Fiction and the Common Core

Powerful talk about writing and reading today.  I can't quit thinking about the idea that fiction is valuable to our students--to help them tell their stories, to help them see the world and put names and faces on it, to learn behavioral patterns and the repercussions of each, good and bad.  I want to think about this literature thing during the summer months so that I will have some idea of how to broach it this fall as we get into the full swing of Common Core. I worry that I am starting to work in an area that I don't believe in.  I've always been able to walk away when I didn't believe, but this time I have to stay, at least for a while.  Now I'm thinking about how I can hack into this system and put my brand on it. I want to take every single I can statement and make it into something palatable for my students and me.  I already know that the nonfiction part will be literary criticism.  That will help them think like the critic they will have to become on the AP exam.  Hacking may just be the answer to the whole thing.  And not just hacking into the Common Core dialogue (monologue?) but hacking into this whole cultural idea that if the piece of writing isn't self-help, how to make money, cheat your neighbor, etc. then it has no value.  It seems to me that when we devalue the story we devalue the conscience.