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Common Core for the classroom: Where does a teacher start?

I do not pretend to know the answer to my own question.  I do not know "exactly" where to start.  What I do know is a "start" is needed; therefore, I chose to begin reading historical fiction, which is a good transition from fiction to non-fiction, in my humble opinion.  

After teaching English for 22 years, it's easy to get boggled down in doing what I've always done.  It's easy to rationalize that what I've always done has brought about, for the most part, effective results.  However, it is folly to imagine that there is not room for improvement.  So, I'm beginning in a way that I see as profitable.  

Most teachers will agree that the more one knows the subject matter they teach, the more effective their teaching.  There is, obviously truth to this.  It's not the only way a student learns, however.  A teacher who can whet the appetite of young readers with books and stories that appeal to their curiosity will go on to read books that the teacher has never read, and may never read.  So, putting good non-fiction into the hands of the students is a great way to start raising their reading level.  

Last year my 8th graders read Night by Elie Wiesel.  I've taught it for many years to various grade levels, 9th-12th grade.  In all instances, I've watched the horror on students faces as they realize the atrocity of the holocaust, as if this "new" knowledge has been their first exposure to the genocide of the Jews during World War II.  

This summer I read the following book: 
For some students it would be a good book to read to learn about the mysteries behind the Nazi regime.  

Also, I've read the following two books, which I believe would be great to introduce to students while teaching Arthur Miller's The Crucible:



Its a beginning, I tell myself.  It reinforces what I've always known: the more a person "knows" the more a person realizes the many things they do not know.  

I believe to be an effective teacher of Common Core, teachers must be willing to do something different.  It's not necessary to do away with all things in the past that you've taught or strategies that have been effective, but it is necessary to add to that repertoire.  
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