression chart as non-exhaustive K guidance; and incorporate the agreed elective-credit guidance language into the standards package and the supporting standards guide. The leadership team will draft the executive summary and collect any additional editorial, technical or policy-oriented input from committee members before delivering the full package to the State Board.
Committee members and staff said they intended only non-substantive, technical edits after the vote (formatting, citation corrections, appendix figure numbering) and that any unresolved policy-level changes would require the committee to reconvene.
Ending
The leadership team will draft the executive summary and circulate it for review as directed. The full standards package, including the adopted glossary, appendices and the executive summary, will be transmitted to the Tennessee State Board of Education for the next steps in the adoption process.
View full meeting
This article is based on a recent meeting—watch the full video and explore the complete transcript for deeper insights into the discussion.
View full meetingSponsors
Proudly supported by sponsors who keep Tennessee articles free in 2025
