CommonLit 360 Schools & Districts A Letter From Our Founder: Unveiling the CommonLit Rebrand

CommonLit has reached an exciting turning point. When you navigate to CommonLit, you’ll notice that things look a lot different – that’s on purpose, and we hope you like it.

Ten years ago, when I started CommonLit, my goal was really simple: I wanted to give teachers the gift of time. I was a harried middle school English teacher, scrambling to build a curriculum from scratch, and planning day to day. Maybe you can relate. I was surviving, not really thriving – spending nights and weekends searching for quality lessons on the internet and coming up short. I don’t need to remind teachers (who know all too well) that the internet is full of stuff that isn’t so great for classrooms. 

What I envisioned was a learning website that would feel more like a high-end online shopping experience, and less like a root canal. My dream was a place where within three clicks, a teacher could find high quality instructional materials for free that were actually classroom tested and composed by human teachers. I wanted lessons that respected the intellectual curiosity of my students who loved to grapple with the big themes that run through life and literature – while scaffolding the skills I knew they needed to practice. 

CommonLit’s new look, feel, and interface is designed for you. We cleaned things up to make finding a high quality lesson (or even, yes, a full core curriculum) easy and enjoyable. Our new brand is meant to be cleaner, bolder, and a little more fun. Here at CommonLit, it reminds us of things that bring us joy: notebooks, print shops, minimalist design, and yes – the 90s. We did this because we value teachers, and especially your time and attention, the most precious resource you have. 

When you join CommonLit.org by signing up for free (a commitment of our nonprofit mission), you’re joining a community. Behind the technology you interact with everyday is a team that is rooting for you every day, recognizing you’re doing the most important unseen work which is the work of helping our kids become confident and capable adults. You’ll still get access to our robust library of over 4,000 lessons created with care by our team of former teachers. Additionally, you’ll see new resources that we offer to schools and districts, including our new Core ELA Program, anchored around CommonLit 360, our full year Tier I core curriculum that is quickly gaining traction in schools nationwide. This is the program that we’re most excited about here at CommonLit because we’ve seen the enormous gains that many schools have already realized. I encourage you to check out the incredible outcomes that we’re so excited about here. 

As an organization founded and developed by former teachers, we’ve been in your shoes. You are busy. There are not enough hours in the day. Leading a classroom of teenagers is not easy, to say the least – but it’s incredibly rewarding and deeply gratifying when you get it right. We get it, and we’re here to help make things easier with a program designed by real teachers, for real classrooms. 

Thanks for your support in helping us get to this exciting organizational moment. Keep the feedback coming! We’re listening, and we’ll work hard to make things better and better. 

In the meantime, happy teaching.

-Michelle Brown, Founder & CEO

Interested in bringing CommonLit to your school?

Connect with our team to learn how you can bring CommonLit 360, our core program built by teachers for teachers, to your school or district today.