District English Google Calendar

If you teach English in one of the SFSD high schools, the District English Google calendar was recently shared with you. Events on this calendar are updated regularly to reflect the most current information. As it is a Google calendar, you may choose whether or not you wish to allow it to show in your normal Google calendar by adjusting the settings. If you select to hide the calendar now, you may always go back into the settings and select to show it.

Information Available on This Calendar

For All English Teachers

*No School days

*Inservices

*Semester Test Previews

*Semester Tests

*Grading Windows

*Teacher Workdays

*Conferences

*Upcoming Professional Development Conferences (This is merely for information purposes as teachers must apply to the travel committee to attend these.)

*There are NO Director Called Meetings during a Curriculum Study, but starting in the fall of 2017, you will see DCMs on this calendar as well.

For Teachers on Curriculum Writing Teams

*Curriculum Writing Team meetings

*Due dates for curriculum components

Lexile Measures of Frequently Taught Classics

Lexile Measures of Frequently Taught Classics
Just for consideration and reference...

1984 – 1090

Book Thief - 730

Crime and Punishment - 850

Enrique’s Journey - 770

Fahrenheit 451 - 890

Fallen Angels – 650

Glass Castle - 1010

Grapes of Wrath - 680

Great Expectations – 880

Heart of Darkness - 1050

Hobbit - 1000

Jane Eyre - 610

The Kite Runner – 840

Lord of the Flies – 770

Metamorphosis - 1340

Night – 570

The Poisonwood Bible - 960

Pride and Prejudice – 1090

The Road - 670

To Kill a Mockingbird - 870

Measuring Text Complexity

Since the adoption of the CCSS, we have heard the term text complexity many times. The concept has also emerged through questions bubbling up as we embark upon our English curriculum revision.

How do we ensure that we are placing adequately challenging texts within the grade level curriculum guides?

As we seek to diversify our literature options, how do we know that we are adding options that are of high quality?

These questions are undoubtedly important for us to examine during our study because we need to be intentionally including both accessible texts and texts that stretch our students; these questions, however, go beyond the diverse literature element we recently started exploring. As we review the texts currently in our curriculum and as we study potential new texts to add, I challenge us to turn to this question:

What does it mean for a text to be challenging or of high quality?

Often, the first measure to come to mind is a text's Lexile score, which can be a very good place to start. When thinking about Lexile in a post-CCSS-adoption world, however, it can get a bit tricky. The Lexile Band has changed for each grade band due to the fact that over the past 50 years, the gap between most secondary texts and most college texts has widened. In order to move students closer to the College and Career Ready Lexile level, a new "Stretch" Lexile Band has been adopted by The Lexile Framework for Reading. (But this is a whole other topic...Click here to read more from the Lexile Framework group.)

So should Lexile be our go-to for determining a text's complexity? 

Does a Lexile number really inform us if a text will be challenging for our students or if it is of high quality?

While the Ledile measure can be a starting point, the CCSS promotes a three-pronged approach when determining a text's complexity, and many educators with whom I have spoken agree that the following three elements are all important when considering a text: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Reader & Task.

One of the three prongs is, of course, the quantitative measures, which includes Lexile measures. Algorithms are used to analyze the word length, word frequency, sentence length, and cohesiveness of the text. This is helpful, but it is not the only factor to consider.

The qualitative measurements, on the other hand, are evaluated by a human. An actual, living, breathing person has read the text. This pulse-maker considers aspects of the text like levels of meaning, the clarity and conventions of the language used, the knowledge demands, the format and structure, and the complexity of the visual materials. These factors place different requirements on the reader than a Lexile score.

The third prong is the reader and task combination. Within this sphere, reader pieces such as motivation, background knowledge, and previous experience are considered. The other element of this portion is ensuring that the text fits the purpose and the complexity of the task at hand.

Each one of these prongs fails to paint a full picture of the text by itself. Together, however, they create a fairly sturdy stool on which the reader can sit.

As we move forward with our Curriculum Study, it is my hope that we can keep this stool with us. What does it mean for a text to be challenging or of high quality? To start, it means that the stool is just the right size for the reader to grow.

Bringing Mirrors and Windows into the Classroom

The following excerpts come from "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors" by Rudine Sims Bishop, and were referenced in our Curriculum Writing Meeting as we discussed diversifying the literature options in our curriculum.

“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange...When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books...

When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part. Our classrooms need to be places where all the children from all the cultures that make up the salad bowl of American society can find their mirrors...

Children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books, but they, too, have suffered from the lack of availability of books about others. They need the books as windows onto reality, not just on imaginary worlds. They need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans."

Think on it.

Diversifying the Literature in our Curriculum - Starting the Conversation

Thank you to the Curriculum Writing Teams for the thoughts, ideas, questions, and concerns expressed last night at our curriculum writing meeting! For those of you not on a CWT this round, we started a conversation about diversifying the literature options in our curriculum. Maybe it would be better described as barely started, as it is a rather lengthy conversation to have!

Please remember that this conversation is NOT a cry to throw out all of the classic literature. It is, rather, a conversation to help us make choices regarding literature options that will best benefit student learning.

The "Challenge Yourself" image above came from the website The Educators' Spin on It, and one of their posts includes a tip about how to diversify the literature in your classroom with classics in mind:

"Do you have any books featuring diverse characters that are not primarily about race or prejudice? Consider your classic books, both fiction and nonfiction. Do any contain hurtful racial or ethnic stereotypes, or images? If so, how will you address those stereotypes with students? Have you included another book that provides a more accurate depiction of the same culture?"

When we look at the texts we want to teach, keep, or add as options, we need to be aware of the stereotypes involved. One small change we can make is to look at supplemental materials to pair with classics and Shakespearean plays. There are many ways to bring in the missing voices through background-building informational texts (like those found at KidsInBirmingham1963, for example) or a version of Romeo and Juliet from another culture.

We are all coming to this conversation from our individualized backgrounds, so the road ahead may not be an easy one. It is, however, an important journey as we look at what is best for our student population. Our students who are use to finding mirrors in literature need windows just as much as our students who are use to finding windows in literature need mirrors.

I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation as we revise our curriculum options!

Use of Online Textbooks

If you currently teach a course with a district textbook...

I would greatly appreciate one minute of your time. I am trying to get a rough idea of how many teachers connect their students with online access to the district textbook. If you have a moment, would you please take this survey? I swear, it really will only take one minute of your time! There are only three questions, and they are checkbox answers. It probably took you more time to read this post than it will take you to complete the survey.

Curriculum Study Update

Just a reminder that the English curriculum cycle is a bit off since we did a mini-update a few years ago while integrating the Common Core. We will start our study the fall of 2015, and we will implement the fall of 2017. As I gain more information, I will update the Curriculum Study page on the English Instructional Resources website.