This upcoming school year, our school will be looking at adopting a new high school ELA curriculum. I have a very limited background when it comes to school districts and their adoption or development of curriculums. I have seen many documents online as I have done my own research for my own, which was based solely on the incorporation of the state standards, researched-based strategies, and strong texts.
I have been through several textbook series and curriculum support presentations in my career, and this summer would be no different. Before the presentations began, I sat down and made a list of all the features I would want the ideal ELA curriculum to have:
- Standard-based lessons and activities
- Reading, Speaking, Listening activities
- Close Reading
- A strong writing program
- Synthesizing information presented into a product
- “Beyond-the-text” assignments
- MLA/APA/Citations/Plagiarism support
- How to do research – online and in libraries
- Rubrics
- The text selection would be both rigor-appropriate, but also high interest
- Technology & multimedia must be incorporated
- Digital copies of the texts for the students and teachers
- Differentiated options
- Support for ELL/ESL students
- A user-friendly interface
- Support for teachers (professional development, customer service support)
- Options for teachers to customize the content/assessments/assignments
Educator Question of the Day: What other features do you look for in a new curriculum?