The impetus behind the design and implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was to establish nationwide criteria in preparing students to be college or career ready by the end of high school. The standards require students to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate text across a wide range of disciplines. Essential to the mastery of the standards, students must have a deep understanding of the larger bodies of language, or the academic discourse related to the academic discipline. This article examines the role of discourse within the development of academic language in the content areas and provides educators with a content area discourse analysis tool to identify high-priority areas for explicit discourse instruction for learners with exceptional language needs.