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writing voice—loved the joy that develops when a class becomes a family.
What I didn’t love, however, was the overwhelming pressure I felt, especially as the English teacher, to cram it all in before the state assessment in the spring. What’s the it? The ever-increasing, ever-bloated nemesis of teachers’ joy: the curriculum. In Brownsburg, I was lucky because it was the teachers in our district who created the curriculum. We had ultimate say, albeit to an extent, over what and how we taught. Brownsburg Community School Corporation has worked hard over the past several years to “cut the fluff” of unnecessary programs and instead invest its time and energy into truly making teachers the experts in their fields. They did it by adopting Richard Dufour’s model for authentic professional learning communities where teachers create and revise their common curriculum and assessments.
I was a part of one such community with my fellow 7th grade English teachers, but still, it felt as if we had so many plates spinning with curriculum items—it was impossible to keep up. We taught novels throughout the year, and with the novels we hit all literature standards...every time. Then there were nonfiction standards to teach as well, but to be honest, that was something we just never talked about. Where was the time?
The truth was that our core focus at the time was our writing instruction. Our district ensures that all PK-12 teachers who teach writing are trained with a common writing approach, Smekens’ 6+1 Traits of Writing. There is phenomenal power in having a shared vocabulary and approach to writing instruction, and our students’ writing continuously demonstrate the undisputable impact this has had on their learning. But, when you’re teaching writing you then feel you need to include grammar because how can you teach writing without grammar? And soon you realize that students cannot strengthen their writing unless they bolster their vocabulary so you begin to add in core vocabulary instruction. And then, if you’re really feeling daring, you add in digital literacy standards, public speaking standards, and presentation skills. If you’re an English teacher, at the end of the day you simply feel like I felt: there was not enough room left on any of my spinning plates to really teach anything well. I often wondered how anyone could balance it all? How could any student learn it all?
I knew there had to be a better approach than this. There had to be a way to simplify and find our core instructional values that would yield the highest impact on student learning. There had to be a way to create the Schmoker’s (2018) description of authentic literacy: an inclusive system of purposeful reading, writing, and discussion.
The following year, I accepted the position as the English administrator within our district. Brownsburg is unique in that it has six curriculum administrators at the secondary (6-12) level who are essentially curriculum, instruction, and assessment evaluators and coaches. My primary role as the English administrator was to guide the 45 secondary English teachers at four buildings through curriculum and assessment alignment. I jumped at the opportunity to help guide the discussion about what to keep on the plate—and what to let go. Indiana had recently transitioned to its version Common Core Standards, so the timing was right to honestly evaluate which standards would put us on a balanced path to authentic literacy.
But how does one make this decision? Who can determine if nonfiction is more important in an English classroom than grammar—than figurative language?