Bringing the Common Core to Life in K 8 Classrooms: 30 Strategies to Build Literacy Skills offers thirty easy-to-use strategies that encourage student mastery of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts across the curriculum. Teachers will help their students work smarter, not harder, to become actively engaged in their own learning. Authors Eric Jensen and LeAnn Nickelsen's provide tips for structuring teaching, and address common fears and challenges that this shift in teaching and learning evokes. Jensen and Nickelsen begin by explaining the difference between top-down, passive classrooms and two-way engaged-for-success classrooms. The first is driven by teachers while the latter welcomes and encourages students to take control of their teaching and learning. The two-way process also promotes higher-level thinking, as opposed to students reciting simple concepts that they will easily forget. The strategies are organized into three zones of engagement: Zone 1: Engage to.