At Concept English, we write the curriculum for your core classes 6 -12th grade English as well as required electives Reading & Writing Workshop I (9th), Speech & Journalism (10th), ACT College Readiness, and College & Career Composition (12th) to create a strong double period of literacy. Since each school handles this class differently the Director of English helps when requested.
In addition, we recommend books and materials for all classes. But something you might not know is that schools often ask us to approve Electives like Creative Writing, Contemporary Literature, Women in Literature, and Introduction to Teaching.
Here is what we ask:
- Teachers create a syllabus with a course description, expectations, objectives/standards, readings, and assessments.
- Teachers create a curriculum map (ReadingWritingWorkshop9th2016-2017) or lay out the year by months and an indication of whether the course will be year long, half year and who the course will be offered to and why.
Sample Syllabus
What we know to be true, based on the research, is that our electives must be well planned and executed with the same amount of rigor as our core courses.
This year, the Director of English, worked with a few teachers throughout the network to develop some electives. In addition, when we know what you are doing we can collaborate and obtain materials for you.
Ms. Bernard at HSA McKinley Park has been reflecting on her Contemporary Fiction class so far…
“Things are going well with this course. So far we’ve finished The Book Thief and Hunger Games and are about to start Kindred. The Book Thief was a tricky one. I think students struggled with how long it was and some of the more complex aspects of the text. However, Hunger Games went really well. I think next year if I was teaching this course, I would do it in reverse, where students might be more used to the style/demands of the class. I thought that The Book Thief guides were excellent. I liked the Hunger Games unit as well.”
Ms. Staley at HSA Lorain has said this…
“Things are going really well with this course. We have focused more on the novels, with some short writing prompts for bell work. At this point in the year we have read Hunger Games, and My Sister’s Keeper, and are about halfway through Kindred. I have tried to make the way we read each novel a bit different from the last so as not to bore the students with too much reading. For example, with Hunger Games we watched the movie in conjunction with where we stopped reading for the day so they could read what happened as well as see it come to life. With My Sister’s Keeper we used an audio book most of the time, with some silent reading on the side. Kindred has been mostly silent reading, as I have found the students prefer this to the audio. And of course I have enjoyed using the resources you have shared in order to check on standards mastery while we are reading the novels.”
If you are planning to do an elective at your school and/or are thinking about developing one, please contact the Director of English to help you plan and obtain materials.
Again, you will need a syllabus and curriculum map. Samples below.
