2020

OUR Odell HSLP

Publisher
Open Up Resources
Subject
ELA
Grades
9-12
Report Release
09/22/2022
Review Tool Version
v1.5
Format
Core: Comprehensive

EdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.

Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Meets Expectations

Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.

Usability (Gateway 3)
Meets Expectations
Our Review Process

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Additional Publication Details

Title ISBN
International Standard Book Number
Edition Publisher Year
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Foundt 9781711428970
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Appl 9781711428987
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Appl 9781711491509
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Tell 9781711492957
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Alex 9781711492964
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Things 9781711492971
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Immort 9781711492988
OUR Odell Lit G10 Tchr Ethics 9781711492995
Odell Education High School Literacy Program Unit Readers Grade 10 9781975077501
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Tell 9781975077600
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Alex 9781975077617
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Things 9781975077624
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Immort 9781975077631
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Ethics 9781975077648
OUR Odell Lit G10 Stdnt Foundt 9781975077655
OUR Odell Literacy Ref Guide 9781975077785
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Report for 10th Grade

Alignment Summary

The Odell Education High School Literacy Program Grade 10 materials meet the expectations of alignment to the Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) standards. The materials include instruction, practice, and authentic application of reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language work that is engaging and at an appropriate level of rigor for the grade.

10th Grade
Gateway 1

Text Quality

31/32
0
15
28
32
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Meets Expectations
Gateway 3

Usability

24/25
0
15
22
25
Usability (Gateway 3)
Meets Expectations
Overview of Gateway 1

Text Quality and Complexity and Alignment to the Standards with Tasks and Questions Grounded in Evidence

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the expectations for high-quality texts, appropriate text complexity, and evidence-based questions and tasks aligned to the standards. The Odell Education High School Literacy Program uses authentic texts and appropriately balances exploration of literary and informational texts, as required by the standards. Texts are appropriately complex for the grade level, with scaffolds and supports in place for texts that fall above the Lexile stretch band. The progression of complexity increases within each unit. Paired selections and text sets include texts of varying genres and complexity. Students read a variety of text types and have choice in their independent reading selections. The program promotes the use of student agency to choose texts, set pacing, and prepare discussions during which students report their independent reading findings and understanding of topics directly related to the unit of study. Oral and written text-specific and text-dependent questions and tasks support students in making meaning of the core understandings of the texts being studied. Materials support teachers with planning and implementing text-based questions. The Academic Discussion Reference Guide includes protocols for a variety of academic discussions. Teachers model academic vocabulary and syntax during student speaking and listening opportunities. Speaking and listening instruction includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers. Students demonstrate what they are reading through various speaking opportunities, including opportunities that require students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources. Materials include a mix of on-demand and process writing with writing opportunities in each mode required by the standards. Process writing includes opportunities for students to revise their work. Students have opportunities to address different modes of writing, reflecting the distribution required by the standards. Students have opportunities to write about what they are reading, including opportunities to support their analyses and claims using evidence from texts and/or sources. Although students have standards-aligned practice opportunities, materials rarely include explicit instruction of grade-level grammar and usage standards. Opportunities for authentic application in context are limited. Materials include structures to support students with building vocabulary knowledge in various contexts, and within and across texts.

Criterion 1.1: Text Quality and Complexity

14/14

Texts are worthy of students’ time and attention: texts are of quality and are rigorous, meeting the text complexity criteria for each grade. Materials support students’ advancing toward independent reading.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the expectations for text quality and complexity.  Materials include high-quality, complex texts that advance students towards independent reading at grade level, advance students’ literacy skills, and develop students’ knowledge of a topic. Materials appropriately balance informational and literary texts as required by the standards. Texts are appropriately complex and the progression of text complexity increases within each unit.

Indicator 1A
04/04

Anchor texts are of high quality, worthy of careful reading, and consider a range of student interests.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1a.

The central texts for this grade level are high quality, worthy of careful reading, and include a variety of text genres, formats, and topics to meet a range of student interests within an appropriate level of complexity and rigor for the grade level. The texts include renowned classic and contemporary works by critically-acclaimed authors, high interest technical articles that are relatable and help students to build specialized knowledge, a variety of multi visual texts, and strong links between topics that support vertical alignment throughout the grade. The materials offer additional optional texts for students to continue to build knowledge and for extension purposes. Core texts in Grade 10 include, but are not limited to, poetry, a parable, nonfiction text, short stories, informational text, essays, and films.

Anchor texts are of high-quality, worthy of careful reading, and consider a range of student interests. Some examples include:

  • Anchor texts in the majority of chapters/units and across the year-long curriculum are of high quality.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 3, students read “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” and watch the video “Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36." Students examine and return to the texts through notetaking and discussions throughout the lesson.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How do we determine the right thing to do?, Section 2, Lesson 1, students analyze an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The complex sentence structure and rich vocabulary make this excerpt a high-quality text.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 4, students engage in a careful study of the text “The Far and the Near” by Thomas Wolfe. This text includes rich language to help expand the student’s vocabulary.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 3, students examine Amy Tan’s “use of language to communicate her experiences and ideas” when reading the narrative essay “Mother Tongue,” a text of appropriate complexity and worthy of students’ time and attention.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, students examine a series of historical documents worthy of careful examination such as “Federalist No. 1,” excerpts from Publius in Lesson 5, and correspondences between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington in Lessons 8 and 9.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Sections 1–3, students read and analyze the noteworthy novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. In addition to the core text, students also read a collection of tandem texts such as in Section 4, Lesson 2, “Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine” by Kadir Nelson and in Lesson 3, “HeLa” by L. Lamar Wilson.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 7, students read “Ethical Dilemmas in Protecting Individual Rights Versus Public Protection in the Case of Infectious Diseases” by Kai-Lit Phua. This article includes technical wording and an interesting tone that help make this text high quality.

  • Anchor texts consider a range of student interests.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lessons 1–5, students read a variety of texts that consider a range of student interests on civil rights, sports, criminal justice, science, and medicine. Students read texts including an excerpt from Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino, “What Roles Does Ethics Play in Sports?” by Kirk O. Hanson and Matt Savage, and an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks titled “Prologue: The Woman in the Photograph” by Rebecca Skloot.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 1, students watch a variety of multimedia including the broadway performance “Hamilton,” and a collection of videos including “Lin-Manuel Miranda Performs ‘Alexander Hamilton’ at the White House” and "Grammys 2016: Watch Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Cast of Hamilton Perform.” The performative aspect of these texts is interesting to students.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 7, students read a variety of text types, including the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats, that connect to the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Students explore other texts throughout the unit, including excerpts from “An African Voice” by Katie Bacon and “Igbo Culture and History” by Don Ohadike. The variety of text types and voices are of interest to students.

  • Anchor texts are well-crafted and content rich, engaging students at their grade level.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students read the lyrics to the song “Hamilton,” which will engage students at this grade level.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 7, students read the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. The diction and concepts explored allow students to expand their academic vocabulary. The study of the poem encourages rich conversation about the title of the unit text and its meaning.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students read the poem “HeLa.” The complex structure of the poem engages students at this grade level.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 4, Lesson 3, students read the poem “HeLa” by L.Lamar Wilson and analyze connections to the biography, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Smoot. Students “examine how texts in other mediums portray Henrietta Lacks’s story and the HeLa cells’ legacy in order to compare authorcraft.”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 2, Lesson 2, students use inquiry questions to find their own sources to answer a Central Research Question: “These sources can range from print texts to web-based texts, multimedia, interviews, and texts from units explored earlier in the year.” An example of a core text students analyze when exploring the concept of credibility and how to assess it is “California Law to Restrict Medical Vaccine Exemptions Raises Questions Over Control” by Katherine Drabiak from The Ethics of Public Health Decisions unit.

Indicator 1B
Read

Materials reflect the distribution of text types and genres required by the standards at each grade level.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1b.

Materials include a sufficient balance of informational and literary texts with many opportunities for students to read across genres throughout the academic year. The Foundation Unit and each Development Unit include a variety of texts to explore a central question, and throughout the units, students read a mix of information and literary texts as well as multiple text types, including articles, poems, and books. Examples of text types and genres include, but are not limited to, journalism, letters, essays, short stories, art, myth, and narrative nonfiction. Each unit includes independent reading, which further expands students’ experience with multiple text types.

Materials reflect the distribution of text types and genres required by the standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials reflect the distribution of text types/genres required by the grade-level standards.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students read a variety of nonfiction texts such as essays, websites, articles, and videos with one literary nonfiction core text, an excerpt from The War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students engage in a study of the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson; a narrative essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan; and “Points of Impact,” an excerpt from Americana: Dispatches From the New Frontier by Hampton Sides.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students watch several short and long performances from Lin-Manuel Miranda and read a variety of nonfiction texts including historical and biographical pieces such as several letters including “From Alexander Hamilton to Angelica Church, 6 December 1787” by Alexander Hamilton as well as excerpts from the book Alexander Hamilton by Robert Chernow to provide a balance between informational and literary texts.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats is one of the three core texts. The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and an excerpt from the interview “An African Voice” by Katie Bacon are the other core texts in this unit.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students read a variety of nonfiction and literary texts with the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skoot, the poem “HeLa” by L. Lamar Wilson, an art piece titled "Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine,” and the film adaptation of Skloot’s book.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, “Ethical Dilemmas in Protecting Individual Rights Versus Public Protection in the Case of Infectious Diseases” by Kai-Lit Phua is an article in the core text set students read. Other text types in this unit include but are not limited to websites, government documents, and videos.

  • Materials reflect a 70/30 balance of informational and literary texts.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, there are a total of 11 core texts with 10 being informational and one literary nonfiction.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, there are 41 core texts, with five being literary and 37 informational.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students study informational texts and literary works, such as the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats, and excerpts of an article “An African Voice” by Katie Bacon.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, there are a total of four core texts with one literary and three informational. In Section 1, Lesson 1, for example, students began reading the nonfiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, while in Section 4, Lesson 3, students read the poem “HeLa” by L. Lamar Wilson.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students read informational texts such as an excerpt from “The Hippocratic Oath Today” by Louis Lasagna, “Ethical Issues and Vaccines” by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and a “Letter to Parents” excerpt from “Measles: A Dangerous Illness” by Roald Dahl.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students read a total of five core informational texts and an undetermined number of readings collected during their independent research project.

Indicator 1C
04/04

Core/Anchor texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to documented quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and relationship to their associated student task. Documentation should also include a rationale for educational purpose and placement in the grade level.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1c.

Texts fall within an appropriate range for the grade level according to the demands of the core, the culminating tasks are appropriately complex, and the activities students complete with the texts during the unit provide opportunities for close reading and tools to support students when working with these texts. The Application Unit provides an opportunity for students to explore an inquiry question: “Students review texts and topics they have encountered throughout the year and choose a text or topic they want to explore further.”

Most anchor texts fall within the appropriate range for the grade level in the Current Lexile Band (1050L–1335L for Grade 10). The texts add layers of complexity through their use of rich academic and figurative language, the need to understand background knowledge, and the use of varying perspectives and points of view. While some texts are above the suggested Lexile band, the tasks and instructional supports scaffold student access to these materials. Texts that fall below the Lexile band are topically appropriate for students at this grade level, and associated tasks enhance the level of complexity for students to develop literacy by deeply analyzing the text and/or creating new texts. In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, for example, though the core text Things Fall Apart falls below the 9–10 grade band, the complexity of meaning in the text, especially its historical and cultural significance, creates an appropriate level of complexity for students.

The publisher includes qualitative analysis for some core texts in the Text Overview, including details relating to the text structure, language features, meaning, and knowledge demands. Quantitative analysis of the core texts with available qualitative documentation indicates that texts will continue to challenge and develop students’ skills throughout the year.

Core/Anchor texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to documented quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and relationship to their associated student task. Documentation should also include a rationale for educational purpose and placement in the grade level. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Anchor/core texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative and qualitative analysis and relationship to their associated student task.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 1, students read “Prologue: The Woman in the Photograph,” an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (1140L), which is within the grade level band. Qualitative analysis in the Text Overview indicates that the text structure is slightly complex, and the language features, meaning, and knowledge demands are moderately complex. The materials include a rationale that the text is “used to introduce students to the biomedical ethics pathway and allows them to begin grappling with the larger issues they will find within other pathway texts of that topic.” The culminating task allows students to “develop a compelling final product that informs their audience about ethics and why ethical issues are complex.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 2, students read the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1040L), which is appropriate for the grade level. Students analyze the structural elements in the story and apply the knowledge of analyzing complex text structures to another short story.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health, Section 4, Lesson 1, students read the argument “Measles, Mumps, and Religious Freedom: Mandatory Vaccination and the Limits of Parental Rights” by Christopher O. Tollefson. The Flesch-Kincaid score for this text is 12.6, which is at the higher end of the grade level range for complexity. Students analyze and evaluate the argument in this opinion piece to expand their knowledge of the topic and argumentative structure.

  • Anchor/Core texts and series of texts connected to them are accompanied by a text complexity analysis and a rationale for educational purpose and placement in the grade level.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, in the unit Text Overview, the materials provide lists of short fiction with qualitative descriptions of their complexity. For example, in reference to the story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner (1090L), the Text Overview explains the exceedingly complex nature of the structure, language, and meaning of the text.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (1000–1100L). The materials include qualitative analysis of the text, which is moderately complex in terms of the language features, meaning, and knowledge demands. The text structure is very complex, with multiple narratives. A rationale provides evidence for placement in the grade level in that the author includes multiple “narratives to explore ethical issues of medical research, including race, poverty, privacy, and patients’ rights.” The materials explain that the informational text “should be engaging and interesting to students readers” due to the author’s writing style.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health, Section 2, Lesson 5, students read the opinion piece “Vaccination and Free Will” by Jeffrey Singer. The Flesch-Kincaid score is 12.6 text, which is in the higher range of complexity for this grade level. The text overview outlines an analysis of the text and why it is appropriate for the grade level. Students analyze the structure and progression of the arguments delineated in the text.

  • Both the rationale and the analysis present accurate information.

    • The Text Overview provides accurate information relating to the texts’ qualitative features consistently for the grade level, and the Lexiles available on Metametrics indicate an appropriate quantitative level of complexity for Grade 10.

Indicator 1D
04/04

Series of texts should be at a variety of complexity levels appropriate for the grade band to support students’ literacy growth over the course of the school year.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1d.

The program provides appropriate texts to support students’ literacy growth over the year, and the Foundation, Development, and Application Units allow students to access complex texts with appropriate scaffolds during the learning process. The materials are designed to help students grow their literacy skills from the Foundation Unit to the Application Unit. The flexibility of the program allows choice in which units to include in the course. As students move through the Foundation Unit and complete two or more Development Units, the selections should support growth in their literacy skills to achieve grade-level proficiency. The collection of texts is arranged to deepen students’ literacy skills and understanding by participating in a variety of text-based tasks. Students return to core texts throughout the until with an increased level of complexity through analysis and application of concepts learned. Additional ancillary texts curated to support the individual unit themes promote student growth from the over the course of each unit and across the school year. In tandem with the texts, the assessments and tasks are varied and increase in complexity, allowing students to deepen their reading skills. As tasks become more complex, the materials provide scaffolding material to help teachers support student learning.

Series of texts are at a variety of complexity levels appropriate for the grade band to support students’ literacy growth over the course of the school year. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The complexity of anchor texts students read provide an opportunity for students’ literacy skills to increase across the year, encompassing an entire year’s worth of growth.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read “Prologue: The Woman in the Photograph,” an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (1000L–1100L), one of several texts in the unit worthy of students’ time and attention. This text scaffolds to more complex texts in the forthcoming Development Units, and students have an opportunity to return to this text in its entirety in the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Other examples of varied texts throughout the grade level include, but are not limited to, excerpts from Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (1280L) in the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras” by Mark Twain (1310L) in the Development Unit, Telling Stories.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students read a collection of texts that rise in complexity over the course of the unit. In Section 1, Lessons 2 and 3, students read “Introduction,” “But Sometimes What We Call 'Memory,’” and “Coyotes and the Stro’ro’ka Dancers,” excerpts from Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko (1000L) —which falls slightly below the quantitative level of complexity for this grade level but accommodates students’ entry into grade-level reading at the beginning of the year— and progressively read more challenging texts such as “The Lottery” (1040L), “A Rose for Emily” (1090L), and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1310L).

  • As texts become more complex, appropriate scaffolds and/or materials are provided in the Teacher Edition (e.g., spending more time on texts, more questions, repeated readings, skill lessons).

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 5, students read “Federalist No. 1” by Alexander Hamilton (1350L–1460L), a complex text for the grade-level band. Students engage in a close reading of the text, annotating, and using the Delineating Arguments Tool to analyze Hamilton’s argument. Teaching strategies include the option of doing “one column as a class and then have students work on the others in small groups or with partners.” Additional notes are available to assist educators when students prepare to respond to questions in a small group before whole-class discussion:

      1. After delineating the argument, do you think Hamilton’s argument was effective? Why or Why not?.

      2. What did you learn about Alexander Hamilton from reading this text?

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 4, students analyze the character traits of Okonkwo, the protagonist of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (890L). The Teacher Edition introduces the function of the Analyzing Relationships Tool as a support for students and explains, “As this is the first time students will be using the Analyzing Relationships Tool, you might guide them through the process.”

  • Series of texts include a variety of complexity levels throughout the year.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, students examine a variety of works of varying levels of complexity, such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (1000L–1100L), artwork “Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine” by Kadir Nelson, and poetry “HeLa” by Lamar Wilson. In addition, students carefully study the text, “Henrietta Lacks, HeLa Cells and Cell Culture Contamination” by Brendan P. Lucey, Walter A. Nelson-Ree, and Grover M. Hutchins as a comparison in the way the story of Henrietta Lacks was told by Rebecca Skloot. Students engage with the exceedingly complex text to complete the culminating writing task to “Write an expository essay comparing the portrayal of Henrietta Lacks’s story in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with its portrayal in one of the unit’s companion texts.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students read a variety of texts to prepare for the culminating activity, “Write an argument in which you state your response and logically and sufficiently support your position with claims and textual evidence, including the use of ethical frameworks, examples, statistics, arguments, and direct quotations with parenthetical citations.” Students build on this level of text complexity throughout the unit. In Section 2, Lesson 1, for example, students watch the video “The Vaccine War” then answer a series of questions and discuss their responses, and in Section 3, Lesson 1, students complete individual and group analyses of “The Belmont Report” published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that extends over several activities. In Section 3, Lesson 2, students read excerpts from “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” by the United Nations General Assembly. The Flesch-Kincaid score for the excerpts range from 16.8–22.0, which is well above the complexity level for Grade 10.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 2, Lesson 2, students choose a text from The Ethics of Public Health Decisions Unit Reader and use the Potential Sources Tool to analyze:

      • “Eager to Limit Exemptions to Vaccination, States Face Staunce Resistance” by Roni Caryn Rabin.

      • “The Ethics of Opting Out of Vaccination,” Janet D. Stemwedel.

      • “Vaccination and Free Will” by Jeffrey A. Singer.

      • “Measles, Mumps, and Religious Freedom: Mandatory Vaccination and the Limits of Parental Rights” by Christopher O. Tollesfen.

    • The unit is sequenced towards the end for Grade 10 and creates a range of complexity for students to access the texts and challenge themselves with more complex readings.

Indicator 1E
02/02

Materials provide opportunities for students to engage in a range and volume of reading to support their reading at grade level by the end of the school year, including accountability structures for independent reading.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1e.

The Program Guide indicates that all students will “access and analyze grade-level texts with the help of effective scaffolding and support, regardless of reading ability,” and the Grade 10 materials provide a wide volume of texts of various types, lengths, and complexity levels to build student independence throughout the school year and to support students to reach grade-level proficiency. Each unit provides a range of texts, including novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and informative texts. In addition, the publisher provides a partial text overview and complexity document as well as a list of suggested independent reading texts.

Independent reading opportunities are available throughout the course of the year and provide choices for students. The Text Overview and Unit Text List provide suggestions for independent reading for each Foundation and Development Unit with texts grouped by topic, theme, or genre. To assist students to build reading stamina and to persevere when navigating complex text, students encounter a number of meaningful topics and engaging texts that deepen their understanding of the subject matter covered in the units and expand students’ literacy skills such as comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary to equip them to be successful independent readers.

Each unit includes specific procedures and accountability measures for independent student reading to ensure students are continually working toward independence. Materials include independent reading lessons, including suggestions on how to incorporate student reading into the classroom, at the end of each section in the Foundation and Development Units. In addition, each unit section contains a structured lesson for students to create an independent reading plan and to set their pacing. Students are accountable for text selection, connecting their independent readings to units of study, and creating a product based on their independent reading.

Materials provide opportunities for students to engage in a range and volume of reading to support their reading at grade level by the end of the school year, including accountability structures for independent reading. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Instructional materials clearly identify opportunities and supports for students to engage in reading a variety of text types and genres.

    • In The Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students read a selection of narrative nonfiction, animation, essays, and articles in the curriculum embedded core and optional texts. Materials provide a list of suggested fiction and nonfiction texts as an independent reading list. Materials build lessons for independent reading, reporting, analysis, and presentation into each unit section.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 11, students begin an Independent Reading Program in which they select the texts they will read independently throughout the unit. After examining the Central Question and a few anchor texts at this point in the unit, students apply their learning to their independent readings. Students select their independent reading text from the list of suggested texts for the unit. After making their text selections, students develop an independent reading plan. The list of independent reading texts includes nonfiction texts such as the historical nonfiction text The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe and the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students encounter a variety of texts, including novels, poems, informational text, and artwork. Students engage in these texts by reading independently and discussing as a group. In Section 3, Lesson 2, students work collaboratively to discuss the theme of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe using the Theme Reference Guide.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students read the nonfiction text The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and they study the art of Kadir Nelson, Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine. Students also explore filmic text, including The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by HBO, and read the poem “HeLa” by L. Lamar Wilson. Independent reading options to accompany the unit include, but are not limited to, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg.

  • Instructional materials clearly identify opportunities and supports for students to engage in a volume of reading.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 13, students choose texts to read independently: “We will learn how to choose texts, what activities we may complete, about the final task, and about any materials we will use as we read our independent reading texts.” Students use note-taking tools to analyze important textual elements.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and learn the elements of a story’s narrative structure and plot. Other texts students analyze in the same section include a Gothic short story, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, and Thomas Wolfe’s “The Far and the Near” with time to examine these pieces closely; students choose one of these texts to rewrite from the first-person point of view of one of the characters and present to other students.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students read a variety of informational texts with a range of supports such as Mentor Sentence Journals and Delineating Arguments Tool.

    • In The Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students engage in one activity per section to plan and pace their independent reading and commence their Independent Reading Program in Section 1, Lesson 14. Core and Options texts explicitly written into the unit include but are not limited to historical, biography, song, interviews, and essays.

  • There is sufficient teacher guidance to foster independence for all readers (e.g., proposed schedule and tracking system for independent reading).

    • The program plans and builds lessons for independent reading into the curriculum materials for teachers to follow and implement. Materials include teacher notes on strategy and decisions are included in the teacher edition of the materials.

      • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 11, students select an independent reading and set a reading and pacing plan.

      • In The Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, the materials provide teachers a set of teaching strategies and decision notes alongside Section 1, Lesson 14 lesson for independent reading. Suggestions include: “Explain to students how reading independently, outside of class, is a challenging but invigorating aspect of obtaining and furthering literacy,” and “When helping students select independent reading texts, you should use any prescribed or commonly used methodology and philosophy.”

      • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 12, the materials include specific guidance to teachers to prepare students to begin their Independent Reading Program by providing “guidance around pacing and help[ing] students determine how much they should plan on reading per day or week. This will largely be based on your expectations for the Independent Reading Program.” Additional guidance suggests that teachers “[c]onsider having students complete [Reading Closely] tools to help them annotate and analyze their texts…If students have not encountered these tools, consider modeling them first.”

      • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 1, students read the epigraph and prologue of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Students answer guiding questions in the Learning Log. Teaching notes provide guidance about the author, concept, text, and topic: “The questions will help students focus their initial exploration on the texts.” Materials include additional strategies to prepare students for independent reading: “Developing a system for annotating takes practice. You might use the sample annotation key in the Annotating and Note-taking Reference Guide to model how to annotate the text.”

      • In the Application Unit, Section 3, Lesson 1, teaching notes provide additional guidance for student support and differentiation: “If students have independently chosen nonwritten resources, you might help them connect those sources with written texts (e.g., a written review of the film they have chosen to use).”

    • While a proposed schedule is not clearly stated in the materials, the Foundation and Development Units consistently include an independent reading lesson at the end of each section; there are four sections in the Foundation Unit and four or more sections in each Development Unit. The Program Guide shares, “[l]essons are designed to span 45–90 minutes, but the total length of the lesson depends on how many activities the teacher chooses.” Materials promote the use of student agency to choose texts, set pacing, and prepare discussions with peers to report independent reading finds and further expand their peers’ knowledge and breadth of understanding on topics directly related to the unit of study. Students choose from the Text Overview or Unit Text List and follow the lesson to connect their learning, while building knowledge around similar topics and/or themes.

      • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 10 and Section 3, Lesson 7, students return to their independent readings to share with a peer, class, or the instructor. This continuous return to the texts creates a schedule for the students throughout the unit.

      • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 12, students create a plan and pacing for the Independent Reading Program for the unit. Teacher notes provide information to help students establish appropriate pacing and a plan.

    • Students design their own tracking systems for their reading and are kept on pace and tracked through teacher-designated assessment for the activities within each Independent Reading lesson found in each section of the unit. The Program Guide states, “[s]tudents are encouraged to use the same tools and close-reading practices they use during instruction. Teachers can choose how to assign and collect those tools in order to monitor students’ reading comprehension.” Unit lessons include instructions and independent reading procedures consistently across the grade level.

      • In The Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students begin this process in Section One, Lesson 13 and complete a culminating task in Section 4, Lesson 4.

      • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 12, students track their independent reading by using the Attending to Details, Analyzing Relationships, Evaluating Ideas, Extending Understanding), a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool, a Summarizing Text Tool, or a Character (or other) Note-Taking Tool.

      • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 9, students track their understanding of their independent reading by sharing and summarizing their findings thus far. Students also track their understanding by using the Forming Evidence-Based Tools.

  • Independent reading procedures are included in the lessons.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students encounter a series of four structured lessons, one from each section, building to the culminating task in the fourth activity. Each of the units in Grade 10 follow this procedure. In Section 3, Lesson 9, for example, the materials provide a lesson overview in which students “share the analyses we have made about our independent reading texts and make connections to the unit. We will plan a final product to share our experiences from reading independently and the knowledge we have gained.” Activities follow to guide students as they discuss, write, and read independently to achieve the lesson goals.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, materials include independent reading procedures in Section 1, Lesson 12; Section 2, Lesson 13; Section 3, Lesson 9; and Section 4, Lesson 7. In Section 2, Lesson 13, for example, students use the Extending Understanding tool to discuss the connections they found in their text with a peer.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 10, the materials outline the specific procedures for students to follow to create their Independent Reading Program, including:

      • “Review the suggested options for independent reading related to the unit, and also consider other texts that you might have wanted to read.”

      • Select a text to read independently or determine if you need to think more before making a choice.

Criterion 1.2: Tasks and Questions

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Materials provide opportunities for rich and rigorous evidence-based discussions and writing about texts to build strong literacy skills.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the expectations for evidence-based discussions and writing about texts. Materials include oral and written questions and tasks grounded in the text, requiring students to use information from the text to support their answers and demonstrate comprehension of what they are reading. Materials include speaking and listening protocols, and speaking and listening instruction includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers. Materials include a mix of on-demand and process writing, as well as evidence-based writing, with writing opportunities in each mode required by the standards. Although students have standards-aligned practice opportunities, materials rarely include explicit instruction of grade-level grammar and usage standards; materials miss opportunities for authentic application in context.

Indicator 1F
02/02

Most questions, tasks, and assignments are text-specific and/or text-dependent, requiring students to engage with the text directly (drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text).

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1f.

The Grade 10 materials include a focus on text-specific and text-dependent questions, tasks, and assignments to deepen students’ knowledge and comprehension throughout each task. The materials provide opportunities for students to engage in a variety of texts and to mine text for evidence. The questions and tasks in the materials require careful reading of texts over the course of a school year, and most of the questions are grounded in specific textual details to provide meaningful insight into the overarching Central Question for each unit. In addition, text-dependent guiding questions support students as they navigate and engage directly with the texts to draw evidence from what they have read, as well as to make inferences. The materials consistently pose guiding questions across grade levels and “reinforce the importance of leaning into the text itself for answers and clarification.”

The materials provide teacher guidance, including Teaching Notes, to support the planning and implementation of the text-specific and/or text-dependent questions, tasks, and assignments. The teacher notes also offer suggestions for contextualizing, teaching, and supporting students in text-dependent activities.

Most questions, tasks, and assignments are text-specific and/or text-dependent, requiring students to engage with the text directly (drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Text-specific and text-dependent questions and tasks support students in making meaning of the core understandings of the texts being studied.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 4, students read philosophical excerpts from Immanunel Kant and analyze these sentences through discussions using text-specific questions such as:

      • “What are the verbs in this sentence?

      • What action is being suggested as part of this categorical imperative?”

    • These tasks help students approach how to discuss ethics which is at the heart of the unit’s Central Question.

    • In the Development Unit, Hamilton, Section 4, Lesson 1, students work in groups and use the Comparison Organizational Frame to make comparisons between Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton and the historical figure represented in primary sources. Students use the Comparison Organizational Frame to choose comparative points and to summarize the evidence from each source.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 9, students pay attention to details that relate to the guiding question, “How will Okonkwo respond to being exiled to his mother’s village?” Students use evidence from the text to predict Okonkwo’s response when reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

    • In The Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 7, students read the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. Two questions students answer after carefully reading, rereading, and listening to the poem are:

      • How do the lines each of you chose connect to Things Fall Apart or other material from this unit?

      • Where does the poem diverge from the other materials we have discussed in this unit?

  • Teacher materials provide support for planning and implementation of text-based questions and tasks.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 4, students read and analyze philosophical excerpts from Immanunel Kant. The Teaching Notes provide suggestions “about the author, concept, text, topic” to support instructors to prepare, execute, and differentiate learning when dealing with text-dependent tasks.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, Lesson 2, students use the OPTIC strategy to analyze the artwork “Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine” by Kadir Nelson. The Teaching Notes provide support on how to approach an analysis of a visual text, suggesting that teachers have students read the Caption and Description section aloud and discuss each symbol presented in the artwork as a class.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 3, students read “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Students consider questions such as:

      • “What are the five sources of ethical standards presented in the framework? How do these connect to previous reading and thinking you have done? Cite evidence from the texts to support your answers.”

    • Available Teaching Notes include, but are not limited to, guidance to support students in comprehending the text: “Rereading texts gives students another opportunity to comprehend complex text, and the question sets provide an additional access point to help students peel the layers of the text to arrive at a deeper understanding of its meaning.” The materials include additional notes to guide teachers on student support and differentiation.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read “What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?” by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to learn how to delineate an argument in an informational text by considering the perspective, position, supporting claims, and evidence. The Teaching Notes provide guidance for supporting students through the process by using the Delineating Arguments Tool.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 2, the Teacher Notes support teachers in their planning to keep students on task and focused on relevant text-based information by providing access questions to pose based on the topic of study students have selected. One such question is, “In what ways does the argument reflect issues about equal access, free of socioeconomic considerations, to healthcare, vaccinations, public health information, and opportunities for advocacy?”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 2, Lesson 2, the Teaching Notes explain the importance of the Assessing Sources Reference Guide and provide suggestions for student grouping and materials needed in order to complete this activity. For example, the Teaching Notes suggest chart paper and markers in order to promote discussions in groups.

Indicator 1G
02/02

Materials provide frequent opportunities and protocols for evidence-based discussions.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1g.

As stated in the Program Guide, the instructional activities for this grade level engage students in both formal and informal speaking and listening activities and discussions throughout the units, and the materials offer students support in developing these listening and speaking skills. Section Diagnostics and Culminating Tasks include formal activities, such as Socratic seminars, philosophical chairs discussions, and presentations. Also, informal speaking and listening activities recur throughout the program as students engage in collaborative peer-to-peer, small- and whole-group discussions to analyze texts, discuss group norms, and peer review their projects.

The Academic Discussion Reference Guide provides protocols for a variety of academic discussions, and materials provide teacher guidance for modeling academic vocabulary and syntax during speaking and listening opportunities.** **Materials include guidance on modeling effective discussion techniques through the use of teacher-composed scripts, sentence starters, and vocabulary instruction to support students in incorporating new words and academic phrases into their discussions. Students build upon the protocols from previous lessons and activities to participate in more sophisticated speaking and listening activities throughout the year.

Materials provide frequent opportunities and protocols for speaking and listening. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide protocols for speaking and listening across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 1, students engage in a small-group discussion of the unit’s Central Question by following specific discussion protocols, such as “[e]lect a speaker in your group to share your positions. Share your perspectives, group by group. Listen carefully to each group’s rationale.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 1, students read selections from the works of Mark Twain, including “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “Advice to Youth,” and engage in a series of teacher-led, text-based discussions by following protocols to consider the narration and point-of-view of the text and to support their reasoning with evidence from the text.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lesson 4, students work in small groups utilizing the Academic Discussion Reference Guide to examine the sequence and structure of Chapter 18 of _The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks _by Rebecca Skloot. The Teaching Notes in the teacher edition guides teachers to “[p]rompt [students] to revisit the discussion norms” and “to use the reflection checklist to monitor and assess their own participation.” In Section 5, Lesson 6, students engage in a whole-class discussion of their understanding of _The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks _by Rebecca Skloot. Students use the Academic Discussion Reference Guide to prepare for the discussion following protocols, such as, “[w]hen other participants share their own observations, conclusions, or claims but do not clearly support them, respectfully probe their thinking by asking questions such as, ‘What in the text led you to your thinking?’”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 3, students complete a class discussion of how the two ethical perspectives considered throughout the unit, the common ground and individual rights, play out in the arguments around vaccination as presented in “The Vaccine War.” This development unit is the final unit of the year and anticipates student competence to complete a class discussion using the Analyzing Ethical Issues Questions Set document. In Section 3, Lesson 5, students work in research teams and complete the following steps to engage in small-group and whole-group discussions: first, students present their draft questions, then collaboratively develop a research overview based on their questions, and finally share their findings with other student groups.

  • Protocols are varied across the academic school year and support students’ developing speaking and listening skills.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 4, students read the lyrics and listen to a list of songs from Hamilton the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. Students track their listening on the Act One Notice and Wonder Note-Taking Tool, which provides protocols for developing students’ listening skills, including specific questions for students to answer as they listen to each song, such as “[w]hat does it make me think? What connections can I make?” In Section 3, Lesson 8, students use the Discussion Tool to prepare for a small group discussion to consider, “[w]hy did Lin-Manuel Miranda choose to have Aaron Burr be the narrator of Hamilton: An American Musical?” The Teaching Notes in the teacher edition include a prompt to “have a model Discussion tool completed so students see the final product and understand expectations.” Student instructions include, “[r]eview your classroom discussion norms, or review those found in the Academic Discussion Reference Guide before beginning the discussion.” The Discussion Tool also allots time for students to summarize and reflect on the discussion via prompts including, “[r]ate the quality of the discussion based on the criteria.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students engage in a variety of discussions as they read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and prepare to participate in a more formal Socratic Seminar discussion at the end of Section 2. In Section 1, Lesson 5, students use the Academic Discussion Reference Guide to “participate in a partner discussion on Okonkwo’s attitude towards what he perceives as feminine characteristics.” In Section 2, Lesson 2, students discuss why one country might colonize another and what the colonized might say about colonization. In Section 2, Lesson 6, students discuss specific word and syntax choices the author makes.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 5, Lesson 4, students follow protocols included in the Application Unit Presentation Guide to prepare their presentations, including delineating specific speaking roles for each team member. According to the Guide, “[t]he synthesizer calls on members of the audience to ask questions, and members of the team volunteer to respond to each. Alternatively, the moderator might suggest which team member should field the question.” In Section 5, Lesson 5, students confer with a teacher to receive feedback and to ask questions as they plan, draft, and revise their presentations. Students use a Culminating Task Checklist, which includes Speaking & Listening Goals as students organize work, communicate effectively, and publish their findings. Questions for consideration include, but are not limited to: “In the section or aspect of our presentation that I’ve created, how well do I use language and themes that are relevant and appropriate for our audience? How well do I share my research findings with my learning community in a way that is clear, logical, engaging, and appropriate for my audience?”

  • Teacher guidance includes modeling of academic vocabulary and syntax during speaking and listening opportunities.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 2, students share their responses to the Moral Machine quiz experience. The Teaching Notes in the teacher edition suggest that teachers, “[c]onsider having students use conversation stems during discussion, such as those found in the Academic Discussion Reference Guide.” The Teaching Notes also prompt teachers to model how to use academic language in a discussion by scripting “what students say during the discussion, focusing on strong examples of academic vocabulary and discussion stems.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 4, students complete the first reading of a short narrative excerpt by Sandra Cisneros to determine what the text says about storytelling and how it uses language to convey its meaning. The teacher edition guides teachers’ modeling to support students as follows: “The two passages indicated below from Sandra Cisneros’s ‘A House of My Own’ can be used to study any or all of the following language use concepts:

      • Person (shift from third to first)

      • Verb tense (shift from present to past)

      • Sentences and fragments (two fragments are used artistically in the passage)

      • Parallel structure (phrases beginning with “between” in the first sentence)

      • Building sentences with participial phrases (first sentence in the third paragraph)”

    • The two passages from Cisneros’s “A House of My Own” are as follows:

      • “Excerpt 1 (pp. xvi-xvii)—four paragraphs, beginning with “The young woman in the photo,” and ending with, “What we have in common is our sense that art should serve our communities.”

      • “Excerpt 2 (pp. xxii-xxiii)—two paragraphs, beginning with “The people I wrote about were real,” and ending with, “All the emotions my characters feel, good or bad, are mine.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 4, Lesson 4, students participate in a class discussion about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s interpretation and portrayal of Alexander Hamilton. The teacher edition provides recommendations for modeling how students should use academic language to prepare for academic discussions, including “[s]cript what students say during the discussion, focusing on strong examples of academic vocabulary and discussion stems. Write sentence starters on the board to help students formulate responses. Write vocabulary on the board to encourage and support students to practice using new words during the discussion.”

Indicator 1H
02/02

Materials support students’ listening and speaking about what they are reading and researching (including presentation opportunities) with relevant follow-up questions and evidence.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1h.

The Grade 10 materials focus on evidence-based discussion opportunities and standards-based questions as well as other instructional supports to help students grow in their speaking and listening skills throughout the school year, including opportunities for students to listen and speak during teacher-led discussions and when working with peers. All discussions require students to go directly back to the text, reference evidence or engage in repeated reading and analysis, and in many cases, the materials provide instructors with possible student responses for additional support.

Students have multiple opportunities throughout each unit to participate in various speaking and listening activities, such as small-group and whole-class discussions, Socratic Seminars, and Four Corners protocols, to discuss texts read. Most lessons and activities include standards-based guiding questions and tools to ensure students utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and other sources. Presentation of ideas and research opportunities are available through formal speaking and listening tasks and informally during the peer-to-peer discussions and sharing ideas. Students have the opportunity to participate in a variety of listening and speaking activities. The materials require students to use evidence to support their reasoning in class discussions.

Facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers are embedded within the student-facing materials as well as specific guidance in the Teacher Edition. The materials offer teachers support on facilitating Socratic Seminars and how to use tools to monitor student progress. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide additional guidance to facilitate discussions, and various tools, such as the Discussion Tool, the Delineating Arguments Tool, and the Academic Discussion Reference Guide, support student growth and developing proficiency in these skills.

Materials support students’ listening and speaking about what they are reading and researching (including presentation opportunities) with relevant follow-up questions and supports. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Speaking and listening instruction includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 4, Lesson 1, students present their pathway presentations to the whole class. The Teacher Edition provides extensive notes on the purpose and execution of these presentations. Notes include ideas on different ways to organize the presentations and suggest requirements to ensure variety and learning opportunities for all groups when watching the presentations, such as, “Summarize the class’s current conversation about ethics: what has been said, what needs to be said, and how does your exploration resonate with existing and needed information?” Teaching notes also suggest how teachers might use this early data to plan future units once students’ individual speaking and listening skills have been assessed formatively.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 5, students participate in a partner discussion on the main character, Okonkwo’s attitude toward perceived “feminine characteristics” in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Student instructions direct students to, “With a partner, use the Academic Discussion Reference Guide to participate in a discussion,” by responding to questions, including, “What is Okonkwo’s attitude about gender roles? In other words, is his attitude about characteristics he perceives as feminine the same for women as it is for men?” In Section 3, Lesson 2, students engage in a whole-class discussion to share thematic ideas they have sourced from the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and to address themes they agree and disagree with.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 3, Lesson 9, students engage in a Socratic Seminar addressing the question, “In what ways did the history of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells change our world?” Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide a series of additional questions to help facilitate the discussion; suggestions for student supports, such as the Academic Discussion Reference Guide and the Discussion Tool; and suggestions on how to model academic language.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 7, students complete the Section Diagnostic by delineating, presenting, and defending their proposed arguments in response to the Central Question: “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” The Teacher Edition includes specific facilitation, monitoring, and instructional support for teachers, such as encouraging teachers to monitor students during their discussions to determine necessary support by “[scripting] what students say during the discussion, focusing on strong examples of academic vocabulary and discussion stems.”

  • Students have multiple opportunities over the school year to demonstrate what they are reading through varied speaking and listening opportunities.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine The Right Thing to Do?, students engage in a series of speaking and listening opportunities to prepare for the Culminating Task in which they work collaboratively with a research team to compose a five to seven-minute presentation on ethics and why ethical issues are complex. In Section 2, Lesson 1, students create a collaborative list as a whole-class to share their thoughts on the group pathways selected for the Culminating Activity. In Section 2, Lesson 3, students engage in a conversation with a partner on how the texts read in the section answer the following questions:

      • “Which text is the most appealing?

      • Which pathway is the most appealing?

      • Why are you interested in this text and pathway?”

    • In Section 3, Lesson 5, students review group norms with their research team and discuss action steps to successfully complete the Culminating Task, including “gather more sources, analyze sources, develop claims, and determine individual group member’s tasks.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 5, students begin designing an oral presentation for a documentary or narrative nonfiction text they will present to the class. Students “discuss recent events or people from the news who might be interesting to write about in a nonfiction narrative, modeled after the style of Hampton Sides or another writer or documentarian.” Students then use the results of their discussion to plan their oral presentations, which take place in subsequent lessons. In Section 2, Lesson 4, students participate in a jigsaw discussion to present what they have learned from the reading “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. The student instructions prompt students to “reference sections of the Discussion Tool as you consider how to participate productively.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 5, Lesson 1, student trios choose three persons from a provided list to research in preparation for their presentations to the class; the people on the list are directly pulled from the material students are reading in this unit. Students may take on various roles in this presentation group, such as Time Keeper, Document Keeper, or Discussion Leader.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 6, students participate in a class-wide discussion regarding what they have learned from reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The teacher facilitates this discussion using guiding questions such as, “What avenue of analysis did you take for your Culminating Task, and how did it relate to the Central Question?”

  • Speaking and listening work requires students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 5, students use the Delineating Arguments Tool to identify claims and supporting evidence from Alexander Hamilton’s “Federalist No. 1,” working in small groups to discuss the questions:

      • “After delineating the argument, do you think Hamilton’s argument was effective? Why or why not?

      • What did you learn about Alexander Hamilton from reading this text?”

    • Subsequent to their small group discussions, students share their thoughts with the whole class.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, Lesson 1, students compare the structure and style of nonfiction writing to that of visual art. Students work in groups to prepare one presentation slide for each of the two stylistic elements they are assigned. Students must provide textual evidence to demonstrate each of the stylistic elements pulling from the nonfiction texts they have read in the unit. Design elements include balance, contrast, emphasis, proportion, pattern, rhythm, unity, and variety.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 6, students develop an initial claim and text-based rationalization from their learning. Students report and discuss various perspectives and positions in response to the ethical dilemma. Student instructions are as follows: “In groups or as a class, present, explain, and justify the decisions you have made individually. Compare and debate the thinking and ethics behind your decisions.” In Section 2, Lesson 5, students work in small groups to delineate and discuss “The Ethics of Opting Out of Vaccination,” by Janet Stemwedel. During this lesson, students use evidence from the text to answer guiding questions such as, “What claims does Stemwedel make about why parents should have their children vaccinated? Cite details from the text to support your answer.”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 3, Lesson 1, student teams collaborate on research projects in preparation for their final presentation. Student directions include, “We will connect our sources to our inquiry paths and select four key sources that each member of our team can evaluate. While we also might use additional sources in our final presentation, this list of credible, rich, relevant sources will give us a strong foundation for our work.” This opportunity gives students access to the skills and development of choosing rich and relevant sources directly associated with the material they have been reading in the unit. Student instructions also state, “Working as a team, use the Research Frame Tool, the general comments on your Potential Sources Tools, your annotations on the texts, and your Research Note-Taking Tool, connect each of your sources to its relevant inquiry path. Make notes about which texts link to which inquiry path.” In Section 3, Lesson 7, students meet with their research teams and review the Peer Review Tool to review feedback and determine necessary revisions. The materials direct students, “Reading and Analyzing New Sources: Your group closely reads new sources to develop relevant evidence-based claims.”

Indicator 1I
02/02

Materials include a mix of on-demand and process writing (e.g., multiple drafts, revisions over time) and short, focused projects, incorporating digital resources where appropriate.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1i.

Writing tasks center student learning around a common topic or inquiry by clarifying and deepening understanding of the text; exploring the essential question of each unit, section, or lesson; and helping students to prepare for a Culminating Activity. Overall, these tasks include long assignments with multiple drafts, short assignments for in class responses, focused projects, and other short answer responses. Section Diagnostics prepare students for the writing and presenting tasks they complete during unit Culminating Tasks that emulate one of the following: short story, personal narrative, explanatory essay, literary analysis, argumentative essay, or research essay.

The Grade 10 materials include activities for students to connect writing to texts and incorporate many opportunities for students to engage in on-demand writing (e.g., completing digital pdf guides such as the Delineating Arguments Tool and Theme Reference Guide to help them engage in various writing activities including constructing paragraphs based on claims found in texts read) and process writing that is formal or informal (e.g., journaling using an individual Learning Log). Process writing engages students in multiple steps to develop final drafts of their writing; lessons include prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing activities and provide multiple layers of instructional support for teachers and students. During process writing activities, students develop ideas and construct writing projects over a series of lessons, including revisiting writings to revise and edit their work from previous units. The materials also include multiple opportunities for students to receive a year’s worth of instruction for on-demand writing opportunities such as reflections and quick-writes. These on-demand writing assignments, including shorter, more focused writing projects, occur throughout all units in the grade level.

Materials include a mix of on-demand and process writing that covers a year’s worth of instruction. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials include on-demand writing opportunities that cover a year’s worth of instruction.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing To Do?, Section 2, Lesson 1, after reading an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, students write a response based on a series of questions, including:

      • “Skloot tells us that the photograph’s ‘left corner [is] torn and patched together with tape.’ What does this detail tell us about the relationship between the author and this object?

      • Skloot juxtaposes the youth of this woman with the ‘tumor growing inside her.’ How does this combination of positive and negative descriptions characterize Henrietta?”

    • In Section 2, Lesson 4, students select and read one of several seed texts. Then, using the Attending to Details Tool, students answer the following question as an on-demand writing opportunity: What are the text’s central ideas?

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 3, students complete a quick-write in their Learning Logs in response to a quote from Chapter 2 of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The Teacher Edition provides instructional considerations such as guidance on how teachers should instruct students to use the guiding questions for the quick-write as well as suggesting that the teacher could provide an example of a quick-write to further guide students. In Section 2, Lesson 6, students draw conclusions about how the missionaries in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe increase their ranks within the Igbo villages. Students use their Learning Logs to record reasons and draw on evidence from the text to write “an evidence-supported conclusion about the nature of the relationships among the Igbo and the missionaries.” Students then discuss the influence of the missionaries by answering text-specific questions with group members.

  • Materials include process writing opportunities that cover a year’s worth of instruction. Opportunities for students to revise and edit are provided.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 4, Lesson 5, students complete a free-write to develop a dramatization of a news story they have selected. To guide their writing and/or illustrations of the narrative, students consider planning questions, including:

      • “How can I tell the story in a vivid and memorable way?

      • How can I tell the story through people’s own words?”

    • Students then review, revise, and polish their historical narratives in preparation for presenting them to other students. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide guidance to model how to review and revise the support and development of ideas using a strong and weak model.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students write a personal essay reflecting on the creative process they used to write their original song lyrics. In Section 5, Lessons 1 through 9, students engage with primary sources to research, analyze, and explore various research questions to create and present song lyrics of their own. In Section 6, Lesson 2, students develop a central claim that responds to the following question: How does the use of primary and secondary sources affect modern storytelling? In Section 6, Lesson 4, students engage in peer review groups to address the coherence of their essays by completing a series of tasks, including:

      • “Read each paragraph and write a brief note about the function of the paragraph on the back or in the margin.

      • Arrange the paragraphs in the order they should appear in the essay.

      • Highlight coherence markers and transitions that helped you determine the order.”

      • “If there are paragraphs for which you cannot determine the order, mark them with an asterisk.

      • Once you have the paragraphs in the proper order, go ahead and number them.”

  • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, Lesson 7, students complete their Section Diagnostic in response to the following prompt: “Write a multiparagraph response that compares how The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and one of the companion texts address one of the following central issues: race, ethics, class, and science. Use the Section 4 Diagnostic Checklist to guide your writing.” After completing the multiparagraph response, students use the Section 4 Diagnostic Checklist as a guide when rereading their draft response. “Ask yourself the following questions:

    1. Does my response contain a strong central claim?

    2. Does my response include relevant details and evidence from each text to develop your ideas and analysis.

    3. Is my response organized into paragraphs that establish a logical, coherent, and well-developed analysis.

    4. Does my response clearly communicate my analysis through effective word choice, sentence and paragraph development, and transitions among ideas?

    5. Does my response use proper conventions of usage, mechanics, and punctuation.”

  • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 5, Lesson 1, students “use a collaborative, criteria-based writing process to produce a final written argument, or alternatively, an argumentative presentation, that addresses a key subtopic issue and question in public health.” Throughout the process, students create, revise, and edit multiple drafts before final submission of their argument or argumentative presentation.

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want To Research?, students complete a Culminating Activity that is based on ideas developed throughout the school year. In the Development Unit Alexander Hamilton, Section 6, Lesson 5, for example, students discuss possible themes to explore in the Application Unit’s Culminating Task and complete the Application Unit Potential Topics Tool by identifying the unit, central question, and questions or subtopics to explore. Subsequently, in the Application Unit, Section 1, Lesson 1, students work in research teams to review the topics they explored in earlier units and use the Application Unit Potential Topics tool to discuss a series of discussion questions, such as, “What topic, angle, or text from this unit interested me most? Why?” and “What questions do I have about this topic that remain unanswered?” When students finish discussing as a group they complete the Exploring a Topic tool individually and write a brief account of the discussion that took place and what they know about the topic.

  • Materials include digital resources where appropriate.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 1, students organize their ideas before writing an analysis of one of the characters from the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. To prepare, students use the digital resource Things Fall Apart: Internal and External Factors Organizer that allows students to organize their ideas before drafting and includes guidance for students to consider when planning, such as a section prompting students to analyze the figurative language used to describe the character.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lesson 2, students use digital writing tools to develop their ideas. The Forming Evidence-Based Claims tool, for example, prompts students to locate details from a text, capture their analyses of what they found, explain connections among details, and state a conclusion based on their analysis and details recorded.

    • In the Development Unit, Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 5, Lesson 1, students begin preparing for the Culminating Task to write an argument in response to the Central Question: How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty? Students draw on notes from texts and digital resources they have analyzed throughout the unit, including, but not limited to, “The Vaccine War” by Frontline, “The Public Good Versus Individual Freedom” by Michael Gerson, and “Freedom: The Harm Principle” by Harry Shearer and Nigel Warburton.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students utilize a set of digital resources, including a digital Culminating Task Checklist, Evaluation Plan, Presentation Guide, and Research Plan, to aid their research products. In Section 3, Lesson 4, students build on their previous work using the Forming-Evidence Based Claims Tool and complete an Organizing Evidence Tool for a first claim to begin to develop their main conclusions about an inquiry path for their presentations.

Indicator 1J
02/02

Materials provide opportunities for students to address different text types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1j.

Grade 10 materials provide sufficient opportunities across the year for students to engage in argumentative, informative/explanatory, and narrative writing that connects to the texts students read and analyze. Opportunities may include blended writing styles that reflect the distribution required by the standards.

Mentor texts model the various writing types, and instructional activities include opportunities within and across units for students to develop writing based on anchor texts and text sets. Students write after each reading or viewing experience, and most writing experiences distill distinct elements of the overall writing process, which may be completed as stand-alone products, or as part of a larger task or learning experience. Across the entire school year, students write six process essays, including short story, personal narrative, explanatory essay, literary analysis, argumentative essay, and research essay, that reflect a deep understanding of the Central Question and genre study within each unit. The multiple modes, genres, and types of writing practiced in informal and formal writing tasks, including the unit Culminating Tasks, as well as the support and scaffolding in place, should help students to meet grade-level proficiency by the end of the year.

Materials provide opportunities for students to address different text types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide multiple opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply different genres/modes/types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards. Different genres/modes/types of writing are distributed throughout the school year.

    • Students have opportunities to engage in argumentative writing.

      • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 4, Lesson 1, students “determine the order in which they want to develop claims, and consider both deductive and inductive organizational models and arguments that are built almost exclusively as counterarguments to an existing argument.” This preparation is for the culminating writing task, an argumentative essay with the following prompt: “Write an evidence-based argument in response to a complex ethical debate in the realm of public health.” In Section 5, Lesson 1, students begin to write an argumentative essay about a public health issue. The Section Overview in the student-facing materials includes the following guidance: “We will use a collaborative, criteria-based writing process to produce a final written argument, or alternatively, an argumentative presentation, that addresses a key subtopic issue and question in public health.” In Section 5, Lesson 2, students write one or more paragraphs that present and explain their argumentative claims, with supporting evidence and appropriate citations, to the Central Question: “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” The student materials prompt students to consider “what information, examples, or statistics you will use and cite to support the claim” for each claim.

      • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 5, Lesson 3, students complete a draft of their argumentative essay that addresses the question: “In light of personal beliefs, individual rights, and social justice, how should we address the common good as it relates to topics of public health?”

    • Students have opportunities to engage in informative/explanatory writing.

      • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 6, Lesson 2, students consider the prompt, “How do storytellers use primary sources?” as they draft a controlling idea to address the Culminating Task to write an explanatory essay. The student-facing materials direct students to “Express your controlling idea about your topic in one to two sentences that can be used to direct and organize your essay. This will be your essay’s controlling idea, an expression of the understanding you have developed by examining your topic.”

      • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students read widely and write purposefully in preparation for the expository explanatory writing prompt: “Evaluate and explain which text is the most compelling in relating the story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells.” In Section 2, Lesson 1, students answer the Central Question: How do we tell someone else’s story? Students also answer a series of framing questions to prepare for the expository Culminating Task. In Section 5, Lesson 1, students begin drafting an explanatory essay to evaluate the text set about Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. The Section Overview provides the following description regarding the explanatory writing activity: “We will write an expository essay that evaluates which text is the most compelling in relating the story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells.” In Section 5, Lesson 3, students write an explanatory essay “comparing the portrayal of Henrietta Lacks’s story in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with its portrayal in one of the unit’s companion texts.”

    • Students have opportunities to engage in narrative writing.

      • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing To Do?, Section 4, Lesson 2, students write a reflective narrative to discuss their process of research. The student-facing materials provide the following information about the reflective narrative: “A reflective narrative is focused on a short event or series of events in the writer’s life. Most importantly, it shares how the writer has grown as a result of an experience.” The Culminating Task includes an individual reflection in which students write a multiparagraph reflective narrative describing their research process and explaining their “strengths and areas of growth as a reader, writer, collaborator, and presenter.”

      • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students prepare to write a fictional, personal, or historical narrative that addresses the Culminating Task prompt: “Write an original narrative that presents an interesting story from your life, your imagination, current events, or history.” In Section 4, Lesson 4, students storyboard, relate, and describe in a nonfiction narrative a list of events as encountered in the articles “Points of Impact,” an excerpt from Americana: Dispatches From the New Frontier, or “The Birdman Drops In” by Hampton Sides. In Section 5, Lesson 8, students complete a draft of their narrative for the Culminating Task based on three options:

        • “Option 1 - Personal Narrative or Memoir: Recall an experience that was important in your life. Tell the story of that experience and its meaning to you so that it comes to life for your readers.

        • Option 2 - Original Story or Folk Tale: Combine your experiences and imagination with the art and craft of storytelling to tell a fictional story that is entertaining and meaningful.

        • Option 3 - Nonfiction or Historical Narrative: Identify a contemporary or historical event or character and use new-journalism narrative techniques to tell the story of the event or character in an original and engaging way.”

  • Where appropriate, writing opportunities are connected to texts and/or text sets (either as prompts, models, anchors, or supports).

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students consider a text set focused on narrative voice in preparation for the Culminating Task to “Write an original narrative that presents an interesting story from your life, your imagination, current events, or history.” In Section 3, Lesson 1, students read “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “A Rose for Emily’’ by William Faulkner, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain, “Corn Pone Opinions,” an excerpt from Europe and Elsewhere by Mark Twain, and “The War Prayer,” an excerpt from Europe and Elsewhere by Mark Twain.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 11, students write an explanatory response to compare the interpretation of the view of slavery in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton The Revolution to primary and secondary sources reflecting Alexander Hamilton’s view of slavery. This writing task is anchored in using information and evidence from the text set.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students write a character analysis of Okonkwo from the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe as part of their Culminating Task. The novel anchors the unit as students participate in a series of on-demand writing that helps build the skills they would need for the Culminating Task to write a character analysis of Okonkwo. In Section 1, Lesson 7, for example, students complete quick-writes comparing Okonkwo to his friend Obierika.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 8, students write sentences that mimic the structure, style, grammar, and punctuation of sentences in the mentor text The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Students complete a close reading and analysis of Skloot’s sentences, analyzing the diction and sentence structure. The student materials include the purpose of the task: “Reading like a writer involves studying how an author writes and determining why the author makes specific writing choices at the paragraph and sentence level. Understanding what those writing choices mean and deconstructing how the author made those choices can help you emulate those choices in your own writing practice and diversify your range of writing strategies.”

  • Materials include sufficient writing opportunities for a whole year’s use.

    • The materials for this grade level, in particular, the unit Culminating Tasks, provide sufficient writing opportunities across the year. Students complete narratives in the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, and in the Development Unit, Telling Stories. In addition, students complete forms of informative/explanatory writing in the Development Units, Things Fall Apart, Alexander Hamilton, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Finally, students engage in argumentative writing products in the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, and in the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students choose to further research one of the topics and text sets they have studied in a previous unit to complete the Culminating Task to answer a self-developed inquiry question using research-based claims and explaining how the process of investigation led to said conclusions and discoveries. In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, for example, students practice writing an argument, a skill applicable both to the presentation portion of the Application Unit Culminating Task and to any of the topics students may be interested in researching further. Throughout the unit, students develop a research portfolio and presentation connecting to a self-selected topic of inquiry that presents “a clear, engaging narrative of your research process, communicating the evolution of your critical thinking and learning, reflecting on the challenges and successes you experienced, and using details to help your audience understand the context and conclusions of your work.” In Section 3, Lesson 5, students develop claims about their inquiry question or research problem. In Section 5, students apply writing skills developed over the year and connect to texts and topics they have studied closely. In Section 5, Lesson 8, students reflect on what they have learned and evaluate their skills and knowledge by completing the Culminating Task Progress Tracker prompt: “Add or refine any skills and content knowledge required for the Culminating Task. Evaluate how well you are mastering skills and knowledge required for the Culminating Task.”

Indicator 1K
02/02

Materials include frequent opportunities for evidence-based writing to support sophisticated analysis, argumentation, and synthesis.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1k.

The Grade 10 materials provide frequent opportunities for students to engage in short writing responses, argumentative writing tasks, and synthesis of ideas, as well as allow students to connect their writing to various texts they read and analyze across the year. Materials provide tools to guide students in completing writing tasks, such as diagnostic checklists, including student self-assessment of their writing goals, and an Organizing Evidence Tool to guide students in explaining how the evidence supports the supporting claim and the central claim or thesis.

Students learn and practice skills before applying them in their writing. Students revisit texts when responding to questions and cite evidence to support their positions, create claims and support those claims with textual evidence, review and revise claims, and consider whether additional evidentiary support is necessary. Supporting their ideas with evidence from the texts, students write literary and rhetorical analyses, as well as argumentative and informational responses throughout the year. Additionally, each unit ends with an extended writing Culminating Task that requires students to review across texts and genres and to support their claims and arguments with evidence from multiple texts. Students write to practice and apply writing standards that require them to write with a task, purpose, and audience in mind, to delineate and evaluate arguments, and to develop a short research response.

Materials include frequent opportunities for evidence-based writing to support sophisticated analysis, argumentation, and synthesis. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide frequent opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply writing using evidence.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 3, Lesson 2, students use the Foundation Unit Pathway Texts Handout to select a text to examine in their pathway groups using the Attention to Details Tool to cite details that answer the question, “What are the central ideas of the text?” Students then describe how the details relate to the central question and pose questions to deepen their understanding. Students then use the Evaluation Ideas Tool to cite, analyze, and evaluate evidence from the pathway text they selected from the previous activity.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and answer a series of evidence-based questions, including:

      • “What details, descriptive phrases, and dialogue from the story does Jackson use to create an atmosphere of routine and normalcy?

      • What details, descriptive phrases, and dialogue from the story does Jackson use to create an atmosphere of foreboding and to foreshadow the horrifying climax?”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 11, the Section 2 Diagnostic instructs students to “Compare Miranda’s interpretation of Hamilton’s views of slavery with what you found in your reading of primary and secondary sources.” Students write in response to the text Hamilton the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. The student-facing materials prompt students to “Support your response with evidence from the musical and multiple texts.” Students utilize a self-evaluative Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist by answering questions, such as “How well do I develop and clearly communicate meaningful and defensible claims that represent valid, evidence-based analysis?”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 7, students perform a quick-write to examine the juxtaposition of characters in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. After completing the quick write, students improve their drafts by developing a central claim. Student-facing instructions direct students to “Develop at least two supporting claims for your main claim. For each claim, provide evidence from the text. Then, analyze the evidence by explaining how the evidence supports the supporting claim and your central claim.” Then, in Lesson 10, students practice this skill in the Section Diagnostic by responding to the following prompt: “Write a multi-paragraph analysis of the external influences on Okonkwo’s character. In your response, consider how Okonkwo’s character is shaped or influenced by his father.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 3, Lesson 4, students practice writing analytical statements about the author’s craft as evidenced in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. To analyze one of the central issues in Chapters 29–30, students use the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool that prompts students to consider “[w]hat central claims does Skloot make about _____ in Chapter _____, and how does she present them?” The tool prompts students to attend to details, emphasizing the importance of “searching for and annotating details that relate to the questions or prompt.”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 3, Lesson 2, student research teams continue to read their four, self-selected key sources and utilize their Research Note-Taking Tools to collect “the details, ideas, information, or evidence captured during research that relate to the subtopic, idea, or question,” and to “Explain why the details are important and how the notes relate to the idea.” Students then exchange their Research Note-Taking Tool notes with a partner pair to “Write down your own comments, questions, and impressions of their notes on the texts,” and then return the notes to their partners to review the comments and change or create new key words, subtopics, or inquiry questions.

  • Writing opportunities are focused around students’ analyses and claims developed from reading closely and working with texts and sources to provide supporting evidence.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 3, Lesson 9, students summarize and share their analyses of their independent reading texts. The student-facing materials prompt students to “[b]e sure to give a brief summary of your text so that your audience understands any analysis and unit connections that you communicate.” Students also review their notes collected in the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tools and revise their claims “to produce more formal statements that express” their analysis.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read “From Alexander Hamilton to The Royal Danish American Gazette, 6 September 1772,” by Alexander Hamilton and use the Character Note-Taking Tool to analyze Hamilton’s character by citing evidence from the letter and explaining what the details suggest about Hamilton.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 6, students select their own mentor sentence from the text, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and answer the following text dependent questions of the quote:

      • “What mood does the author create in this sentence? How do you know?

      • What tone is conveyed by the author in this sentence? How do you know?

      • How does the sentence contribute to your understanding of the ideas in the text?”

    • Students also read the article “Igbo Culture and History” by Don Ohadike and can call upon information from this article to develop their responses to the mentor sentence.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read Chapter 14 of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and use their Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to answer the question, “What writing techniques does Skloot use to present ________’s perspective on the central issue of ____ Chapter 14?” Students use the characters Gey, Berg, or Skloot to focus their analysis on answering the question presented and “Find relevant evidence from the text, analyze the evidence, and explain the connections between the evidence and analysis in order to form a claim about your selected topic.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 4, Lesson 1, after students read “Measles, Mumps, and Religious Freedom: Mandatory Vaccination and the Limits of Parental Rights” by Christopher O. Tollefson, the Delineating Arguments Tool directs students to find “a claim made by the author as a cornerstone of his argument, a summation of an opposing claim that might be made by someone with a different view of the issues and ethics, and a counterclaim made by Tollefson in response to an opposing claim or argument. Note the pattern of claim statements in the argument.” Students use textual evidence from the article to respond to the prompt: “Having read and analyzed the argument, think further about its perspective, purpose, and audience. Draft a statement that summarizes the ethical position Tollefsen is taking.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 5, Lesson 2, students formulate claims to develop their analyses of the texts read throughout the unit. The student-facing materials prompt students to develop claims by providing supporting evidence: “We will draft one or more paragraphs that present and explain our claims and then develop and support our claims by citing evidence from our research and other arguments.”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 3, Lesson 3, students synthesize their understanding across multiple sources. Students work collaboratively in teams to determine revisions to the Research Frame Tool. The student-facing materials direct teams to “[d]etermine what kind of revisions or refinements you might need to make to your Research Frame Tool.” The student facing materials provide questions for consideration, including, but not limited to: “Which inquiry question best summarizes each inquiry path? What are the primary, or most important, inquiry questions for each inquiry path?”

Indicator 1L
01/02

Materials include explicit instruction of the grade-level grammar and usage standards, with opportunities for application in context.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1l.

Materials provide some opportunities for the instruction of the Conventions of Standard English to demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking and demonstrating command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. Students apply grade-level skills in context as they explore grammar, syntax, and usage in texts they study. Explicit instruction is limited, and teachers have an option to address the skills in more depth. The Program Guide shares that “Grammar is examined with the goal of improving students’ reading and writing skills. Understanding how language functions at the paragraph and sentence level helps students comprehend text with more clarity, enabling them to produce writing that is more effective, precise, and clear.” Materials include other tools to support grammar and syntax, such as the Mentor Sentence and Language Use Handouts, Working with Mentor Sentences Tool, and Reference Guides.

Materials provide teachers with opportunities to introduce concepts, and students can practice locating these examples in context and then practice synthesizing sentences at the end of a lesson. Materials rarely include explicit instruction of grade-level grammar and usage standards; the text makes suggestions, but the instructor chooses where to focus instruction. The student-facing instructions do not explicitly reference the Reference Guides, but these are available in the Teaching Notes of the Teacher Edition. Materials include some opportunities for students to demonstrate application and improve fluency language standards through practice and application. Materials provide the opportunity to learn or practice discrete conventions and grammar skills within the context of their readings throughout the year; most opportunities for in-context practice are in writing.

Materials rarely include explicit instruction of the grade-level grammar and usage standards, but include some opportunities for authentic application in context. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Students have opportunities to use parallel structure.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do, Section 1, Lesson 4, students work with categorical imperative sentences. The Teacher Edition suggests that using categorical imperative sentences is a good way for students to learn how to use “parallel structure for effect.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 4, students reread sentences from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and consider the following question, “Following the main clause of the second sentence (‘She wants to write stories that ignore borders’), what word and grammatical structure is repeated?” Students then follow along as their instructor “[r]eviews the sentence structure and the rhetorical concepts of parallelism and repetition.” Afterwards, students discuss the following questions on the excerpts read:

      • “What five ‘opposites’ has Cisneros linked through the use of parallelism and the repetition of the preposition ‘between’?

      • Why might Cisneros have chosen to use parallelism and repetition in this particular sentence?”

    • At the conclusion of the activity, students compose their own sentences based on the structure of the example analyzed for the narratives they are writing for the unit’s Culminating Task.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 3, Lesson 10, Activity 3, students review parallel structure and find examples in “From Alexander Hamilton to The Royal Danish American Gazette, 6 September 1772” and “From Alexander Hamilton to Angelica Church 19–20 June 1796” by Alexander Hamilton. Teacher-facing materials suggest reviewing parallel structure as a class before students work with partners as a scaffold.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 5, students complete a mini-lesson on parallel structure. Students first record the definition of parallel structure in their Vocabulary Journals. The student-facing materials include the following next steps: “Using parallel structure, write a claim about Okonkwo’s attitude toward women and the qualities he perceives as feminine in your Mentor Sentence Journal.” Students work in groups and then share one of the group’s claims with the class. In Section 1, Lesson 6, students add the definition of parallel structure provided by the materials to their Vocabulary Journal in addition to reading the following, “Using parallel structure in your writing gives ideas equal importance and helps create sentences that are clear and well-organized.” Students then copy three examples of parallel structure from Chapter 1 of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and answer the following questions:

      • “What is the parallel structure in each example?

      • Why is parallel structure an effective stylistic device that an author might choose to use?”

    • Next, students choose four characters from the novel and write a descriptive sentence for each character using parallel structure. Later in the lesson, students respond to the following prompt: “Using parallel structure, write a claim about Okonkwo’s attitude toward women and the qualities he perceives as feminine in your Mentor Sentence Journal.”

  • Students have opportunities to use various types of phrases (e.g., noun, verb, adjectival, adverbial, participial, prepositional, absolute) and clauses (e.g., independent, dependent; noun, relative, adverbial) to convey specific meanings and add variety and interest to writing or presentations.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 4, Activity 3, students read excerpts from Kant on his key ideas about the source of ethical standards. Students respond to the following questions: “Which parts make up the main clause? The main clause is the main subject and predicate that expresses the central idea of the sentence. Write down the sentence, underlining the main clause. How do the other parts of the sentence (e.g., phrases, clauses, modifiers) enhance the main clause? How could you restructure this sentence so that it relays the same message to the reader? What is the impact of the different structures on your understanding? What revisions need to be made to your initial paraphrasing now that you have increased your understanding of the sentence?”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 4, students follow along as the teacher “explains what a participle is and how participles can be used to create participial phrases that can be used as modifiers.” Students then reread the first excerpt from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, looking for examples of participle phrases. After analyzing the phrases found in the text using a set of guiding questions, such as “What are the participles that introduce phrases that follow and build upon this clause?, What effect do these words by themselves have on you as a reader?,” and “What do the phrases that these participles introduce tell you about how and why the author ‘experiments’?” Students practice creating sentences using participle phrases for the narratives they write during the unit’s Culminating Task. In Section 2, Lesson 6, students take part in a discussion of prepositional phrases used by Thomas Wolfe in “The Far and the Near.” Students then return to their teams to identify prepositional phrases and the nouns they modify in the mentor paragraphs they selected. Students independently emulate these models and create their own sentences with prepositional phrases that “[follow] a similar pattern and [develop] a similar mood.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 12, students prepare for the Section 1 Diagnostic and can utilize the Conventions Reference Guide for additional support. Students write an objective summary of Acts 1 and 2 of Hamilton: An American Musical, identifying one of its themes. Students can access each convention and definition, including clauses and phrases with an example of convention in a sentence. Students utilize a Mentor Sentence Journal and Mentor Sentences Tools to deeply analyze and deconstruct mentor sentences to incorporate into their own writing. An example of a mentor sentence in the Conventions Reference Guide includes: “I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night (Hosseini 359).” In Section 2, Lesson 4, students work with sentences with multiple phrases by using the following sentence as a mentor for their writing: “Despite Hamilton’s reputation as the elitist, the starting point of Madison’s most famous essay, Federalist number 10, is that people possess different natural endowments, leading to an unequal distribution of property and conflicts of classes and interests.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 5, students discuss the use of appositives and how to use them in their writing. Materials explain, “An appositive is a noun or a noun phrase that provides additional information about the subject of a sentence,” and then provide an example from the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: “Okonkwo, a fierce warrior and wrestler, is unable to be a kind father or husband.” Practice opportunities include adding an appositive to the following sentence: “Uchendu, _____, pulled gently at his gray beard and gnashed his teeth.” Students also “write four sentences using appositives to describe four different characters from Things Fall Apart” in their Learning Logs.

  • Students have opportunities to use a semicolon (and perhaps a conjunctive adverb) to link two or more closely related independent clauses.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 1, students use semicolons to link independent clauses to rewrite sections of “Alexander Hamilton.” Students use the Conventions Reference Guide to guide their writing. In Section 3, Lesson 10, Activity 1, students review the grammar terms clause, independent or main clause, dependent or subordinate clause, compound sentence, and semicolon before revising and editing the letter “To Alexander Hamilton from Angelica Church, 5–7 November 1789.” Students look for compound sentences, commas separating two independent clauses rather than a semicolon or period (comma splice), and long sentences that can be broken into multiple sentences. Students show the non-example of semicolons in the letter before revising and rewriting the letter.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 5, students proofread partners’ essays for the unit’s Culminating Task using the Conventions Reference Guide to address errors in grammar or usage, citation errors, any confusing or unclear ideas, and verb tense issues. That Conventions Reference Guide defines what a compound sentence is and the role a semicolon and conjunctive adverb play in forming compound sentences. Students then use the notes from their partners to fix errors they made.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 4, students use a Mentor Sentence Journal to compile sentences and build a writer’s toolbox. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include modeling how to use the Mentor Sentence Journal and offer an instructional sequence: “Throughout the unit, point out several sentences that use a specific concept, such as linking closely related independent clauses with a semicolon.” The teacher curates several sentences with direct instruction before moving into scaffolded creation. Students mimic the style with their own sentences. Then, the teacher removes the scaffold and students create sentences of their own.

  • Students have opportunities to use a colon to introduce a list or quotation.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 10, students independently review, revise, and edit their response to the Section Diagnostic. The Teacher Edition’s Teaching Notes suggest a number of tools the students can use, one being the Integrating Quotations Reference Guide. Students can use the guide to learn how to use a colon for a quote that is preceded by an independent clause.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 4, students use their Mentor Sentence Journal to analyze and use similar sentences in their writing, but materials do not specify the types of sentences students should select in the student-facing materials. For example, student-facing materials include the following instructions: “The specific content of your sentences is your choice. Be prepared to share your sentences with your peers.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 5, Lesson 2, students read pages one through three of the Integrating Quotations Reference Guide and participate in a whole-class discussion using the following questions:

      • “What are the two ways in which you can cite evidence in a sentence?

      • Why is citing evidence important? How does it support your credibility as a writer?

      • What is included in the parenthesis after you cite your evidence? What is that information linked to?”

    • Students then finish reading the entire guide and use the guide while writing drafts of the body paragraphs of their Culminating Task. Students can use the Integrating Quotations Reference Guide to learn how to use a colon to introduce a quote that is preceded by an independent clause.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 3, Lesson 4, students complete the Organizing Evidence Tool for their first claims. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include ideas for student support and differentiation, such as “You might use this opportunity to help students work on paraphrasing quotations and properly citing them in their tools.” These instances provide opportunities for students to apply the conventions of standards of English with teacher support and feedback. In Section 5, Lesson 1, students utilize the Application Unit Presentation Guide to ensure they are clear about the roles, written components, structure and creation process. As part of the Presentation Creation Process, students focus on sentence-level revision, including the following:

      • “Are all of your sentences complete sentences?

      • Could you vary your sentence structure by practicing a model sentence?

      • Does your writing contain fragments and run-ons?

      • Do all your sentences have correct subject-verb agreement?

      • Do all your sentences have correct pronoun-antecedent agreement?

      • Do you have a variety of sentence structure types (i.e., simple, compound, complex, compound-complex)?”

    • In Section 5, Lesson 5, students practice their presentations in teams to plan for revisions. One consideration during the revision process includes, “Correct and adjust grammar to strengthen the spoken delivery.”

  • Students have opportunities to spell correctly.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do, Section 4, Lesson 1, students begin working on the Culminating Task. The Culminating Task Checklist includes the following component: “How well do I apply correct and effective syntax, usage, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 1, students read and discuss the expectations for the Culminating Task. The Culminating Task Checklist includes writing an original narrative “that presents an interesting story from your life, your imagination, current events, or history.” A writing goal addresses using conventions to produce clear writing: “How well do I apply correct and effective syntax, usage, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 4, Activity 1, students complete a vocabulary in context activity which may help students remember spelling rules for the new language.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 7, students use The Ethics of Public Health Decisions: Section 3 Diagnostic Checklist to finalize the team’s Section Diagnostic. On the checklist, under the heading Writing Goals, students self assess spelling issues in their Section Diagnostic using the following question: “How well do I use correct and effective syntax, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?”

Indicator 1M
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Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 1m.

The Grade 10 materials provide a Program Guide that details the structure of the program and how vocabulary is incorporated into both instruction and student work, noting that “While the program prioritizes Tier 2 language, students are exposed to Tier 3 language as well.” The materials offer instructional guidance in outlining and using year-long vocabulary development tools and activities to support student vocabulary development across the school year, and the Teacher Edition and student-facing materials provide specific structures to help students build vocabulary knowledge within and across texts by including specific opportunities for students to connect their understanding of words in multiple contexts and situations.

Academic vocabulary acquisition and use are prioritized within and across the units, as students identify essential vocabulary and apply it to their reading, speaking, and writing tasks. The materials provide opportunities for students to learn new academic and domain-specific terms as students encounter vocabulary in a series of contexts before, during, and across texts, and opportunities for students to determine the meaning of vocabulary words using context clues are consistent. The materials attend to content vocabulary essential to understand each text and to analyze the purpose of word choices. Vocabulary instruction and practice accompany the core program’s selections to build vocabulary knowledge and improve students’ abilities to access complex texts.

Students apply their vocabulary skills to reading tasks utilizing tools, such as the Vocabulary in Context Tool, to assist them in understanding the meaning of unknown words and that words may have multiple meanings. In addition, students have regular opportunities to record vocabulary throughout the units using tools, including Word Maps and Vocabulary Journals, to note and define words throughout the unit. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide definitions and suggestions on implementing the Vocabulary Journals. Materials also prompt students to incorporate vocabulary during speaking opportunities and utilize tools, such as the Discussion Tool, to consider language used during classroom discussions.

Materials include a cohesive year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide teacher guidance outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component.

    • The Program Guide outlines a philosophy and structure regarding vocabulary, noting that “vocabulary is essential to comprehension” and that “the program contains a variety of tools to help students build a robust body of vocabulary and incorporate vocabulary into their own writing and speech.” The materials contain Critical Thinking & Analytical Tools, including the Vocabulary in Context Tool, Word Map, Vocabulary Journal, and Vocabulary Lists, to utilize during instruction and support vocabulary development. Also, Reference Guides, including the Arguments Reference Guide and Claims Reference Guide, “define English language arts concepts and equip students with content terminology used to explain their analysis of text.” Other guides, including the Narratives Reference Guide, Style Reference Guide, and Symbolism and Motifs Reference Guide contain “explanations of key literary elements and syntax techniques.” Additionally, Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition embed guidance within the lesson activities throughout the year by suggesting specific instructional strategies and supports for academic and content-specific vocabulary development and practice before and during text examination.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 6, students collaborate in teams to create group research proposals. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition guide teachers to “Remind students to reference their Vocabulary Journals when composing their drafts.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 3, teachers provide words from the unit Vocabulary List to support instruction of the year-long vocabulary development component. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition describe the role of Vocabulary Lists and Vocabulary Journals as follows:

      • “Suggested vocabulary words can be found in the Vocabulary List for each major text in the unit. The Vocabulary List is not comprehensive in nature—each student will need support with different words. For this reason, students should be encouraged to add unfamiliar or interesting words or concepts to their Vocabulary Journals as they encounter them.”

    • Students use the Vocabulary in Context Tool to develop their vocabulary skills when they encounter unfamiliar words. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition articulate:

      • “The purpose of the Vocabulary in Context Tool is twofold: 1. Students build vocabulary and develop a strategy for determining the meaning of unknown words and phrases when there is contextual information and when there is not. 2. Students metacognate on their process for determining the meaning of unknown words, determine the effectiveness of that process, and articulate a plan for using it in future texts.”

    • To support student understanding of unfamiliar words by examining the context, the Vocabulary in Context Tool provides prompts such as, “Does the author use any words to indicate the unknown word has a nearby synonym (i.e., a word that has the same meaning as the unknown word)?”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read an essay, “Memory and Delusion” by Shirley Jackson. Materials include a unit vocabulary list which includes the academic vocabulary word conviction for students to reference. As students consider the author’s writing process, guiding questions during the lesson, such as “How does Jackson’s choice of words and examples reveal her perspective?,” direct students to consider the term conviction within the text and provide a foundation for consideration in other contexts.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 3, students review important concepts or challenging words from Act 1 of Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, paying attention to both word use and meaning in context. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition state:

      • ‘Suggested vocabulary words can be found in the Vocabulary List for each major text in the unit. To help students understand the differences among types of vocabulary, the list is divided into three columns: Academic (Tier 2), Content (Tier 3), and ELA Concepts.”

  • Vocabulary is repeated in contexts (before texts, in texts) and across multiple texts.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 3, students examine a list of academic and domain-specific language from Hamilton the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. Students use the Vocabulary in Context tool to complete the first three words presented on the vocabulary list by addressing the following questions:

      • “What does the context suggest Miranda means when using the word? What is its connotation, and how does that compare with a dictionary definition?

      • Why is this word and its meaning important in this part of the text?

      • How might I use this word in my own thinking, speaking, and writing?”

    • The materials explain that students will record these words in their Vocabulary Journals as they will return to these terms later in the unit as students approach the Culminating Task. In Section 4, Lesson 4, for example, students return to their Vocabulary Journal to include words they would like to use in the Section Diagnostic.

    • In The Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 3, students unpack and examine the academic word prosperous before reading chapter 2 of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, where the word appears. Previously, students encountered the word prosperous in the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, when reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lesson 2, students encounter the academic vocabulary word conviction when reading Chapter 14 of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The unit vocabulary list is available as a reference. During the activity, students “pay attention to word use and meaning in the text’s context. We will also write down important terms in our Learning Logs, so that we can refer to them later in the unit.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 2, students work in groups to complete a close reading of two government documents: “The Declaration of Independence” and “The Bill of Rights.” Teachers pre-teach vocabulary, such as redress, and students develop a deeper understanding of this vocabulary word and other vocabulary words across both of these texts.

  • Attention is paid to vocabulary essential to understanding the text and to high-value academic words (e.g., words that might appear in other contexts/content areas).

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 1, when students learn new vocabulary, the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include the following guidance:

      • “Students track their words in a Vocabulary Journal to keep track of words and their definitions throughout the unit. Vocabulary Journals play an important role in building new vocabulary. The word dilemma provides an opportunity for students to work with morphology.”

    • Students define the word dilemma in the Vocabulary Journals they will keep throughout the unit and watch a TED Talk by Patrick Lin titled “The Ethical Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars” as a way to introduce the concept of an ethical dilemma. Students then answer a series of questions with a partner:

      • “What potential problems do self-driving cars present?

      • How are the decisions made by humans and self-driving cars different?

      • According to reports from 2015, self-driving cars could prevent 300,000 deaths per decade from traffic accidents. Other benefits include more productivity, less traffic, and environmental improvements. Considering the ethical dilemma the video names and these potential benefits, are self-driving cars worth it? Why or why not?”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 3, students “examine both academic (Tier 2), content (Tier 3) words in this activity.” The Teacher Edition suggests specific attention be paid to the following academic vocabulary words: “quinine (Para. 1), facilitate (Para. 1), lucrative (Para. 2), retain (Para. 3).” Materials also provide specific strategies for students to ensure they understand these terms, such as encouraging students to draw picture representations of the words.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 3, students complete their reading of “New Media, Old Messages: Themes in the History of Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal” by Jason Schwartz. Before reading, students encounter the academic word refuting in the vocabulary list for the unit. Students then read the word in the context.

  • Students are supported to accelerate vocabulary learning with vocabulary in their reading, speaking, and writing tasks.

    • In The Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 9, Activity 1, student-facing materials read, “Access and read the ‘Key Concepts’ section of the Section 1 Key Concepts, Vocabulary, and Ideas Handout for Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller.” Students answer a series of vocabulary related questions, including:

      • “What does the context suggest Silko means when using the word?

      • What is its connotation, and how does that compare with a dictionary definition of denotation?’

    • Students then include the words in their own writing in response to reading the passage.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 3, students refer to their Vocabulary Journals to cement their understanding of key words from the texts they have read in the unit thus far. Students accelerate their learning by using vocabulary for reading, speaking, and writing tasks such as the following activities outlined in the Teacher Edition:

      • “Write example and nonexample sentences that use the new words.

      • Use the words in a discussion.

      • Complete a Word Map for one of the words. Complete an Open Sort or Closed Sort for categories of words.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 3, Lesson 8, students engage in a small group discussion answering the guiding question: Why did Lin-Manuel Miranda choose to have Aaron Burr be the narrator of Hamilton: An American Musical? Students use the Discussion Tool to prepare for the class discussion. Student-facing instructions direct students to use significant words from their Vocabulary Journal as follows:

      • “Review your Vocabulary Journal and the Discussion Stems in the Academic Discussion Reference Guide. Record words and stems you want to use during the discussion.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, Lesson 1, students encounter terms referencing art and design elements, including form, space, texture, balance, and contrast. Student-facing materials include the following directions:

      • “For each word, create a one-slide presentation that includes the term and definition, three visual examples of the term, and the term used in a sentence.”

    • Students then present their slide to the class and record the definitions their group collected in their Vocabulary Journals.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 2, Lesson 1, students work towards the unit Culminating Task by using the Application Unit: Research Frame Tool to organize their research as well as to identify and collect vocabulary relevant to the necessary reading, speaking, and writing tasks. In Section 6, Lesson 1, students revise their presentation rough drafts into final drafts utilizing the Culminating Task Checklist to consider how well they use language and themes that are relevant and appropriate for the audience to ensure effective communication. Students incorporate vocabulary acquired throughout the research process into their final product.

Overview of Gateway 2

Building Knowledge with Texts, Vocabulary, and Tasks

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for building knowledge with texts, vocabulary, and tasks. Texts are organized around a central theme and related guiding questions that connect to the unit topic. As students closely read and analyze literary and informational texts, students respond to coherently sequenced questions that build to Section Diagnostics, which may be oral or written in nature. Section Diagnostics build to the end-of-unit Culminating Task. Culminating Tasks integrate multiple literacy strands, allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of a topic. Writing lessons are cohesively designed so that students apply and expand the skills they learn from previous lessons as they progress through the units. Materials include guidance, protocols, models, and support for teachers to implement and monitor students’ writing development. Short and long research projects are sequenced and include a progression of standards-aligned research skills. The program utilizes a Monitor, Diagnose, Evaluate practice that closely links instruction and assessments. Standards-aligned instruction builds to text-based questions and Section Diagnostics and Section Diagnostics build to end-of-unit Culminating Tasks. The Foundation and Application Units are recursive and cover the majority of grade-level standards, with the exception of most Reading: Literature standards. Development Units revisit grade-level standards addressed in the Foundation Unit and address Reading: Literature standards. Although suggested implementation schedules align to core learning objectives, the Model Yearlong Paths cannot reasonably be completed, based on the suggested minimum number of 45 minutes per lesson and the number of units suggested for the year. Optional tasks are meaningful and support core learning.

Criterion 2.1: Building Knowledge

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Materials build knowledge through integrated reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for building knowledge. Grade-level texts are organized around a central theme and related guiding questions that connect to the unit topic. Students complete high-quality, coherently sequenced questions and tasks as they analyze literary elements, such as craft and structure, and integrate knowledge and ideas in individual texts and across multiple texts. Section Diagnostics and end-of-unit Culminating Tasks integrate reading, writing, speaking and listening, or language and connect to the texts students read. The year-long writing plan allows students to participate in a range of writing tasks that vary in length, purpose, and difficulty. The Foundation and Application Units are designed to allow students to "investigate a topic through recursive and iterative cycles of inquiry." The program utilizes a Monitor, Diagnose, Evaluate practice that closely links instruction and assessments. Standards-aligned instruction builds to text-based questions and Section Diagnostics and Section Diagnostics build to end-of-unit Culminating Tasks.

Indicator 2A
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Texts are organized around a cohesive topic(s)/theme(s) to build students’ ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2a.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for texts are organized around a cohesive topic(s)/theme(s) to build students’ ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently. Each unit is organized around a central theme and related guiding questions that connect overall to the unit topic. The texts, tasks, and materials for this grade level are grouped so that students investigate a Central Question when moving through the Foundation and Development units using the information they gather from analyzing the various texts to perform the culminating tasks. Throughout the process of analyzing multiple texts, students broaden their vocabulary and knowledge, strengthen reading comprehension, and develop independent-thinking skills as they dig into unit content and apply their learning to new readings they encounter. The course capstone includes an Application Unit in which students drive their investigation with an inquiry question of interest. The Program Guide provides additional information for teachers relating to the selection of classic and contemporary texts within each unit: “Text sets guide and focus student learning and knowledge development by examining a diverse body of authors, perspectives, and genres. While students develop strands of knowledge in units, they also extend their understanding across units in their year, and across all four years, of high school.”

Texts are connected by cohesive topics/themes to build students’ ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Texts are connected by a grade-appropriate cohesive topic/theme/line of inquiry.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Know the Right Thing to Do?, texts are centered around a central theme: “How do we determine the right thing to do?” Texts that connect to this theme center around the following topics:

      • environmental ethics

      • biomedical ethics

      • ethics of identity and representation

      • sports ethics

      • ethics of social justice.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students study storytelling, investigating the Central Question: “What makes a good story?” Examples of texts students study to explore a common line of inquiry include, but are not limited to, “Introduction,” “But Sometimes What We Call ‘Memory,’” “Coyotes and the Stro’ro’ka Dancers,” excerpts from Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Siko and the parable “The Far and the Near” by Thomas Wolfe.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, texts are centered around a central theme: “How do storytellers use primary sources?” The unit focuses on the play, the original Broadway performance “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a series of historical documents. The unit also includes texts discussing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s use of history in his performance in “‘Hamilton’ and History: Are They in Sync?” by Jennifer Schuessler.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students investigate the Central Question: “What does it mean for things to fall apart?” Examples of texts students study to explore a common line of inquiry include, but are not limited to, the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. During the unit, students focus on character analysis and an exploration of the missionary and Igbo tribes in answering guiding questions such as “What shapes Okonkwo’s character?” and “How do secondary characters enrich the novel?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students investigate the Central Question: “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” Complex texts students read to examine the common line of inquiry include, but are not limited to, these Grade 10 appropriate texts: “What Would Happen if We Stopped Vaccinations?” by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. During the unit, students examine the questions: “How should we address ethical issues involving the development of vaccines?” and “How should we address issues of unequal access to public health resources?” as they prepare for an evidence-based argumentative essay around the theme of ethics in public health.

  • Texts build knowledge, vocabulary, and the ability to read and comprehend complex texts across a school year.

    • Students read across genres with eight central texts connecting to the theme of the unit, including, but not limited to, Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue,” excerpts from Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama, and the prose poem “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students build their knowledge around the cohesive topic of ethics. Students examine the essential question, “How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?,” by analyzing multiple texts including narrative non-fiction, a poem, and articles about various ethical situations. In Section 1, Lesson 1, students watch “The Ethical Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars” to begin to develop their understanding of the complex theme. Students explore this topic further in Lesson 3 with “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” and “Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36.” In Section 2, Lesson 1, students examine ethical issues in a text and decide in which pathway the ethical should be placed. The culminating task follows a similar process, but students work together with a group to select a pathway and discuss the ethical issues that surround that pathway.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students examine texts and complete tasks to answer the Central Question: “How Do We Tell Someone Else’s Story?” Students build vocabulary on the author’s craft throughout the unit. In Lesson 2, Section 3, students create an Author’s Craft Journal to examine The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This tool helps them build knowledge and vocabulary to address the Central Question. Students further expand their knowledge by reading a poem about HeLa cells. The culminating task involves students writing an expository essay to answer the essential question. Students gain analysis skills from engaging in the complex texts in this unit that prepare them for reading texts throughout the school year.

    • In The Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, six central texts connect to the theme, and the unit includes opportunities to read across text types, including an excerpt from “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making,” “The Hippocratic Oath,” and “The Belmont Report” from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students develop knowledge and vocabulary to conduct their own independent research through the use of plans, checklists, and guides. For example, in Section 3, Lesson 2, students use a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to examine key details in the resources they collected. These guides help students read texts independently and proficiently.

Indicator 2B
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Materials require students to analyze the key ideas, details, craft, and structure within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently sequenced, high-quality questions and tasks.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2b.

Grade 10 materials provide opportunities for students to analyze the author’s word choice, structure, and point of view development as delineated in the grade-level craft and structure standards. Additionally, each unit in the Grade 10 materials includes guiding questions that students track throughout the unit; these questions are present throughout each lesson and within the written materials and tasks. In the independent reading lessons, students read texts related to the anchor texts and use the guiding questions to present their findings on how the texts relate to each other.

Students build knowledge by investigating a topic or anchor text through organized text sets in each unit. Throughout this process, students cite textual evidence and examine themes and complex characterization according to grade-level standards. To support student learning and literacy development, as students develop their projects they examine key ideas and details from texts, use texts to craft definitions of key concepts and themes through close examination of language used by the authors of the core texts read, examine choices made in film adaptations of literature and how these choices affect the overall meaning of the texts, and embed their learning into final products that take key details and structure into account as they compose their final drafts.

The Foundation Unit provides data for teachers to make decisions about the support necessary in future development units and whether students might need additional guidance or differentiation. The scaffolding for students is consistent to support students in grade-level proficiency by the end of the year and to support comprehension of grade appropriate complex texts. By the end of the year, analysis of key ideas, details, craft, and structure are embedded into student tasks and routines.

Materials require students to analyze the key ideas, details, craft, and structure within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently-sequenced, high-quality questions and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • For most texts, students analyze key ideas and details and craft and structure (according to grade-level standards).

    • The materials contain coherently sequenced questions and tasks that address key ideas and details.

      • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students complete a culminating task: a 5–7 minute group presentation of a self-selected ethical issue. Students choose one of several options to reach the final product including the opportunity to create “a text set of need-to-read documents (text-based, visual, or audio) that cover various aspects of your pathway, along with your pathway group’s analysis of those documents.” An example of this analysis is found in Section 3, Lesson 2, as students read and annotate a common text to determine the central idea of the text and how specific information in the text supports their inquiry pathway.

      • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2 addresses the question: What are the elements used to make a good story?

        • In Lesson 3, students read “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner to review literary elements related to characterization within the text. Students consult the Narratives Reference Guide, built as a resource for this curriculum. Guiding prompts from the Narratives Reference Guide on structure and point of view include, but are not limited to:

          • “Determine what kind of ending the story has.

          • Think about the relationships between the character’s tragic flaws and the story’s plot, resolution, and themes.”

      • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 2, Activity 4, students read “From Alexander Hamilton to The Royal Danish American Gazette, 6 September 1772” by Alexander Hamilton. To analyze key ideas and details in the text, students underline unfamiliar words and note any sections of the text that reveal the central idea. In a subsequent activity in the same lesson, students further examine the central idea by analyzing the purpose. Students then write a central idea statement in one or two sentences.

      • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 2, students read chapters 2–3 of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, analyzing complex characters and citing textual evidence when responding to questions in their Learning Log; examples include:

        • “Describe Okonkwo’s relationship with his wives and children and explain the reason for his behavior. What evidence from the text offers the strongest support for this interpretation?”

      • In Section 2, Lesson 4, students read Chapter 14 and answer questions, such as:

        • “What is Okonkwo’s attitude now that he has been exiled? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?”

      • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 4, Lesson 2, students determine the relevance of the research materials they collected using the Research Frame Tool. Students use the Research Frame Tool to inquiry questions and keywords gathered from the text. This tool is used to show relevance between key ideas and details from the texts researched and then inquiry paths students select.

    • The materials contain coherently sequenced questions and tasks that address craft and structure.

      • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 4, students read two excerpts from Sandra Cisneros’s “A House of My Own” and answer questions to determine how the author uses language to convey meaning, including:

        • “As you read the two excerpts, what do you notice about the author’s use of language and how the structure of her sentences shifts? Provide specific examples of the author’s use of language and sentence syntax from the text.”

      • In Section 3, Lesson 3, students examine Amy Tan’s use of language when reading “Mother Tongue.” Students answer questions, such as:

        • “What do you think Tan is saying about writing when she uses the phrase “the intersection of memory upon imagination?”

      • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 2, students examine the vocabulary in “From Alexander Hamilton to The Royal Danish American Gazette, 6 September 1772” by Alexander Hamilton to determine the meaning of words and their impact on the text. Students answer questions, such as:

        • “What does the context suggest the word means? What is its connotation, and how does that compare with a dictionary definition?”

      • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students focus on character analysis and an exploration of the missionary and Igbo tribes to answer guiding questions such as:

        • “What shapes Okonkwo’s character?

        • How do secondary characters enrich the novel?”

      • In Section 2, Lesson 2, students read, “Colonialism Explained” by Jamila Osman to determine an author’s perspective and how it is developed over the course of a text. Throughout the lesson, students answer guiding questions to gather evidence that frames their analysis of the author’s perspective in preparation for a class discussion on the author’s perspective about colonialism. Prompts for the discussion include:

        • “Based on the tone and central idea of the text, what do you think is the author’s perspective on colonialism? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

        • How does the author use rhetoric (e.g. language, word choice, structure of main points, facts, data, and historical context) to develop her perspective?”

      • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 3, students analyze the craft and structural choices from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Students use the Author Craft Note-Taking Tool to examine various aspects of the text, such as tone, representation of key persons, and figurative language. Students apply the knowledge from the task to a subsequent activity in Section 3, Lesson 3, in which they write an analytical statement about the author’s craft in Chapters 26–28 of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

  • By the end of the year, these components (language, word choice, key ideas, details, structure, craft) are embedded in students’ work rather than taught directly.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students complete a culminating activity in which they compose an “expository essay comparing the portrayal of Henrietta Lacks’s story in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with its portrayal in one of the unit’s companion texts.” Students answer guiding objectives, such as “Explain the techniques that are used in each text to convey her story.” To build capacity to complete the task, in Section 3, Lesson 3, students use the Author’s Craft Note-Taking Tool to analyze Skloot’s craft by answering a cloze reading prompt: “What effect does Skloot’s use of _____ have on the reader’s understanding of the text?” Students then reflect on the following ideas in their Learning Log:

      • “the technique that Rebecca Skloot devises by using the terms on the Author Craft Note-Taking Tool

      • an example of this technique from your reading

      • the purpose of the technique and its intended effect.”

    • These activities help support students embedding these ideas in their final product at the end of the unit.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 3, students read “New Media, old Messages: Themes in the History of Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal” by Jason Schwartz to identify and analyze key ideas and details in response to the text-specific prompt:

      • “Preserving and Promoting Vaccination in a Democracy: What does the author suggest is a superior strategy for advocates of vaccines and why? How do key details from the text explain and support this strategy?”

    • Students may work with a partner, and the materials include Teaching Notes for instructors to provide additional student support and differentiation. In Section 3, Lesson 3, students independently read and annotate excerpts from “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’’ by the United Nations General Assembly. Students annotate the document for key words, phrases, and ideas related to questions, such as: What stipulations in the declaration relate to the health and welfare of all humans?” In Section 5, students complete a culminating task that “respond[s] to a complex ethical question by researching information, identifying perspectives, delineating arguments, developing a personal perspective and position, and writing an evidence-based argument.” By this point in the unit, students are familiar with the evaluation process and were guided in preparing their research and returning to guiding questions encountered in the unit. Students follow a Culminating Task Checklist and rubric to support their planning, pacing, and accountability to embed the required components within their work to demonstrate mastery of unit skills and standards.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students apply the knowledge acquired in previous units regarding key ideas, details, craft, and structure to find, assess, and annotate appropriate texts for their culminating research assignment. Guiding questions prompt students to independently focus on key ideas, details, craft, and structure and are embedded in the lesson activities rather than the explicit teaching of the components.

Indicator 2C
04/04

Materials require students to analyze the integration of knowledge within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently sequenced, high-quality text-specific and/or text-dependent questions and tasks.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2c.

The Grade 10 materials include questions and tasks to support students’ analysis of knowledge and ideas via sets of coherently sequenced higher-order questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language, knowledge, and ideas within a text or texts to make meaning and to build an understanding of a text or a topic.

Throughout the year, students read a variety of selections for analysis and annotation while investigating a topic. The sequences of text-specific and/or text-dependent questions support students in their ability to analyze across multiple texts and within single texts. The materials juxtapose texts strategically to build student knowledge around a common topic or theme. Lessons build to a unit culminating task or project through which students demonstrate understanding of the core body of knowledge and skills built into the unit. By the end of the year, integrating knowledge and ideas is embedded in student work.

Materials require students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently-sequenced, high-quality, text-specific and/or text-dependent questions and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Most sets of questions and tasks support students’ analysis of knowledge.

    • Sets of questions and tasks provide opportunities to analyze within single texts.

      • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, students focus on the text “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making.” In Lesson 9, students prepare for the Section Diagnostic by reading and annotating the text and discussing the following questions with a partner:

        • “What is the problem or challenge of applying an approach described in the framework?

        • Why is the framework for making decisions important to making ethical decisions?”

      • Students use this analysis to support building the knowledge needed to apply to the Section Diagnostic where they “choose an approach from ‘A Framework for Ethical Decision Making’ and apply it to the ethical dilemma presented by self-driving cars.” In Section 2, Lesson 2, students analyze Rachel Carson’s “A Fable for Tomorrow” by responding to a series of questions including:

        • “What is the main idea expressed in this reading?

        • What are three to four sentences presented in the text that represent the main idea or enhance your thinking on the topic?

        • What pathway is represented by this reading? Based on what you have read, would you like to further explore this topic?”

      • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 3, students continue to build knowledge relating to good storytelling, focusing on who tells the story and the narrator’s perspective. Students read and analyze Amy Tan’s memoir and essay, “Mother Tongue,” considering a series of text-specific questions, including:

        • “In her essay, Tan expresses multiple views of her mother and her use of the English language—views that have shifted over time. What are two contrasting views presented by Tan, and what language and examples does she use to characterize her mother’s English? Cite specific examples from the text.

        • How does Tan use her experiences with her mother (and her mother’s English) to develop a narrative about herself as a person and a writer?”

      • In Section 4, Lesson 3, students read three texts that employ fictional narration and narrative nonfiction to answer:

        • “How do the stories of the three survivors compare? What evidence from the text supports this comparison?

        • What do they add up to in terms of helping us understand the impact of 9/11 on survivors’’ lives?

        • What do you think Sides is trying to communicate with his nonfiction narrative?

        • What do you think is the story’s meaning or theme?”

      • This series of coherently sequenced questions scaffold to support student understanding of the key ideas and details of the passages.

    • Sets of questions and tasks provide opportunities to analyze across multiple texts.

      • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 3, Lessons 1 and 2, students closely examine songs from Hamilton the Revolution in tandem with excerpts from Introduction to Washington and Hamilton’s Relationship to explore how the relationship between Washington and Hamilton was represented in the musical and in the primary sources. Students use the Washington-Hamilton Note-Taking Tool to analyze the songs and use the evidence collected to complete the Comparison Organizational Frame, a tool to support students’ comparisons of the musical and the primary source. In Section 3, Lesson 4, students integrate knowledge and ideas from multiple texts to compare how Alexander Hamilton is represented in Hamilton the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarte to how he is represented in primary sources. Students answer questions such as: “How did Lin-Manuel Miranda interpret primary and secondary sources to portray Hamilton’s relationship with Washington?”

      • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 1, students read “Igbo Culture and History” by Don Ohadike as an introduction to the Igbo Culture and primer to the colonization of Nigeria before they begin to read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Students question what they find interesting about the culture and identify what they would like to learn more about. Both texts and associated tasks prepare students to answer the Central Question of the Unit: “What does it mean for things to fall apart?” In Section 2, Lesson 8, students further develop their understanding of the history and culture of the Igbo tribe and the novel’s author, Chinua Achebe. Students continue analyzing “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats and then write a paragraph in Lesson 9 examining Achebe’s choice of title: Things Fall Apart. During text analysis, students respond to questions such as:

        • “What kind of event is the speaker describing?

        • How do you know? To what source or event does Yeats allude in the poem?”

      • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 3, Lesson 3, students synthesize research findings from multiple texts and use the Research Frame Tools with their team, reviewing their inquiry paths and questions and establish which steps they would like to take as they move forward with their research.

  • By the end of the year, integrating knowledge is embedded in students’ work.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students complete a culminating task to compare the portrayal of Henrietta Lacks in the core text and a unit companion text. Students “Evaluate which text, the book or the companion text, is the most compelling in relating the story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells.” Students practice embedding this knowledge throughout the unit in a series of activities.

      • In Section 2, Lesson 5, students explore the importance of how the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, uses primary sources to develop Henrietta Lacks in the text.

      • In Section 4, Lesson 2, students explore the painting Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine by Kadir Nelson and discuss questions, such as: “What aspects of Henrietta Lacks’s story are emphasized in the painting?”

    • These activities help students develop skills to integrate this knowledge in the culminating activity.

      • In Section 5, students complete the Culminating Task to integrate knowledge from multiple sources to write an expository essay comparing the life of Henrietta Lacks’ as portrayed in both texts. Integration of student knowledge is embedded in students’ work as they answer guiding questions such as: “How do other texts portray the story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell culture?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 2, students build background knowledge for Subtopic 3: Access to Public Health Resources by reading two seminal documents from the United Nations, including excerpts from “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “UN Declaration of Universal Health Coverage.” Students consider how the documents relate to other approaches and seminal documents they study as well as how the principles outlined in the documents are relevant to public health and controversies while ensuring equal access to health resources such as vaccines. As an example, students examine, “How should we address issues of unequal access to public health resources, healthcare, and preventative measures such as vaccines?” Student tasks and close analyses of texts help prepare them to work in research teams to investigate the central topic and to “write an evidence-based argument that presents and supports an ethics-based position in response to a significant public health question.” In Section 5, students complete the Culminating Task to “respond to a complex ethical question by researching information, identifying perspectives, delineating arguments, developing a personal perspective and position, and writing an evidence-based argument.” By the end of the year, the students choose and prepare their own topic of study, returning to guiding questions encountered in the Foundation Unit and throughout the Development Units. Students follow a Culminating Task Checklist and rubric to support their planning, pacing, and accountability to embed the required components within their work to demonstrate mastery of unit skills and standards.

Indicator 2D
04/04

Culminating tasks require students to demonstrate their knowledge of a unit's topic(s)/theme(s) through integrated literacy skills (e.g., a combination of reading, writing, speaking, listening).

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2d.

The Grade 10 materials include multimodal and summative unit Culminating Tasks that provide various ways for students to communicate their understanding to smaller peer groups and to the larger learning community. Unit Culminating Tasks are varied and include the following: Narrative Essay/Group Presentation; Fictional, Personal, or Historical Narrative; Literary Analysis; Explanatory Essays; Argumentative Essay; and Portfolio/Group Presentation. Session Diagnostics at the end of each unit section provide formative opportunities to assess student readiness of the discrete skills required to complete each Culminating Task. According to the Program Guide: “Written diagnostics tasks span a range of task types, including literary analysis, argument, narrative, and expository. Oral diagnostics may be tasks done by an individual (e.g., participation in a Socratic Seminar) or in groups (e.g., presentation of an analysis with teammates).”

Culminating tasks require students to demonstrate their knowledge of a unit’s topic/theme through integrated literacy skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Culminating tasks are evident across a year’s worth of material and they are multifaceted, requiring students to demonstrate mastery of several different standards (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) at the appropriate grade level. Culminating tasks are varied across the year and provide students the opportunity to demonstrate comprehension and knowledge of a topic or topics through integrated skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening).

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students complete the Culminating Task, a presentation and reflection incorporating speaking, listening, reading and writing skills to answer the Central Question: “How do we determine the right thing to do?” Throughout the unit, students consider ethical issues, including environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, ethics of identity and representation, sports ethics, and ethics of social justice.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 4, Lesson 6, students complete the Section 4 Diagnostic to research a historical or contemporary event or figure and write a historical narrative depicting the story of the selected event or figure. For this task, students are required to demonstrate mastery of several standards, including writing narratives using a variety of narrative techniques, drawing evidence to support analysis of texts, analyzing themes, and using precise language.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 5, students complete a Diagnostic Task to create lyrics for an original song or to write additional verses to an existing song from Hamilton: An American Musical. This task incorporates the reading of research, writing of a song, and speaking and listening during group work. In addition, students reflect on their Diagnostic Task and self-assess their preparation for the Culminating Task, a personal essay reflective of the creative process and addressing the unit Central Question: “How do storytellers use primary sources?”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students read the text Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In Section 1, Lesson 10, students complete the Section 1 Diagnostic, a multi-paragraph analysis of how Achebe uses foils to amplify Okonkwo’s character. In Section 2, Lesson 11, students complete the Section 2 Diagnostic, a whole-class Socratic Seminar addressing the question: “How does Achebe build up tension in Section 2 of Things Fall Apart?” Student-facing materials prompt students as follows:

      • “A successful Socratic Seminar requires you to have read the text closely, reviewed your notes and annotations, and prepared to articulate your ideas clearly. The expectation is that everyone participates in the discussion. You can engage in the discussion through the following discussion strategies:

        • posing meaningful questions that propel the conversation

        • asking clarifying questions

        • respectfully challenging perspectives

        • building on others’ ideas by providing additional evidence or ideas

        • synthesizing your peers’ ideas.”

    • Both diagnostics provide opportunities for students to demonstrate comprehension and knowledge of a topic through integration of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 9, students complete the Section Diagnostic, a literary analysis to demonstrate an understanding of Rebecca Skloot’s writing techniques and their effects as exemplified in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In Section 3, Lesson 9, students complete the Section Diagnostic, a Socratic seminar addressing the question: “In what ways did the history of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells change our world?” As the unit Culminating Task, students write an expository essay in which they evaluate and explain which text is the most compelling relating to the story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. The various unit tasks provide students multiple opportunities to demonstrate understanding of the texts they are examining through reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students work in groups to submit research portfolios the instructor uses to assess their progress toward the Culminating Task, a collaborative research presentation that demonstrates their findings and conclusions of their group-developed research questions. In Section 1, Lesson 7, students submit their preliminary research portfolio, including their completed Exploring a Topic Tool, Central Research Question Checklist, Potential Sources Tool, and individual reflections. The Potential Sources Tool asks students text-specific questions, such as:

      • “What is the purpose of the text with respect to the topic?

      • Does the text provide accurate, current and supported information?”

    • In Section 3, Lesson 8, students resubmit their portfolios, including the Research Frame Tool, Potential Sources Tool, Research Note-Taking Tool, Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool, Organizing Evidence Tool, Research Evaluation Checklist, and three claims about their inquiry questions or research problem. The Organizing Evidence Tool prompts students to state claims from their research and to cite supporting evidence from the resources they collected. In both portfolio submissions, the teacher provides feedback and the students self-assess their preparedness by answering a series of guided questions, including:

      • “How well did you take necessary action to prepare for the task?

      • What went well for you during the completion of this task?

      • What did you struggle with during the completion of this task? How did you push through that struggle?”

    • Students use the Culminating Task Checklist to assist their completion of the task which includes the following categories for assessment: Reading & Knowledge Goals, Writing Goals, and Speaking & Listening Goals. Students complete the checklist by answering prompts, such as: “How well does our presentation use visual media and technological tools in an effective way, building the audience’s interest and illuminating our findings?”

  • Earlier text-specific and/or text-dependent questions and tasks are coherently sequenced and will give the teacher usable information about the student’s readiness (or whether they are “on track”) to complete culminating tasks.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 5, students expand on their understanding of ethics by reading about the rights approach and using the Ethical Approach Note-Taking Tool to synthesize their learning. Subsequent to reading “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, students apply the rights approach to previous readings and discuss some of the approach’s advantages and disadvantages. The student-facing materials provide guidance and a series of questions, including:

      • “How does this approach relate to the question, ‘Should Batman kill the Joker?’ that was posed in the Crash Course video?

      • What are the advantages of this ethical approach?

      • How is this a challenging ethical approach? What are some of its disadvantages?”

    • The various readings and lesson activities prepare students for the Culminating Task, an oral presentation in which they collaboratively research, create, and deliver a presentation about ethical issues and write an individual reflection on their research process. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide additional guidance, such as:

      • “These questions are designed to direct students to connect the rights approach to Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative and to understand why this approach can be challenging to apply.”

    • Teachers may use these opportunities to inform instructional decisions and to assess student understanding of the texts throughout the unit.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lesson 1, students collect evidence and engage in a class discussion to analyze the tone in Chapter 12 of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Teachers use this activity to monitor student preparedness for the Section Diagnostic to write a multi-paragraph response to the following questions:

      • “How does Skloot convey various perspectives about complex issues in Part 2 of the book?

      • What impact do her choices have on the reader’s understanding of the complex issues—race, ethics, class, and science—in the text?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students work throughout the unit to prepare for the Culminating Task, an argument essay addressing the unit Central Question: “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” In Section 2, Lesson 6, for example, students examine arguments on complex public health issues by answering questions, such as:

      • “The Common Good: In what ways does the argument reflect consideration of the common good?

      • Individual Rights and Personal Liberty: In what ways does the argument reflect consideration of individual rights or personal liberty?”

    • In Section 2, Lesson 11, students utilize their Learning Logs to self-assess both their performance on the Section 2 Diagnostic and their preparation for the unit Culminating Task by responding to a series of prompts, including:

      • “How well did you take necessary action to prepare for the task?

      • What went well for you during the completion of this task?

      • What did you struggle with during the completion of this task? How did you push through that struggle?

      • How well did you actively focus your attention during this independent task?”

    • Students then update their Culminating Task Tracker to include any skills or content area knowledge they need to address and to evaluate how well they are mastering the required knowledge and skills. Finally, students consider the unit Central Question: “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” as they respond in their Learning Log to the prompt: “How has your response to the question evolved, deepened, or changed?” In Section 5, Lesson 1, students begin working on the Culminating Task to “Write an evidence-based argument in response to a complex ethical debate in the realm of public health.” Earlier sections of the unit include text-specific and text-dependent questions and tasks to prepare students for the Culminating Task.

Indicator 2E
04/04

Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to achieve grade-level writing proficiency by the end of the school year.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2e.

The Grade 10 materials provide writing tasks across the grade level that increase in complexity. The program’s design provides practice through Section Diagnostics to allow teachers to monitor student progress of grade appropriate writing activities and to prepare students for completing the unit summative tasks. The program also offers a final Application Unit as a capstone in which students can follow a self-selected topic of inquiry and apply writing skills they acquire and practice throughout the year. The student-facing materials include guidance as students complete writing tasks, and the teacher-facing materials provide additional support for scaffolding, including opportunities for modeling and using exemplar or model texts students read during the unit. A Literacy Toolbox includes Reference Guides and Tools to support student writing tasks. These tools are incorporated purposefully throughout the course materials.

Students encounter a Culminating Task at the beginning of each unit and perform a series of formal and informal writing activities addressing grade-level standards to build their knowledge and writing skills over the course of each unit. The materials provide students a wide range of writing tasks, including short-response questions, guiding questions, and formative writing opportunities throughout the year. Writing tasks vary in length and purpose and help students to develop their analytical, argumentative, informational, and narrative writing skills. The lessons provide a cohesive design so that students apply and expand the skills they learn from previous lessons to perform on later lessons throughout the units. Culminating tasks walk students through each stage of the writing process and allow students to monitor their progress with rubrics, checklists, and graphic organizers. Writing instruction and assignments scale up in difficulty throughout the year. Writing instruction supports students’ growth in writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the year.

Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to achieve grade-level writing proficiency by the end of the school year. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials include writing instruction that aligns to the standards for the grade level and supports students’ growth in writing skills over the course of the school year.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 3, Lesson 2, students write a concise, objective summary of the text. Supports for students include the Attending to Details Tool, The Foundation Unit Research Guide, and the Foundation Unit Pathway Text “How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?” Scaffolds include completing the Attending to Details tool as a group, creating a list of the central ideas in the text, using the Assess the Usefulness of Sources for Your Research Purposes portion of the Research Guide to ensure the relevance of the text to student research, and using the Evaluating Ideas Tool to determine how language choices indicate author’s perspective. These steps and stages allow the students to meet the Lesson Goal: “Can I write a concise, objective summary of the text?”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students write an original narrative for the Culminating Task. To support grade-level writing proficiency, students practice various narrative writing techniques throughout the unit, and the writing tasks provide opportunities for teachers to assess student readiness and support them to achieve proficiency with the Culminating Task. In Section 2, Lesson 2, for example, students respond to the following questions in their Learning Log:

      • “What might happen in a story you could tell—perhaps one drawn from your own experiences?

      • What might be the opening scene (exposition) in your story?

      • How might you develop and complicate your story in its middle (rising action, complication)?

      • What kind of ending (climax, resolution) might the events of your story lead to?”

    • Students use these questions to begin to plan their narratives and to outline the structure of their writing. In Section 2, Lesson 8, students write a narrative response to the question: “How might you retell a classic story?” The writing task connects to mentor texts students read during the unit, including “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, and “The Far and the Near” by Thomas Wolfe. The student-facing materials prompt students to reflect on the knowledge and skills they are developing in preparation for the Culminating Task. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include additional guidance to support students, such as:

      • “Encourage students to make connections among what they have learned in this section, what they have learned in the Section Diagnostic, and what is required to successfully complete the Culminating Task.”

    • Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards that require students to:

      • “Organize Ideas: How well do I group and sequence narrative details, paragraphs, and sentences to produce a coherent and well-developed retelling of a classic story?

      • Develop Ideas: How well do I use a first-person point of view to retell and develop a classic story told originally in third person?

      • Use Language to Convey Meaning: How well do I use vivid, descriptive images and words to retell a classic story in the style of its original author?”

    • In Section 3, Lesson 4, students review the Section 3 Diagnostic Checklist to self-assess their understanding of the narrative writing process before they complete a one-to-two page narrative of a moment in their life that is both “dramatic and meaningful.” Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards that require students to “identify important details and examples of the writer’s craft.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 10, students complete the Section Diagnostic, a mutiparagraph analysis of how Achebe uses foils to amplify Okonkwo’s character in the text, Things Fall Apart. Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards that require students to:

      • “Form Claims: How well do I develop and clearly communicate meaningful and defensible claims about Okonkwo that represent valid, evidence-based analysis?

      • Develop Ideas: How well do I use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, evidence, and visual elements to support and elaborate on coherent and logical narratives, explanations, and arguments?

      • Organize Ideas: How well do I sequence and group sentences and paragraphs and use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, and evidence to establish coherent, logical, and well-developed explanations?

      • Use Conventions to Produce Clear Writing: How well do I apply correct and effective syntax, usage, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?”

    • Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide guidance to support students, such as:

      • “You can use evidence gathered from students’ Section Diagnostic responses to determine where individuals or groups of students might need additional support, especially regarding the skills and knowledge they will apply on the Culminating Task.”

    • The activities include an opportunity for students to reflect on their work and to self-assess readiness for the Culminating Task to write a character analysis of Okonkwo that addresses the unit Central Question: “What does it mean for things to fall apart?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students complete the Culminating Task, an expository essay comparing the portrayal of Henrietta Lacks’s story in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with its portrayal in one of the unit’s companion texts. In Section 1, Lesson 5, the student-facing materials direct students to “Respond to the following questions in your Learning Log, citing evidence from the text to support your answers:

      • What more do you learn about Henrietta in this chapter?

      • What do you learn about Rebecca Skloot in this chapter?”

    • This writing activity serves as a scaffold to prepare students for other unit writing assignments, including the Culminating Task in Section 5. Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards that ask students:

      • “Can I sequence and group sentences and paragraphs and use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, evidence, and visual elements to establish coherent, logical, and well-developed narratives, explanations, and arguments?

      • Can I recognize points of connection among texts, textual elements, and perspectives to make logical, objective comparisons?

      • Can I apply correct and effective syntax, usage, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?

      • Can I use effective formatting, style, and citations to present ideas for specific audiences and purposes?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students complete the Culminating Task, an argumentative essay addressing the prompt, “In light of personal beliefs, individual rights, and social justice, how should we address the common good as it relates to topics of public health?” Students develop their ability to accomplish the Culminating Task throughout the unit in the form of Section Diagnostics and informal writing activities within the unit lessons. In Section 2, Lesson 1, for example, students use the Video Note-Taking Tool to record the arguments that experts and parents present for and against vaccinations in the Frontline video, “The Vaccine War.” In Section 4, Lesson 1, students employ the Delineating Arguments Tool to examine a model argument presented in “Measles, Mumps, and Religious Freedom: Mandatory Vaccination and the Limits of Parental Rights” by Christopher O. Tollefson by identifying issues and questions and by locating claims and supporting evidence presented in the text. Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards that ask students:

      • “Can I delineate and explain the structure of a research-based model argument about ‘Mandatory Vaccination and the Limits of Parents Rights’?

      • Can I plan a sequence of the claims and evidence I will use to support my argument about a public health controversy?”

    • These activities reflect a cohesive plan to support student understanding of how arguments are structured and help them develop their own arguments for the unit Culminating Task.

  • Instructional materials include a variety of well-designed guidance, protocols, models, and support for teachers to implement and monitor students’ writing development.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section1, Lesson 1, the materials provide resources to help students unpack and complete the Culminating Task to write an original song to be included in Hamilton The Revolution. In addition to the Literacy Toolbox, which is useful to teachers in every unit and lesson, the Teaching Notes for this activity offer specific guidance to support student writing, including ideas and materials for a mini-lesson on the difference between poetry and prose. In Section 2, Lesson 11, students “write a response comparing Miranda’s interpretation of Hamilton’s views of slavery with what we found in our reading of primary and secondary sources.” The Teacher Edition provides guidance for teachers to support students through this writing process, such as:

      • “Some students might benefit from using a tool when composing their response. Sentence frames can also be a useful scaffolding for all students, regardless of ability range and are particularly useful for English learners.”

    • The use of organizers and sentence frames represents a protocol for teachers to implement writing development.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students complete a character analysis of the character Okonkwo in which students “consider how internal and external factors influence his relationships and contribute to his fate at the end of the novel.” The materials offer a variety of protocols and support in the form of guides, tools, and suggestions presented in the Teaching Notes section of the Teacher Edition. In Section 4, Lesson 2, for example, the Teaching Notes suggest that teachers review the Claims Reference Guide to model for students how to form claims in their own writing. Similarly, in Section 4, Lesson 5, the Teaching Notes prompt teachers to direct students to the Conventions Reference Guide for their Culminating Task essay revision activity to help model writing conventions such as parallel structure and incorporating mentor sentences.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 4, students utilize their Mentor Sentence Journals to identify and record sentences they find interesting or ones that are strong examples of language concepts. The student-facing materials guide students through the process through prompts, such as:

      • “What does this sentence contribute to the author’s ideas in the text?

      • How does it expand your understanding of the text or author?”

    • Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide additional details to guide teaching strategies, such as choosing at least one mentor sentence worthy of careful study in advance:

      • “You might model a mentor sentence analysis by engaging in a think-aloud as you follow the steps for deconstruction, analysis, and writing practice. If needed, consider working on a second mentor sentence with the whole class, allowing the students to work as a group. Then, you can divide the students into groups and turn over the work to them.”

Indicator 2F
04/04

Materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2f.

Grade 10 materials build skills throughout the year, including opportunities for collaborative research, evaluating sources, synthesis and analysis of texts, and applying those skills in a unit-long research project as a capstone for the course. The Program Guide provides details relating to active learning through inquiry: “In the Foundation and Application units, students investigate a topic through recursive and iterative cycles of inquiry in which they work in learning communities to explore significant issues and topics, refine research questions, find and assess sources for relevance and credibility, and present their research in various forms.” Students compile comprehensive research on specific questions during the final Application Unit and present their findings to their learning community. The student-determined text set during the final unit provides students with an opportunity to explore topics they have been learning more deeply and demonstrate the research skills they acquire.

The materials reviewed for this grade level include a progression of research skills according to the grade level standards by providing various opportunities for students to engage in online research and discussion of unit topics and to cite evidence from multiple sources in the Lesson Activities, Section Diagnostics, Culminating Tasks, and Independent Reading Presentations. Students also have the opportunity to synthesize work and analyze content through a variety of tools provided in the materials and are given opportunities to complete research projects of varying lengths. Materials sequence research projects throughout the year to help students progress in their research skills. At the beginning of the year, students begin to practice working in groups in the Foundation Unit with focused guidance from the instructor, and during the Application Unit at the end of the year students work collaboratively in self-directed teams with the instructor acting as coach or facilitator. Materials support teachers in employing projects that develop students’ knowledge of different aspects of a topic. The materials provide guidance and support to teachers, including but not limited to, questions to prompt student thinking, graphic organizers to assist students, and an option for teachers to provide various scaffolds for students.

Materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Research projects are sequenced across a school year to include a progression of research skills according to grade-level standards.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do, students complete the Section Diagnostic using their research from Section 1 to “draft a multi-paragraph analysis of an ethical dilemma, using the information gained from texts in this section to analyze the dilemma.” Later in the unit, in Section 4, Lesson 1, students begin their Culminating Tasks in which they “Collaboratively participate in a research team to choose a pathway option and create and deliver a 5–7 minute presentation about ethics and why ethical issues are complex in that pathway.” In Section 4, Lesson 3, students complete the Application Unit Potential Topics Tool and use the following questions as a guide:

      • “Were there any particular topics or texts that captured your attention? Why?

      • What about each text or topic do you still want to study? What questions do you still have? Write these down in the Questions or Subtopics to Explore column.

      • How would you begin to research each text or topic?”

    • These lessons represent a progression of research skills throughout the unit.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students complete the Culminating Task, a personal essay reflecting on the creative process of creating original song lyrics using primary and secondary sources. After completing the Culminating Task, in Section 6, Lesson 5, students engage in a whole class or group discussion of possible connections among the unit, other units from the year, and the research students might choose to do in the final Application Unit. In the Application Unit, Section 1, Lesson 1, students use the Application Unit Potential Topics Tool to develop potential topics to explore with their research teams by addressing the questions:

      • “Which questions fascinate you?

      • What mysteries would you most love to dig into, whether or not they can ever be solved?”

    • These activities are sequenced throughout the year to allow students to reflect on the skills they developed and prepare them for the final Culminating Task of the year.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students examine the ways in which the Central Question, “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” plays out in the realm of public health decision making. To learn how broad ethical questions and approaches apply in a specific context, students examine the historical and contemporary history of vaccinations, public health mandates, and personal dissent by reading informational sources to build background knowledge, analyzing and delineating various perspectives and arguments, and developing their own perspectives and positions. For the Culminating Task, students work in research teams to further investigate this topic, or a related ethical issue in public health, and write an evidence-based argument that presents and supports an ethics-based position in response to a significant public health question. Student-facing materials prompt students as follows:

      • “Write an argument in which you state your response and logically and sufficiently support your position with claims and textual evidence, including the use of ethical frameworks, examples, statistics, arguments, and direct quotations with parenthetical citations.”

    • To complete this task, students must:

      • “Use correct and effective words, phrases, syntax, and mechanics to clearly communicate your analysis.state your response and logically and sufficiently support your position with claims and textual evidence, including the use of ethical frameworks, examples, statistics, arguments, and direct quotations with parenthetical citations.”

  • Materials support teachers in employing projects that develop students’ knowledge of different aspects of a topic via provided resources.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students compare Lin-Manuel Miranda’s interpretation of Alexander Hamilton’s view on slavery to those found in unit primary and secondary resources. In Section 3, Lesson 2, for example, students work as a class using the Comparison Organizational Frame to compare the relationship between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington presented in the musical to those portrayed in primary sources, such as an excerpt from Illustrating Washington’s Temper, Referencing A. Hamilton Letter 18 February 1781 from Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Student-facing materials guide students as follows:

      • “You will continue using this tool over the next few lessons. You will begin by summarizing what you know about Hamilton and Washington’s relationship.”

    • In Section 4, students continue their study of Alexander Hamilton from the perspective of Historical Accuracy and Artistic License to consider how Lin-Manuel Miranda’s interpretation of Alexander Hamilton compares with the way Hamilton is revealed in the primary and secondary sources read.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 1, students engage in a sustained recursive inquiry process as they conduct research to complete the Culminating Task, a character analysis of Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In Section 4, Lesson 6, students collaborate in groups to discuss their understanding of the novel, including thematic connections to other units of study and possible questions and ideas to explore for the longer Application Unit research task at the end of the year. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide questions and prompts for teachers to support students in their research and Culminating Task, such as:

      • “You might have students develop a master list of important events or quotes from the novel (including page numbers), along with a list of character traits that students feel best fit Okonkwo.”

    • The instructional materials provide a Culminating Task Progress Tracker to help students develop research and note-taking skills, reflect on what they have studied, and consider potential inquiry questions for the final Application Unit. Teachers may use the Culminating Task Progress Tracker to conference with students and guide their questions when monitoring readiness for both the unit Culminating Task for Things Fall Apart, and in beginning the initial stage of planning for The Application Unit end of year research project. The materials also provide an Application Unit Potential Topics Tool for students to capture their reflections, and the student-facing materials provide questions for consideration, such as:

      • “Were there any particular topics or texts that captured your attention? Why?

      • How would you begin to research each text or topic?”

    • Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide additional guidance relating to the Tool students use and the purpose of the project, for example:

      • “It provides a space in which students can capture their reflections about what they found intriguing in a unit and might want to explore further in the Application Unit.

      • It serves as a repository of leads they might research when they arrive at the Application Unit.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, Lesson 11, students have the opportunity to develop different aspects of a topic by analyzing texts that they have chosen for independent reading. Student-facing materials provide the following information to explain how students will use independent reading to make connections to different aspects of the topic:

      • “We will share the analyses we have made about our independent reading texts and make connections to the unit. We will plan a final product to share our experiences from reading independently and the knowledge we have gained.”

  • Materials provide many opportunities for students to synthesize and analyze content tied to the texts under study as a part of the research process.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students work toward the Culminating Task during which they collaboratively participate in a research team to choose a pathway topic and create and deliver a 5–7 minute presentation about ethics and why ethical issues are complex in that pathway. In Section 3, Lesson 7, students complete an annotated bibliography as part of the Section Diagnostic. Students compose their annotated bibliographies by writing “two to three sentences explaining how this text connects to your pathway, how it enhances your understanding, and how it furthers your thinking and lines of inquiry.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 5, Lesson 1, students begin the Culminating Task during which they write an original narrative that presents an interesting story from their lives, their imaginations, current events, or history. Students choose from the genres of Personal Narrative or Memoir, Original Story or Folk Tale, and Nonfiction or Historical Narrative for their original narrative. To prepare for this task, students read an array of stories over the course the unit, including but not limited to, “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” by Mark Twain. Students then analyze and synthesize the various storytelling approaches, use of narrative voice, and use of dialogue in each of these stories before they choose the genre for their own original narrative.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 5, Lesson 7, students have opportunities to synthesize and analyze content as part of the unit Culminating Task by engaging in the following activities explained in the student-facing materials:

      • “We will continue to explore the following question: How will I use primary and secondary sources to create an original work? Following our research, we will closely analyze one of the previously studied songs in order to guide our writing of lyrics for our own original song or writing new verses to an existing song from the musical using our research and the influence of primary sources.”

  • Students are provided with opportunities for both short and long projects across the course of a year and grade bands.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, students complete a Culminating Task during which they write an expository essay comparing the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot with a companion text, such as “HeLa” by L. Lamar Wilson and “Henrietta Lacks, HeLa Cells and Cell Culture Contamination” by Brendan P. Lucey, Walter A. Nelson-Rae and Grover M. Hutchins. As part of this longer project, students engage in shorter research activities within the unit in the form of Section Diagnostics. In Section 3, Lesson 9, for example, students participate in a Socratic Seminar as the Section Diagnostic to discuss what the book presents in regards to the life of Henrietta Lacks. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition explain:

      • “Once students have completed this task, they will have a better understanding of how the text fits in with the history of race, class, science, and ethics in America.”

    • In Section 4, Lesson 7, students write a multi-paragraph response on how The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and one of the companion texts address one of the following central issues: race, ethics, class, and science. Students then reflect on how well they did on the Section Diagnostic and how prepared they are for the Culminating Task. Here we see opportunities for students to expand on their learning of the topic, issue, and resources used as they develop skills and knowledge needed for the culminating task.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students complete a series of short projects as a part of the longer Culminating Task that progresses throughout the unit. In Section 1, Lesson 1, students discuss the importance of a researched perspective and the research process. Students form small research teams and begin developing their research topics. The teacher discusses each phase of the Research Plan and the Research Portfolio Description section. In Section 1, Lesson 2, students begin the first section of a shorter research project using the Exploring a Topic Tool to identify one or two potential Central Research Questions that might lead to valuable questions and problems to explore in their research. Students use this tool to choose which topic to explore for their long project that will complete the unit and the grade level materials. Students may choose from any of the prior units for their long project. Students choose from topics within How Do We Determine the Right Thing To Do?, Telling Stories, Alexander Hamilton, Things Fall Apart, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and The Ethics of Public Health Decisions and all of the texts and topics within these units. In Section 1, Lesson 3, students explore topics and craft research questions to share with their groups. The Application Unit provides students with an opportunity to self-direct their research process, build a research portfolio, and develop a presentation for their learning community that shares their research findings. Tools and Reference Guides students utilize in previous units are available for students in the Literacy Toolbox throughout the unit-long project.

Criterion 2.2: Coherence

06/08

Materials promote mastery of grade-level standards by the end of the year.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 partially meet the criteria for coherence. While suggested implementation schedules align to core learning objectives, the provided Model Yearlong Paths cannot reasonably be completed. The suggested number of minutes per lesson, as well as the number of units suggested for the year, do not seem practical for teachers and students to complete. Optional tasks are meaningful and support core learning.

Indicator 2G
04/04

Materials spend the majority of instructional time on content that falls within grade-level aligned instruction, practice, and assessments.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2g.

The instructional sequence begins with a Foundation Unit, followed by teacher-selected Development Units, and concludes with an Application Unit. Materials include Model Yearlong Paths as suggested guidance. The Foundation Unit serves as the starting point of student-led inquiry; instructional content addresses a large number of the Reading: Informational Text, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language standards. The Development Units include opportunities to revisit these standards and also address the Reading: Literature standards. The Application Unit is the recursive conclusion to students’ inquiry, and instructional content revisits the standards addressed in the Foundation Unit.

As part of the program’s Monitor, Diagnose, Evaluate practice, instruction and assessments are closely linked. Instruction is coherently sequenced, preparing students to respond to standards-aligned, analytical questions and tasks based on the complex texts of study. Questions and tasks are coherently sequenced and prepare students for Section Diagnostics. Each Section Diagnostic builds to the end-of-unit Culminating Task.

Materials spend the majority of instructional time on content that falls within grade-level aligned instruction, practice, and assessments. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Over the course of each unit, the majority of instruction is aligned to grade-level standards.

    • The CCSS Alignment document illustrates coverage of each standard strand. During all three model pathway options, materials address the majority of Reading: Literature, Reading: Informational Text, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language standards.

  • Over the course of each unit, the majority of questions and tasks are aligned to grade-level standards.

    • As students closely read and analyze complex text, they respond to standards-aligned, text-based questions. Questions and tasks require students to cite textual evidence and draw upon the text to infer what is not explicitly stated. Questions and tasks build to and prepare students for the Section Diagnostic and end-of-unit Culminating Task.

  • Over the course of each unit, the majority of assessment questions are aligned to grade-level standards.

    • Section Diagnostics and the end-of-unit Culminating Task align to grade-level standards. Each lesson includes standards-aligned explicit instruction, as well as questions and tasks, that prepares students for the corresponding Section Diagnostic. Each Section Diagnostic prepares students for the Culminating Task.

  • By the end of the academic year, standards are repeatedly addressed within and across units to ensure students master the full intent of the standard.

    • The instructional sequence begins with the Foundation Unit, progresses through three to four Development Units, and ends with the Application Unit. Instruction and assessments within the Foundation Unit and Application Unit address a large number of the Reading: Informational Text, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language standards. Development Units revisit these standards and address Reading: Literature standards.

Indicator 2H
02/04

Materials regularly and systematically balance time and resources required for following the suggested implementation, as well as information for alternative implementations that maintain alignment and intent of the standards.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 partially meet the criteria for Indicator 2h. 

Materials suggest educators begin with the Foundation Unit, choose from five Development Units, and end with the capstone Application Inquiry Unit. The Course-at-a-Glance includes Model Yearlong Paths that contain the following guidance: “These model yearlong paths are only suggestions; teachers and curriculum coordinators should make decisions based on their own expertise.” Materials identify Core Lessons and Optional Lessons. The Optional Lessons enhance core instruction and help students deepen their understanding of each unit's topic and themes. Local districts must select the Development Units strategically to ensure that all standards are addressed across the grade level with a balance of informational text and literature. The Program Guide provides details relating to Choice & Flexibility: “Teachers choose from a variety of Development Units to use throughout the year. Teachers can use the curriculum as written, selecting lessons and activities that meet the needs of their students.” Materials provide additional guidance to educators in the Teaching Notes of the Teacher Edition to make decisions relating to instruction and to provide additional scaffolding when necessary. 

With some diligence in planning, the suggested implementation schedules and alternative implementation schedules align to core learning and objectives. For teachers with a traditional class period and typical number of instructional days, the Model Yearlong Paths are not reasonable to complete, based on the suggested minimum number of 45 minutes per lesson and the number of units suggested for the year. 

Materials sometimes systematically balance time and resources required for following the suggested implementation, as well as information for alternative implementations that maintain alignment and intent of the standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

  • Suggested implementation schedules and alternative implementation schedules align to core learning and objectives. 

    • In the Grade 10 Course-at-a-Glance, materials offer three pathways for instruction: “A,” “B,” and “C.” Each pathway recommends the teacher implement the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, and the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research? The other pathways differ in the types of Development Units they select. Despite differing Development Units, each pathway aligns with core learning and objectives. 

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 3, Lessons 1–9, materials clearly label the Core and Optional Lessons. For example, Lesson 1 is Optional and states, “We will make connections between foundational texts and our pathway texts, and reflect on our current understanding of ethics and our pathways.” Lesson 2 is a Core Lesson, during which students work in their research teams to continue reading, analyzing, and evaluating a common seed text from the Foundation Unit Pathway Texts: “We will evaluate the credibility of the text, and reflect on how prepared we are for the Culminating Task.” During Section 3, students explore the ethical implications of their chosen topics and practice making cross-textual connections, analyzing texts for bias and relevance, and creating an annotated bibliography. The program design requires the teacher to implement Core Lessons, as these lessons align to core learning and objectives. Optional Lessons are not required; however, if selected for implementation, these lessons also support the learning objectives of the unit.

  • Suggested implementation schedules may not be reasonably completed in the time allotted. 

    • In the Grade 10 Course-at-a-Glance, materials provide three Model Yearlong Paths as suggestions. For example, Model Yearlong Path A includes the following units: Foundation: How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Things Fall Apart, Alexander Hamilton, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Application: What Do I Want to Research?, and the Development Unit The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks assigned as independent reading throughout the year. Lessons are designed to span 45–90 minutes, with time contingent on the number of Activities a teacher chooses to include. Due to the number of Core Lessons following the Model Yearlong Path A, a teacher would not be able to reasonably complete these or add Optional Lessons in a typical class period and instructional days in the school year. 

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, the unit includes five sections, two of which are reserved for the Culminating Task. Section 2 contains five Core Lessons, two Section Diagnostic Lessons, and one Independent Reading lesson. In Lesson 4, there are four core activities and one optional activity. If each core activity represents a day of instructional time, this lesson will take four days to complete. Based on these calculations, it will take five weeks for students to complete the Core Lessons, not including time for the Section Diagnostics, Optional Lessons, or time for reinforcing learning. In order to complete the unit in the time allotted, the teacher would have to choose which Core Lessons and Activities to teach. Materials set the premise that the teacher has the final say on how to implement the instructional materials. Pathway “A” offers fewer units to cover with five total units, including an independent reading option. This pathway reduces the number of units in comparison to Pathway “C” which includes six units of study. 

    • In the Grade 10 Course-at-a-Glance, the Model Yearlong Paths recommend completing one of two Development Units, Alexander Hamilton or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as both Units contain an analysis essay for the Culminating Task. The Alexander Hamilton unit consists of 66 lessons, seven of which are considered Optional. Given the quantity of lessons, this unit would be difficult to complete in a grading period, even with the omission of Optional Lessons.  

  • Optional tasks do not distract from core learning. 

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 4, during an Optional Lesson, students learn about the importance of paying attention to authors’ use of language and begin compiling powerful and interesting sentences in their Mentor Sentence Journals, which connect to their core reading. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include examples of mentor sentences, such as, “Despite Hamilton’s reputation as the elitist, the starting point of Madison’s most famous essay, Federalist number 10, is that people possess different natural endowments, leading to an unequal distribution of property and conflicts of classes and interests. (para. 1).” This Optional Lesson supports students in their understanding of the text and aids in their success when completing the Section Diagnostic and Culminating Task. 

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 3, students deepen their learning of vocabulary learned in the unit by contextualizing the word within the time period of the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe:

      • “Contextualize the word: Explain how the word is used in the text. If you chose retain, you might say, ‘In the article “The Colonial Era, (1882-1960),” the Fulani ruling class used the British to keep their power and acquire wealth. Retaining power and wealth was important for colonizers.’” 

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 9, student-facing materials include the following guidance for an optional task: “We will continue to practice delineating and evaluating arguments about mandating vaccinations, using two opposing arguments from a medical journal.” This task extends students’ learning from Lesson 8.  

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 4, Lesson 4, during the optional Activity 4, students work collaboratively to brainstorm the content, structure, and language to use when composing invitations for possible audience members. This activity serves to enhance the instruction and goals of the lesson and cover Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards. 

  • Optional tasks are meaningful and enhance core instruction.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 12, students may complete the following optional task using the following guidance in the student-facing materials: “We will review the teacher’s feedback on our Section Diagnostic and will use the feedback to make revisions to our work.” This activity enhances core instruction as students take time to apply feedback and make their writing stronger.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 10, during an Optional Lesson, students review feedback on the Section Diagnostic in which they compose a response to demonstrate understanding of Rebecca Skloot’s writing techniques and their effect in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This Optional Lesson supports students in making revisions and improving their work, and prepares them for the Culminating Task during which they write an expository essay comparing the portrayal of Henrietta Lacks’s story in the mentor text with its portrayal in one of the unit’s companion texts. Lesson requirements include, but are not limited to: “Explain the techniques used in each text to convey her story. Evaluate the effects of the techniques on your understanding.” 

In Section 4, Lessons 8 and 9, students plan and present a photo essay of someone the student believes deserves recognition. This optional activity enhances the Activities, questions, and goals of the unit while providing support for students who may need additional practice in presenting or require another medium in which to be assessed either in lieu of or in addition to the Section Diagnostic.

  • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 4, Lesson 4, students have the option to work with a peer and discuss the feedback and suggestions they received on their Section Diagnostic. Students then revise their work and discuss how they revised their work. Afterwards, students work with the teacher using the Mentor Sentence Tool to analyze effective use of language from texts read in the unit. 

Overview of Gateway 3

Usability

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for instructional supports and usability. Materials include annotations in each lesson to support and guide teachers with enacting the curriculum. Materials explain complex concepts and include explanations of cross-curricular content beyond the current course, when necessary. Materials use the language of the CCSS in learning objectives but do not explain the role of the standards in the context of the series. Materials provide some strategies for informing stakeholders about the ELA program but do not contain suggestions for how parents or caregivers can help support student progress and achievement. The Program Guide includes detailed descriptions of instructional approaches that relate to all strands of the standards and references a host of reading research. Materials include a comprehensive list of supplies needed to support the instructional activities. Materials include a publisher-provided standards correlation document that identifies the CCSS at the unit level and for each Section Diagnostic and Culminating Task. Each unit contains an Evaluation Plan, which outlines how instructors can monitor, diagnose, and evaluate student performance. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide suggestions for monitoring student performance, including next steps for students’ literacy skill development. Materials utilize various modalities and item types, including written tasks and oral presentations; and discussion questions, constructed response questions, project-based tasks, and research portfolios. While the font size can be increased on assessments, materials do not provide guidance on the use of this accommodation. Materials include embedded instructional supports and differentiation strategies to support students in special populations. Differentiation Strategy sections include questions that extend above grade-level students’ thinking about the texts they read and develop their ideas in a more advanced way to maximize their learning experiences. The program design allows students to make choices about their learning and research. Students and teachers can monitor student learning through formative and summative assessment opportunities, including peer reviews and discussions, teacher feedback on Section Diagnostics, and self-reflection on the culminating tasks. Materials utilize various grouping strategies for students, including individual work with the teacher, pairs/partners, small groups, research teams, and whole group; and include teacher guidance on grouping students in a variety of formats. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide options and strategies for supporting English learners. Student-facing materials include embedded supports. Students have frequent opportunities to engage in peer discussions using Tier 2 academic vocabulary. Most materials and assessments depict individuals of different genders, races, ethnicities, and other physical characteristics. Materials offer a wide variety of texts and topics that balance information of different demographics. Materials work to maintain a balance of positive portrayals in representation to prevent the prevalence of negative stereotypes harmful to students. Materials do not provide suggestions and strategies to use the home language to support students in learning ELA. Teacher materials do not include guidance on how to garner information that will aid in learning, including the family’s preferred language of communication, schooling experiences in other languages, literacy abilities in other languages, and previous exposure to academic or everyday English. Although materials specify assets that should be leveraged, materials do not provide sufficient opportunities for teachers to draw upon student home language or for students to develop home language literacy. Materials miss opportunities to capitalize on the diverse cultural and social backgrounds of students. Learning goals and instructional activities do not consistently leverage students’ cultural and social backgrounds. Opportunities for students to feel acknowledged during tasks based on customs of other cultures or sections of the materials provided in multiple languages are lacking. Materials include teacher guidance on how to engage culturally diverse students in the learning of ELA. Materials include a Remote Learning Guide with details to assist educators, including but not limited to: monitoring student learning, establishing a remote classroom culture, and technology solutions to facilitate virtual instruction. Local customization for asynchronous and synchronous learning is available. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition and student-facing materials include guidance when teachers and students collaborate using digital tools. Materials largely use Google Docs for collaboration and the Remote Learning Guide also references digital technology, such as Zoom, Padlet, and FlipGrid, that offers opportunities for collaboration and helps facilitate discussions. The visual design of the materials is not distracting and should support student learning and engagement. The layout of the materials is consistent across units and grade levels. Organizational features (Table of Contents, glossary, index, internal references, table headers, captions, etc.) in the materials are clear, accurate, and mostly error-free. The Teacher Edition, and when applicable the Teaching Notes, provide guidance on the use of technology to support and enhance student learning.

Criterion 3.1: Teacher Supports

08/09

The program includes opportunities for teachers to effectively plan and utilize materials with integrity and to further develop their own understanding of the content.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for teacher planning and learning.

Materials provide teacher guidance with useful annotations and suggestions for how to enact the student materials and ancillary materials to support students’ literacy development. Materials contain adult-level explanations of the more complex grade-level concepts, as well as concepts beyond the current course, supporting teachers with improving their own knowledge of the subject. Materials use the language of the CCSS in learning objectives but do not explain the role of the standards in the context of the series. Materials provide some strategies for informing stakeholders about the ELA program but do not contain suggestions for how parents or caregivers can help support student progress and achievement. The Program Guide explains the instructional approaches of the program and references research-based strategies utilized throughout the program. Materials include a comprehensive list of supplies needed to support the instructional activities.

Indicator 3A
02/02

Materials provide teacher guidance with useful annotations and suggestions for how to enact the student materials and ancillary materials to support students' literacy development.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3a.

Across the school year, the Teacher Edition includes guidance in the Teaching Notes. Teaching Notes address the following categories: Teaching Strategies and Decisions; About the Author, Concept, Text, Topic; and Student Support and Differentiation. Materials include a Literacy Toolbox for students and teachers. This resource provides both teachers and students support and scaffolds for teaching and growing literacy development and includes a wide range of Reference Guides and Tools, including, but not limited to, Annotating and Note-Taking Reference Guide, Delineating Arguments Tool, and Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool. The Program Guide details the Guiding Principles, Program Design, Unit Components, Instructional Approaches, Support for Students with Diverse Learning Needs, Bias & Sensitivity, and Website Guidance. The Course-at-a-Glance also provides a descriptive snapshot of the program’s overall structure with several suggestions for yearlong pathways.

Materials provide teacher guidance with useful annotations and suggestions for how to enact the student materials and ancillary materials to support students’ literacy development. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide comprehensive guidance that will assist teachers in presenting the student materials and ancillary materials.

    • In the Program Guide, materials explain the function of the Teaching Notes section, “All units contain robust teaching notes that support teachers by providing important content and pedagogical information. The teaching notes are organized into three categories, About the Author, Concept, Text, Topic; Teaching Strategies and Decisions; and Student Support and Differentiation.” Materials offer content and pedagogical information. For example, in the Application Unit, Section 1, Lesson 1, the Teaching Notes provide insight into the importance of vocabulary instruction for ESL learners:

      • These opportunities provide students, particularly English learners, a tremendous chance to increase their cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). Often, students, particularly English learners, employ basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS).

    • Materials present opportunities for teachers to expand their knowledge of what these skills are and how they can support them in the classroom.

    • In the Program Guide, materials provide teacher guidance on the Reference Guides available to students. Student-facing materials include reminders to utilize the Reference Guides, and these reminders are also included in the Teaching Notes. One example includes Reference Guides that support writing, such as Connecting Ideas, Conventions, Integrating Quotations, Organization, and Style. The guides “include definitions, descriptions, and examples of sundry conventions and language usage concepts. For example, the Connecting Ideas Reference Guide includes descriptions of the purpose and effects of transitions and a table highlighting ‘Transition Words and Phrases.’ The Integrating Quotations Reference Guide offers students examples of how to incorporate, and respectively credit, the work of others into their own writing.”

  • Materials include sufficient and useful annotations and suggestions that are presented within the context of the specific learning objectives.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 2, students discuss the essential elements and overall theme of an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The Teacher Edition includes Teaching Notes on Teaching Strategies and Decisions, such as “Students might struggle with expressing the main idea in a single sentence. In those cases, students can write a longer summary before attempting to condense those ideas into a single sentence.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 5, students watch a section of a video. The teacher-facing guidance suggests questions for the teacher to ask as part of a discussion before watching the video. The Teaching Strategies and Decisions Teaching Notes also mention using The Theme Reference Guide to support students with their understanding.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 4, students view and discuss the songs “Guns and Ships,” “History Has Its Eyes on You,” “Yorktown,” “What Comes Next?”, “Dear Theodosia,” and “Non-Stop” from the filmed stage production of Hamilton. The Teaching Notes addressing About the Author, Concept, Text, Topic include the following guidance: “The video timestamp for ‘Dear Theodosia’ is 01:05:01-01:07:50. This song is followed by a one minute scene where Hamilton gets news of John Laurens’s death.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 6, students read a passage which mentions locusts descending on one of the characters. The Teaching Notes direct the teacher to show a short video of locusts descending, so students can get a picture of this in their minds if they have never seen this before. The Student Support and Differentiation Teaching Notes also suggest that the teacher pull a useful quote from the text to model what good evidence and quotations look like to aid students in doing this for themselves.

  • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 4, Lesson 4, during the review of the Section Diagnostic, materials support the teacher with when and how to give substantial feedback to students on their recent Diagnostic Test performance. These suggestions include how to decide if feedback will be given in the lesson immediately following the test, assessing how the class as a whole performed on the diagnostic and what to do if the majority of the students missed certain questions, and providing sentence frames to students struggling to develop and organize their ideas.

  • In the Application Unit: What Do I Want to Research?, Section 3, Lesson 4, students learn how to provide parenthetical citations for the sources of information and quotations they use. The Teaching Edition includes Teaching Notes addressing Student Support and Differentiation, “If students struggle citing evidence, consider modeling different citation examples with a model source and text.”

Indicator 3B
02/02

Materials contain adult-level explanations and examples of the more complex grade-level/course-level concepts and concepts beyond the current course so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3b.

The explanation and examples help build teacher understanding and provide the necessary support for students throughout the lessons. Materials allow teachers to expand their pedagogical approaches by offering alternative activities and explaining how to run protocols in the classroom. Materials also point to external resources that are accessible online. Materials include guidance that is applicable across multiple grade bands and content areas.

Materials provide a teacher’s edition that contains full, adult-level explanations and examples, when necessary, of the more advanced concepts so that teachers can improve their knowledge of the subject. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials contain adult-level explanations and examples of the more complex grade/course-level concepts so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 1, students work on analyzing the narration in multiple texts. The Teacher Edition provides adult-level explanations for helping students analyze the complex narration in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain. Materials reference external sources to broaden teachers’ understanding, “Because of the nature and importance of this narrative structure and voice, students will benefit greatly from listening to the story. There are a number of audio and video renditions available online, including several in which the voice of Simon Wheeler is portrayed by Walter Brennan.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 5, students work on analyzing the different experiences of characters in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The Teacher Edition provides adult-level explanations to help teachers understand different types of claims, such as the following: “For example, you might model how to write an analytical or interpretive claim, in which students state observations or conclusions they have reached by closely examining information or ideas, such as how interpretations of themes are developed and communicated in a text.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 3, Lesson 2, the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest that teachers may want to introduce students to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, noting that this resource can be found online. This suggestion helps build the teacher’s knowledge of the complex concept of universal human rights.

  • Materials contain adult-level explanations and examples of concepts beyond the current course so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 3, materials offer explicit instructions on how to engage in an academic discussion with the class. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest ways to model academic language in a discussion by describing protocols that translate across grade levels and content areas:

      • “Script what students say during the discussion, focusing on strong examples of academic vocabulary and discussion stems.

      • Write sentence starters on the board to help students formulate responses.

      • Write vocabulary on the board to encourage and support students to practice using new words during the discussion.

      • Following the discussion, share the scripted strong examples with students, along with some weak examples.

      • Ask students to describe the qualities of the strong examples.

      • Direct students to revise the weak examples based on the strong examples.”

  • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 2, students closely read the “Preamble to the Constitution” and make text annotations. The Teacher Edition provides the following explanation to support teacher understanding of annotations: “Developing a system for annotating takes practice. You might use the sample annotation key in the Annotating and Note-Taking Reference Guide to model how to annotate the text.”

Indicator 3C
01/02

Materials include standards correlation information that explains the role of the standards in the context of the overall series.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 partially meet the criteria for Indicator 3c.

The Program Guide includes detailed descriptions to assist teachers and students in understanding the program structure, unit types (Foundation, Development, and Application), and assessments. Materials demonstrate coherence between instruction and assessment; teachers can make connections between the skills students are developing and applying over the year to local standards. Materials do not label Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts specifically, nor do materials address the role of the CCSS in the context of the overall series. Each lesson in the student-facing materials includes a Lesson Goal that incorporates the language of the CCSS but does not explicitly cite the CCSS.

Materials provide a teacher’s edition that includes standards correlation information that explains the role of the standards in the context of the overall series. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Correlation information is present for the ELA standards addressed throughout the grade level/series.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 4, Lesson 2, students present their Culminating Task or actively listen to and participate in the presentation of their classmates. The Culminating Task Checklist includes the following evaluation criteria: Reading & Knowledge, Speaking & Listening, and Writing. An example of a Speaking & Listening Goal, for Generate Ideas is as follows: “How well do I generate and develop ideas, positions, products, and solutions to problems?” Teachers can correlate the language of the Lesson Goals to the CCSS. Materials do not specifically cite CCSS.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 3, an example of a Lesson Goal includes: “Can I analyze the language in, and explain the significance of, selected excerpts from a section of the story?” The student edition contains Lesson Goals in “Can I?” statements to support students with self-evaluating at the end of each lesson. Teachers can correlate the language of the Lesson Goals to the CCSS. Materials do not specifically cite CCSS.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 3, Lesson 11, students utilize a Diagnostic Checklist when they compare Miranda’s interpretation of Hamilton’s and Angelica Church’s relationship with what they found in their reading of primary and secondary sources. The Section Diagnostic provides Reading & Knowledge Goals, such as the following Compare and Connect goal: “How well do I recognize points of connection among texts, textual elements, and perspectives to make logical, objective comparisons?” Teachers can correlate the language of the Lesson Goals to the CCSS. Materials do not specifically cite CCSS.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 2, guidance encourages students to use the Internal and External Factors Organizer as they begin drafting outlines for the opening paragraphs of their character analyses for Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. This lesson includes the following goals: “Can I sequence and group sentences and paragraphs and use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, and evidence, to establish coherent, logical, and well-developed character analysis?” and “Can I develop and clearly communicate meaningful and defensible claims about Okonkwo that represent valid, evidence-based analysis?” Teachers can correlate the language of the Lesson Goals to the CCSS. Materials do not specifically cite CCSS.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 7, an example of a Lesson Goal is as follows: “Can I evaluate the effects of figurative language and tone to analyze a text?” The student-facing materials include Lesson Goals in student friendly language. Teachers can correlate the language of the Lesson Goals to the CCSS. Materials do not specifically cite CCSS.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 5, Lesson 6, students “engage in a peer presentation and review of our arguments, then submit them to our teacher.” As a final activity for the unit, student teams or pairs present their final argument on the public health issue they have addressed and the ethical approach taken or participate as the audience by listening attentively to the other teams’ presentations and taking notes. Student grading utilizes items from the Culminating Task Checklist, including Reading & Knowledge, Speaking & Listening, and Writing. One such goal in the Reading & Knowledge section asks students to compare and connect, “How well do I recognize connections among informational sources and arguments to make logical comparisons and build knowledge in my subtopic?” Teachers can correlate the language of the Lesson Goals to the CCSS. Materials do not specifically cite CCSS.

  • Explanations of the role of the specific grade-level/course-level ELA standards are present in the context of the series.

    • No evidence found.

Indicator 3D
Read

Materials provide strategies for informing all stakeholders, including students, parents, or caregivers about the program and suggestions for how they can help support student progress and achievement.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide some strategies for informing all stakeholders, including students, parents, or caregivers about the program and suggestions for how they can help support student progress and achievement.

The Program Guide includes, “Prior to starting each unit, teachers are encouraged to initiate a conversation with students, parents and guardians, explaining the unit’s particular aspects of diversity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, and sexual orientation) and prime students to engage in brave conversations about topics that may be challenging.” While materials include a Remote Learning Guide that outlines several ways teachers can communicate and monitor students, the materials do not outline strategies that inform stakeholders how they can help support student progress and achievement.

Materials provide some strategies for informing all stakeholders, including students, parents, or caregivers about the program and suggestions for how they can help support student progress and achievement. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials contain strategies for informing students, parents, or caregivers about the ELA program.

    • In the Program Guide, materials provide general ideas for informing students, parents, or caregivers: “Educators might also engage parents, counselors, and other respected community advisors in conversations about the texts and topics students are studying. Teachers are encouraged to create a kind, open, and safe environment for students to engage with multiple perspectives and grow as individuals.” Materials do not explicitly mention specific strategies for informing students, parents, or caregivers.

    • In the Remote Learning Guide, materials include various ways in which teachers can communicate with students. For example, the Remote Learning Guide includes that, “A major concern for educators in remote learning is how to diagnose, monitor, and evaluate student progress in reading, writing, and speaking. In synchronous learning sessions, this type of monitoring can be done in much the same way as in the brick-and-mortar classroom—via entry tasks, discussion check-ins, polling, group work, and exit tickets.” Materials do not include a thorough explanation of how instructional information is communicated with various stakeholders.

  • Materials do not contain suggestions for how parents or caregivers can help support student progress and achievement.

  • In the Program Guide, materials outline an end-of-year activity: “At the end of the year, each class’s learning community presents newfound knowledge about timely and relevant issues to a forum made up of students’ school, guardians, and local community.” Materials do not provide concrete actions for parents or caregivers to support student progress and achievement during this task.

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 5, Lesson 1, students select one of three options to present their Culminating Task: in-class, school-wide, or community-based presentations. In Section 5, Lesson 6, the Teacher Edition provides a few different ways for students to share their research with the larger community. The following example is listed in the Teacher Edition: “Option 1 is a community celebration, where students’ families, friends and other teachers are invited, as well as their peers. This would be an opportunity for the students to celebrate their hard work on a sustained, independent research project in a broader, more interesting forum for their concluding question and answer session.” While this option provides an opportunity to involve stakeholders during the presentation of students’ work, neither the Teacher Edition Teaching Notes or the student-facing materials specifically mention how parents or caregivers can support student progress and achievement as students work to complete this task.

Indicator 3E
02/02

Materials provide explanations of the instructional approaches of the program and identification of the research-based strategies.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3e.

Materials include a Program Guide with a detailed description of Instructional Approaches that relate to the following content: Questioning, Reading, Writing & Presenting, Vocabulary, Grammar & Syntax, Speaking & Listening, and The Literacy Toolbox. The Program Guide also includes an Appendix E: Tools section that lists Instructional Areas and corresponding Tools, such as the Attending to Detail Tool to correspond with Reading Closely. Other notes in Appendix E include information relating to Writing and Organizing, Analyzing Arguments, Research, Vocabulary, and Evaluation.

References for Reading include but are not limited to: Fisher and Frey’s Rigorous Reading: 5 Access Points for Comprehending Complex Texts (2013) and Wiggins’ Understanding by Design (2005). References for Speaking & Listening include Walqui’s Scaffolding the Success of Adolescent English Language Learners (2010) and Zwiers’ Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understanding. References for Support for Students with Diverse Learning Needs include but are not limited to Cervetti’s Conceptual Coherence, Comprehension, and Vocabulary Acquisition: A Knowledge Effect?, and Fisher and Frey’s Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction & Intervention (2010).

References for the Teaching Notes include but are not limited to: Bransford’s How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School (2000) and Reeves’ Transforming Professional Development into Student Results (2010). References for Writing & Presenting include but are not limited to Dornan’s Within and Beyond the Writing Process in the Secondary English Classroom (2003) and Vermont Writing Collaborative’s Writing for Understanding: Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively (2008).

Materials provide explanations of the instructional approaches of the program and identification of the research-based strategies. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials explain the instructional approaches of the program.

    • In the Program Guide, materials include a description of Questioning as an approach to secondary literacy instruction. The program uses “questions to frame students’ initial reading, guide students through analysis, and initiate inquiry.” Materials provide additional information relating to the Central Questions, Assessment Questions, Guiding Questions, Student-Generated Questions, Metacognitive Reflective Questions, and Supporting Questions.

    • In the Program Guide, details relating to Writing include supporting students’ writing skills “not only by analyzing text to develop their own ideas, but also by analyzing and mimicking the writing of others.” Throughout the program, materials consistently include Mentor Sentences and ongoing journals for students to identify exemplars they can emulate and strategies they can incorporate into their own pieces.

    • In the Program Guide, materials include a description of Vocabulary in the list of Instructional Approaches. The Program Guide states that this curriculum uses vocabulary for high school literacy development “by providing opportunities for students to expand their word knowledge that they can call on in speech and writing.” Additional information is available relating to the Supporting Vocabulary: Tools & Reference Guides, Critical Thinking & Analytical Tools, and Reference Guides.

    • In the Program Guide, materials list Grammar & Syntax under the Instructional Approaches. The Program Guide states that through the high-school literacy instruction, “students are given opportunities to explore and mimic grammar, syntax, and usage in text.” The Program Guide also states that Grammar & Syntax are examined in context, and “Grammar is examined with the goal of improving students’ reading and writing skills.” Materials further note, “Students are given opportunities to deconstruct, examine, and mimic grammar, syntax, and usage they see in a text.” The Program Guide includes the following headings under Grammar & Syntax: Mentor Sentences;, Supporting Grammar & Syntax: Tools & Reference Guides; Critical Thinking & Analytical Tools, which include the Language Use Handouts and Working with Mentor Sentences Tool; and various Reference Guides, which include the Connecting Ideas Reference Guide, and Integrating Quotations Reference Guide.

    • In the Program Guide, materials list Speaking and Listening as an Instructional Approach included in the high school literacy program. The Program Guide states, “Throughout the units, students speak to, and hear from, their peers formally and informally.” The Program Guide also notes, “Academic conversations are linchpins in literacy development.” Materials include Academic Conversations in many lessons throughout the course. Students and teachers can access Supporting Speaking & Listening: Tools & Reference Guides and Critical Thinking & Analytical Tools, including the Philosophical Chairs Discussion Tool and an Academic Discussion Reference Guide.

  • Materials include and reference research-based strategies.

    • In the Program Guide, materials emphasize the importance of students reading “for depth and breadth, allowing for students to build the stamina to read one text deeply, critically, and closely or several texts to build a robust body of knowledge.” The Program Guide includes detailed descriptions of the following: “Depth: Closely Reading for Nuanced Understanding” and “Breadth: Wide Reading for Content and World Language.”

    • In the Program Guide, materials include details relating to tools available, as well as the use of scaffolding, drawing on research to support student performance during academic discourse. The materials state, “Students are provided a suite of tools, materials, and resources to support their learning, including sentence frames and conversation starters.” The tools students use, such as the Academic Discussion Reference Guide in the Literacy Toolbox, provide a number of Discussion Stems that students can use based on their role in the discussion. These include, but are not limited, to stems when exploring a topic, opinion, or argument and stems when encouraging others to share their thoughts: “How did you come to that idea? We haven’t heard you share yet. Do you agree or disagree with _____?” Materials identify scaffolding as a best practice when teachers work with students who are learning English as an additional language.

Indicator 3F
01/01

Materials provide a comprehensive list of supplies needed to support instructional activities.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3f.

The Literacy Toolbox includes a comprehensive list of Reference Guides and Tools needed to complete activities throughout the course. Student-facing materials and Teacher Edition Teaching Notes also reference these tools and guides throughout the unit. The Materials tab for each unit, section, and lesson, includes a list of materials. The Text Overview tab includes a comprehensive list of texts needed for the unit.

Materials provide a comprehensive list of supplies needed to support instructional activities. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials include a tab titled Materials throughout each unit, section, and lesson. According to the Program Guide, the Materials tab includes a comprehensive list of supplies needed to support instructional activities: “The Materials tab houses documents specific to the unit, including the Evaluation Plan, Text Overview (teacher-facing), Unit Text List (student-facing), Culminating Task Checklist, and any other relevant documents.”

  • Materials include a Text Overview at the beginning of each unit which provides a comprehensive list of texts that will be used throughout the unit. The Program Guide includes the following note regarding the Text Overview: “The Text Overview tab contains the unit’s Text Overview (PDF), which identifies the texts used in the unit and includes recommendations for independent choice reading texts.”

  • Materials include a Literacy Toolbox for each unit which contains a list of Tools and resources that teachers can use to support student learning for each unit. The Program Guide includes the following information to describe the contents of the Literacy Toolbox for each unit: “Key to HSLP instruction is the Literacy Toolbox, composed of graphic organizers (tools), rubrics, checklists, and reference guides, carefully designed to support student success throughout the learning process in all units. Each unit has content or text-specific materials to support reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities pertinent to the unit’s text or topic, as well as instructional sequences.”

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 3, students use the Video Note-Taking Tool to address questions, such as “How is being Kantian (that is, like Batman in the video) different from being utilitarian?” about the video “Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36.” The Teacher Edition Teaching Notes also suggest students use this Tool to complete this activity.

  • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 3, Lesson 4, materials listed include the Comparison Organizational Frame with which students “discuss the similarities, differences, and conclusions you drew about the relationship between Hamiton and Washington as seen in the musical and in the primary and secondary sources.” The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition also suggest students use the Academic Discussion Reference Guide when engaging in discussions with their peers.

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 2, Lesson 2, students collect and assess potential sources for the Culminating Task using the Potential Sources Tool and Assessing Sources Reference Guide to help examine the following criteria on whether the resource is:

    • “interesting and accessible to you as a reader

    • relevant to your inquiry or research and rich in information

    • credible, accurate, and unbiased”

Indicator 3G
Read

This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.

Indicator 3H
Read

This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.

Criterion 3.2: Assessment

10/10

The program includes a system of assessments identifying how materials provide tools, guidance, and support for teachers to collect, interpret, and act on data about student progress towards the standards.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for assessment.

Materials include a system of assessments that provide tools, guidance, and support for teachers to collect, interpret, and act on data about student progress towards the standards. Materials include a publisher-provided standards correlation document that identifies the CCSS at the unit level and for each Section Diagnostic and Culminating Task. Each unit contains an Evaluation Plan, which outlines how instructors can monitor, diagnose, and evaluate student performance. Materials utilize various modalities and item types. While the font size can be increased on assessments, materials do not provide guidance on the use of this accommodation.

Indicator 3I
02/02

Assessment information is included in the materials to indicate which standards are assessed.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3i.

Materials incorporate Common Core State Standards (CCSS) language teachers can identify and correlate to local standards. The publisher-provided standards correlation document identifies CCSS at the unit level and for each Section Diagnostic and Culminating Task. Materials provide teachers with opportunities to examine and assess student growth on the Learning Goals in each unit, including opportunities for formative assessment, Section Diagnostics, and unit Culminating Tasks. Assessment rubrics and supporting materials, such as the Culminating Task Checklists, provide general descriptions and categories (Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, or Below Expectations) relating to student performance in Reading & Knowledge Goals, Writing Goals, and Speaking & Listening Goals.

Assessment information is included in the materials to indicate which standards are assessed. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials consistently identify the standards and practices assessed for formal assessments.

    • The publisher provides a CCSS alignment spreadsheet to identify standards addressed in each unit’s Section Diagnostic and Culminating Task.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 3, Lesson 7, students create annotated bibliographies that summarize each previously read source and its connection to the pathway topic. The Section Diagnostic Checklist includes Writing Goals, such as the following for Summarize:

      • “How well can I express an accurate understanding of the central ideas of my chosen pathway texts?”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 6, students have the opportunity to revise their Section 1 Diagnostic by responding to teacher comments, evaluation, and feedback. The Section Diagnostic Checklist includes Reading & Knowledge Goals, such as the following for Analyze Perspective:

      • “How well do I analyze relationships among an author’s perspective, personal experiences, and the themes developed in his or her stories, memoirs, or essays?”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 6, Lesson 2, students begin planning and drafting their Culminating Task essays. Students utilize a Culminating Task Checklist that includes the following Reading & Knowledge Goals:

      • “Determining Meaning and Purpose: How well do I use connections among details, elements, and effects to make logical deductions about an author’s perspective, purpose, and meaning in texts?”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 1, students prepare to plan and complete their written responses to the unit Culminating Task. The Culminating Task Checklist uses similar language to grade-level CCSS, such as:

      • “Develop Ideas: How well do I use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, evidence, and multimedia elements to support and elaborate on coherent and logical explanations?”

Indicator 3J
04/04

Assessment system provides multiple opportunities throughout the grade, course, and/or series to determine students' learning and sufficient guidance to teachers for interpreting student performance and suggestions for follow-up.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3j.

The Teacher Edition and unit materials include guidance on the assessment system. Materials also include assessment guidance in documents such as the unit Evaluation Plan, which outlines how instructors can monitor, diagnose, and evaluate student performance. Each unit includes multiple formative assessments, such as Section Diagnostics, and summative assessments in the form of Culminating Tasks. Each Section Diagnostic provides ongoing opportunities for student reflection, and both the Section Diagnostics and Culminating Tasks include tools which students can use to track their performance. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide suggestions for monitoring student performance, including next steps for students’ literacy skill development.

Assessment system provides multiple opportunities throughout the grade, course, and/or series to determine students’ learning and sufficient guidance to teachers for interpreting student performance and suggestions for follow-up. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Assessment system provides multiple opportunities to determine students’ learning and sufficient guidance to teachers for interpreting student performance.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 7, students complete a Section Diagnostic in which they choose from three options to compose an original retelling of a story read in the unit. After reading “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, students “[r]ewrite all or part of the story as if it were being told from Tessie Hutchinson’s point of view.” Throughout the section, students use the Telling Stories: Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist to monitor their progress— below expectations, meet expectations, or beyond expectations—in the section’s writing goals. Students use the Telling Stories: Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist throughout the section in Lessons 5, 7, 8, and 9. In the Program Guide, materials explain, “Teachers review students’ work using Section Diagnostic Checklists to determine students’ progress and diagnose learning needs.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Unit Overview, Materials Tab, the Evaluation Plan Document outlines the many opportunities that teachers have to assess student learning: “The unit includes a variety of formal and informal opportunities designed to assess student learning and performance: a Culminating Task, which is the final, summative assessment for the unit; Section Diagnostics, which are formative assessment opportunities to track student progress toward the Culminating Task; and informal opportunities in each lesson to monitor student performance.”

  • Assessment system provides multiple opportunities to determine students’ learning and suggestions to teachers for following-up with students.

    • In the Program Guide, materials explain that the program design for assessment is accomplished through three practices: monitor, diagnose, and evaluate. Materials suggest instructors monitor student performance using the Lesson Goals and adjust or extend activities based on these Goals. Materials explain that instructors can diagnose student literacy development through Section Diagnostics and note, “Information from Section Diagnostics can be used to plan future instruction and identify reteaching opportunities.”

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 4, students work on a conventions assessment. The Teacher Edition provides the following teacher guidance to determine student learning and address misconceptions: “If students struggle to understand the mentor sentences, you might have them look for examples of the concept in their independent reading, or you might have them manipulate sentence strips so they can clearly see the different parts of a sentence.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, students complete the Section 4 Diagnostic. The Teacher Edition includes some guidance for teachers to consider when assessing students’ work on the Section 4 Diagnostic Assessment: “It is important that students receive your feedback on their Section Diagnostic performance as soon as possible. Providing timely academic feedback is crucial to students’ literacy development and understanding of their own proficiency. Academic feedback should provide students with relevant information in the midst of their learning process, including concrete ideas of how to improve their skills…you should acknowledge a student’s areas of strength and growth while providing constructive feedback for areas of improvement.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition offer guidance for instructors to interpret student performance and suggest follow up lessons for assessments. For example, in Section 1, Lesson 10, materials suggest using sentence-level writing as formative data for the next section and suggest a variety of activities to improve students’ ability to use vocabulary in context:

      • “Write example and nonexample sentences that use the new words.

      • Answer hypothetical situations that use the new words.

      • Connect the meaning of the words to texts or topics they have previously studied.

      • Have students reword sentences to use the new terms.

      • Complete a Word Map for one of the words.

      • Complete an Open Sort or Closed Sort for categories of words.

      • Draw a visual representation of the word.

      • Explore and explain how two words are related conceptually to one another.”

Indicator 3K
04/04

Assessments include opportunities for students to demonstrate the full intent of grade-level/course-level standards and shifts across the series.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3k. 

Materials utilize various modalities and item types for student assessments. Section Diagnostics and Culminating Tasks in the Foundation and Development Units range in modality from written tasks to discussions to oral presentations. Item types include discussion questions, constructed response questions, project-based tasks, and research portfolios. Section Diagnostics and the Culminating Task in the Application Unit use the same modalities and item types across each grade level— a problem-based research portfolio and an oral presentation.

Assessments include opportunities for students to demonstrate the full intent of grade-level/course-level standards and shifts across the series. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, students complete three Section Diagnostics which lead to the end-of-unit Culminating Task. During the Section 1 Diagnostic, students review their Lesson 1–9 notes and “[use] a foundational concept from ‘A Framework for Ethical Decision Making’ to write a multi-paragraph expository response “explaining how that concept determines the solution to the dilemma of self-driving cars.” During the Section 2 Diagnostic, students write a “multisection research proposal in which you outline your rationale for selecting a specific pathway.” During the Section 3 Diagnostic, students “create an annotated bibliography that summarizes each source and its connection to your pathway topic.” During the Culminating Task, students “Collaboratively research, create, and deliver a presentation about ethical issues in a research pathway area.”

  • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, students complete four Section Diagnostics which lead to the end-of-unit Culminating Task. During the Section 1 Diagnostic, students write a brief narrative story in response to the following Task Question: “What legendary story can you tell?” During the Section 2 Diagnostic, students choose from a list of short stories and “write a brief original narrative retelling the story from the point of view of another character.” During the Section 3 Diagnostic, students “Write a brief personal narrative that is based on your own experiences or view of the world.” During the Section 4 Diagnostic, students “Research a historical or contemporary event or figure” and “Write a historical narrative depicting the story of your selected event or figure.” During the Culminating Task, students “Write an original narrative that presents an interesting story from your life, your imagination, current events, or history.” 

  • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students complete five Section Diagnostics which lead to the end-of-unit Culminating Task. During the Section 1 Diagnostic, students “Write an objective summary of Acts 1 and 2 of Hamilton: An American Musical, and identify one of its themes,” using textual evidence to support their response. During the Section 2 Diagnostic, students write a comparative response in which they “Compare Miranda’s interpretation of Hamilton’s views of slavery with what you found in your reading of primary and secondary sources.” Students use “evidence from the musical and multiple texts” to support their response. During the Section 3 Diagnostic, students write an expository response “[comparing] Miranda’s interpretation of Hamilton and Angelica Church’s relationship with what you found in your reading of primary and secondary sources.” Students support their response using “evidence from the musical and multiple texts.” During the Section 4 Diagnostic, students participate in a formal academic discussion that addresses the following questions: “To what extent does Lin-Manuel Miranda’s interpretation and portrayal of Hamilton’s character align with how he is represented in the primary and secondary sources you have studied? How important is it to be historically accurate when creating art that is based on a real person or event?” During the Section 5 Diagnostic, students “Use your group’s research from this unit to create lyrics for an original song or to write additional verses to an existing song from Hamilton: An American Musical.” Students also “write an explanatory response that answers the following questions: What is your perspective of the people or events you researched and how is that conveyed in your song lyrics? How did Lin-Manuel Miranda’s content and craft decisions in his lyrics influence your song lyrics?” Students use textual evidence to support their response. During the Culminating Task, students write a reflective essay on “the creative process you engaged in when creating your original song lyrics [that explains] your group’s choices regarding the incorporation of primary and secondary sources.” 

  • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students complete four Section Diagnostics which lead to the end-of-unit Culminating Task. During the Section 1 Diagnostic, students participate in a collaborative research and “deliver a presentation that answers your research question.” During the Section 2 Diagnostic, students write an expository response to the following questions: “What is a key ethical issue or question surrounding the mandating of vaccinations to prevent widespread infectious diseases? What ethical approaches should we apply to this issue? What solutions or consequences might the approaches lead to?” During the Section 3 Diagnostic, students select a subtopic related to public health and use the Delineating Arguments Tool to “outline a plan for your proposed argument.” Students also present their proposal to their research team, provide peer feedback, and use the feedback to revise their arguments. During the Section 4 Diagnostic, students “Write a synopsis of their proposed argument” addressing the Central Question, “How do we balance the common good with individual rights and personal liberty?” During the Culminating Task, students “Write an evidence-based argument in response to a complex ethical debate in the realm of public health.”   

Indicator 3L
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Assessments offer accommodations that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without changing the content of the assessment.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 include assessments that offer accommodations that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without changing the content of the assessment.

Students can increase the font size of text within the digital materials by clicking on the delta arrows on the right side of the text box; however, materials do not provide guidance on the use of this provided accommodation.

Assessments offer accommodations that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without changing the content of the assessment. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials offer accommodations that ensure all students can access the assessment (e.g., text-to-speech, increased font size) without changing the content of the assessment. Materials do not include guidance for teachers on the use of provided accommodations.

    • In the Program Guide, Website Guidance, Activity Pages, the Student Directions section includes the following note, “This section provides student-facing directions, which can be expanded to increase the font size for better readability. For activities that contain more than one step, segmenting is used. Activity segments are indicated by horizontal bars across the top of the directions pane.” Materials do not explain how students can increase the font size.

Criterion 3.3: Student Supports

06/06

The program includes materials designed for each student’s regular and active participation in grade-level/grade-band/series content.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for student supports.

Materials are designed for each child’s regular and active participation in grade-level content. Teacher- and student-facing materials include embedded instructional supports and differentiation strategies to support students in special populations; students who read, write, speak, and/or listen above grade level; and English learners. The program design allows students to make choices about their learning and research. Students and teachers can monitor student learning through formative and summative assessment opportunities. While materials provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics, materials do not provide sufficient opportunities for teachers to draw upon student home language or for students to develop home language literacy. Materials also miss opportunities to capitalize on the diverse cultural and social backgrounds of students.

Indicator 3M
02/02

Materials provide strategies and supports for students in special populations to work with grade-level content and to meet or exceed grade-level standards that will support their regular and active participation in learning English language arts and literacy.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3m.

The Program Guide includes detailed guidance for teachers when supporting diverse learning needs. Materials include supports that assist students with accessing grade-level content. Examples of supports embedded into instruction include Reading Closely and Note-Taking Tools. The program consistently provides Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition with strategies to support students and differentiate when necessary. Reference Guides also “provide centralized resources for literacy concepts and processes and offer vocabulary, sentence starters, and other writing support.”

Materials regularly provide strategies and supports for students in special populations to work with grade-level content and to meet or exceed grade-level standards that will support their regular and active participation in learning English language arts and literacy. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials regularly provide strategies, supports, and resources for students in special populations to support their regular and active participation in grade-level literacy work.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 5, students brainstorm their proposal for the pathway of their choosing. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide opportunities for student support and differentiation, including questions for the teacher to reflect on and use to make instructional decisions: “Would students benefit from being provided a focused checklist for each paragraph?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 3, students use the Author Craft Note-Taking Tool to refine their thinking about the beginning of the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide student support and differentiation guidance around the suite of tools and resources students will utilize: “These tools help students develop and internalize analytical processes. Since they are scaffolds, they can be assigned at your discretion, or students might develop their own system for using them if they encounter difficult sections of text.” Materials emphasize the importance of students learning to “draw on tools from the Literacy Toolbox as they learn to recognize their own proficiencies and needs for specific supports, given the specific demands of text or tasks.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, students engage in this type of metacognition through The Ethics of Public Health Decisions: Culminating Task Checklist as they record whether or not they are below, meet, or exceed expectations and in activities asking them to reflect on their thinking, such as Section 2, Lesson 11, where they reflect on their learning during the Section Diagnostic:

      • “How well did you take necessary action to prepare for the task?

      • What went well for you during the completion of this task?

      • What did you struggle with during the completion of this task? How did you push through that struggle?”

    • In the Program Guide, the materials explain that metacognition and reflection are key for addressing learners below grade-level expectations: “Students reflect on their learning in an ongoing fashion throughout the program, bringing awareness to what they have learned and how they learned it, instilling self responsibility for their learning.”

Indicator 3N
02/02

Materials regularly provide extensions to engage with literacy content and concepts at greater depth for students who read, write, speak, and/or listen above grade level.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3n.

The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include sections dedicated to student support and differentiation, including considerations for working with students performing above grade-level expectations. These sections include questions that extend students’ thinking about the texts they read and develop their ideas in a more advanced way to maximize their learning experiences.

Materials regularly provide extensions to engage with literacy content and concepts at greater depth for students who read, write, speak, and/or listen above grade level. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide multiple opportunities for advanced students to investigate the grade-level content at a higher level of complexity. Materials are free of instances of advanced students doing more assignments than their classmates.

    • In the Program Guide, materials explain, “Student work may reflect the need for extended instruction for many reasons, including that the student may identify as gifted and talented.” The Program Guide provides examples of how this is offered to students:

      • “Students are encouraged to experiment with their own writing styles and structures on assessments.

      • Students are given opportunities to lead small groups and teams.

      • Students are encouraged to make metaphorical connections for newly acquired vocabulary.

      • Students are encouraged to make concrete and conceptual connections between texts or topics in one unit, to text and topics in different units, and across other disciplines.

      • Students are encouraged to develop their own note-taking habits and styles if they no longer need the support offered on tools.

      • Students can draw on tools from the Literacy Toolbox as they learn to recognize their own proficiencies and needs for specific supports, given the specific demands of text or tasks.

      • Students are encouraged to pursue their own interests at their own pace in the Foundation and Application units.

      • Students are encouraged to pursue independent reading options with texts written at a complexity level above the grade-level expectation.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 11, students use the Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist and the Comparison Organizational Frame to help compose their response for the Section Diagnostic. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition explain the following:

      • “Some students might find the organizer and sentence frames too restrictive. Allow students to use their own structure when writing their responses. The goal is for students to write responses that clearly express their ideas.

      • Students who demonstrate more sophisticated writing skills might benefit from having time to complete a more extensive revision of their work, or experimenting with a unique organizational structure or stylistic technique.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 3, Lesson 4, students analyze sentences in Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and replicate her structure, style, grammar, and punctuation. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest “a gradual release of responsibility in which the students perform more and more of the chunking into parts themselves” and encourages students that have mastered the concepts to move beyond the model: “If students conceptually understand that a semicolon links independent clauses, you might encourage them to use a semicolon to link more than two independent clauses, for effect.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 5, students complete a close-reading of “The Far and the Near” by Thomas Wolfe. The Teacher Edition provides opportunities to extend learning for students who may be performing above grade level: “Some students who demonstrate advanced competency might benefit from an additional challenge. Consider the following questions, designed to push students:

      • Would students benefit from being asked how this text or topic connects to another text or topic they have read in another unit?

      • Would students benefit from creating analogous relationships?

      • Would students benefit from a task that requires them to discover the symbolic connection between the text and another concept they have learned in this course or elsewhere?

      • Would students benefit from explaining their expertise about the text to a group of novices? (e.g., How would you explain this text to a five-year-old?)”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 3, students write drafts of a character analysis essay. The Teacher Edition provides the following information to extend student knowledge for those who may be performing above grade level: “Students who demonstrate more sophisticated writing skills might benefit from having time to complete a more extensive revision of their work or from experimenting with a unique organizational structure or stylistic technique.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 4, students reread selected texts that they previously read in the unit. The Teacher Edition provides ideas for students who are performing above grade level: “If students master the concepts quickly, you might have them experiment with grammatical rules to create sentences that move beyond the model. For example, if students conceptually understand that a semicolon links independent clauses, you might encourage them to use a semicolon to link independent clauses, for effect.”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 1, Lesson 3, students use the Potential Sources Tool to evaluate potential resources for their research projects. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest, “Students who are working at a highly advanced level and who have extensive experience with the research process might feel slowed down by the Potential Sources Tool.” Materials suggest students use this tool to scan multiple sources and record their ideas and use their Learning Log or in the Research Note-Taking Tool for additional space to take notes.

Indicator 3O
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Materials provide varied approaches to learning tasks over time and variety in how students are expected to demonstrate their learning with opportunities for students to monitor their learning.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide varied approaches to learning tasks over time and variety in how students are expected to demonstrate their learning with opportunities for students to monitor their learning. 

The program design allows students to make choices about their learning and research. Approaches to presentation and demonstration of learning vary. Students work with partners, present with small groups, and complete individual tasks to demonstrate learning. Students share their thinking in various contexts, including multi-modal opportunities during which students investigate and problem-solve with peers. Materials leverage multiple formats for students to deepen their understanding and ability to explain and apply literacy ideas. Students and teachers can monitor student learning through formative and summative assessment opportunities, such as peer reviews and discussions, teacher feedback on Section Diagnostics, and reflection on the culminating tasks. The program offers students frequent opportunities for self-reflection, and they can self-evaluate their progress on their ability to successfully meet the learning goals.

Materials provide varied approaches to learning tasks over time and variety in how students are expected to demonstrate their learning with opportunities for students to monitor their learning. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide multi-modal opportunities for students to question, investigate, sense-make, and problem-solve using a variety of formats and methods. Materials leverage the use of a variety of formats and methods over time to deepen student understanding and ability to explain and apply literacy ideas.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 4, Lesson 1, students present their Culminating Task on the Central Question, “How do we determine the right thing to do?,” in their groups. Students choose from the following pathways—environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, ethics of identity and representation, sports ethics, or ethics of social justice—and create a 5–7 minute presentation about ethics and why ethical issues are complex.

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students form research teams to explore an inquiry question they develop themselves. The Program Guide shares, “Students expand their learning community as they develop a presentation for the larger school community. The Application Unit includes independent and collaborative reading, writing, discussion, and presentation.” In Section 5, Lesson 6, students rehearse their presentations with the research team and receive peer feedback to refine their work. The student facing-materials include guidance such as: “As you listen to the other team’s presentation, use the Peer Review Culminating Task Checklist to guide your feedback to the team to help them refine their work after the rehearsal. If needed, refer to the Presentation Creation Process, Presentation Structure, and Presentation Written Components sections of the Application Unit Presentation Guide to inform your thinking and feedback.”

  • Students have opportunities to share their thinking, to demonstrate changes in their thinking over time, and to apply their understanding in new contexts.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 2, Lesson 4, students work with reading teams to deepen their understanding of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. In the reading teams, students discuss their initial understanding and work together to firm up their understanding by analyzing their assigned section of the text before sharing their understanding with another group in a jigsaw activity. The student-facing materials include the following guidance: “In a jigsaw discussion, we will each present what we have learned about a section of the story and continue to study elements related to characterization and description in ‘A Rose for Emily.’”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 8, students work on the Section Diagnostic in which they develop a research presentation with their research teams to discuss ethical approaches to public health concerns. The student-facing materials explain how students apply changes in their understanding in new contexts: “We will integrate our newfound understanding of approaches to ethical decision making, public health controversies, and vaccinations by working in research teams to address investigative questions, interpret informational texts and infographics, and develop evidence-based claims that summarize what we have learned about our topics and their relationship to the ethics of public health. We will participate in an informational presentation for the class or another public audience. Following the presentation, we will write a short reflective narrative.”

  • Materials provide for ongoing review, practice, self-reflection, and feedback. Materials provide a clear path for students to monitor and move their own learning.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 4, Lesson 1, students revisit their work from Sections 2 and 3, thinking about the following question: “What character traits of Alexander Hamilton are revealed in these texts?” Students work with a partner to synthesize their work and their inferences from Sections 2 and 3 on the Comparison Organizational Frame. Then, students work in small groups to compare the character of Hamilton from the musical to the character of Hamilton from primary sources before sharing their findings with the class.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 4, Lesson 6, students monitor their learning and understanding of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe to ensure they are ready for the Culminating Task. Students work through a series of self-monitoring questions to reflect on their learning so far: “How did the text help you understand or think about the Central Question? What avenue of analysis did you take for your Culminating Task, and how did it relate to the Central Question?” The student-facing materials explain how students approach this lesson: “As a class, we will discuss our understanding of Things Fall Apart and consider questions we might further explore. This will help us express our understanding of the themes of the text and prepare for the Application Unit.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lessons 7–8, students explain how Rebecca Skloot conveys perspectives about complex issues in Part 2 of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Materials provide students with opportunities to self-reflect on their work on the Diagnostic and assess their progress toward being able to successfully complete the Culminating Task. For example, students respond to questions in their Learning Logs, such as: “6. What would you do differently during the next Section Diagnostic?” Students also review the Culminating Task Progress Tracker to evaluate their skills and knowledge to determine readiness for the Culminating Task.

Indicator 3P
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Materials provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies.

Students have opportunities to work one-on-one with the instructor; in pairs, small groups, and research teams; and as a whole-group during various activities throughout the materials. The Teaching Notes of the Teacher Edition include a range of choices and details to assist teachers with implementation. Materials include guidance as to when teachers can change group activities, such as altering the implementation of jigsaw activities, opening up the activity to the whole group, and individualizing and designing groups as they see fit. Student-facing materials provide guidance and descriptions for student group interactions. Materials offer students guiding questions, norms, criteria for discussion, and other necessary information to complete the activities successfully.

Materials provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide grouping strategies for students. Materials provide for varied types of interaction among students.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 4, students interact with peers in research teams. Because students will work in research teams for most of the unit, the goal of this lesson is for students to set norms for interactions within the group. Student-facing materials include the following guidance: “In your teams, write three to five norms for your group and place them in the center of your groups. Norms are behaviors that every person agrees to so the group works successfully. Norms might include the following:

      • We will speak respectfully to each other.

      • We will listen to everyone’s ideas, even ideas we might personally disagree with.”

    • Discuss how you will keep track of notes and information in your teams.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 2, students work in groups to complete their Character Note-Taking Tool on characters from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. In Lesson 5, students participate in paired discussions addressing questions about Things Fall Apart, such as, “What is Okonkwo’s attitude about gender roles? In other words, is his attitude about characteristics he perceives as feminine the same for women as it is for men?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 1, Lesson 2, students work in pairs to annotate what relates to the common good or personal liberty during a close reading of an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence. In Section 2, Lesson 5, students individually analyze a claim found in “The Ethics of Opting Out of Vaccination” by Janet Stemwedel using the Evaluating Ideas Tool. Students then join discussion teams who evaluate the same arguments they explored independently. In Section 3, Lesson 4, students join research teams interested in similar topics and identify the pros and cons of the issue.

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 3, Lesson 9, students work in pairs to read Ron Chernow’s biography, Alexander Hamilton. Student-facing materials outline how students interact with each other for the lesson: “With your partner, read one of the four excerpts from Ron Chernow’s biography, ‘Alexander Hamilton: Introduction to Angelica and Hamilton’ (pp. 133-134), ‘Separation of Angelica and Hamilton’ (pp. 204-205), ‘Seas of Blood’ (pp. 466-467), or ‘Hamilton Letter to Angelica’ (pp. 583-584).”

  • Materials provide guidance for the teacher on grouping students in a variety of grouping formats.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 2, students join reading teams to analyze the excerpts from Mark Twain’s “Corn Pone Opinions” and “The War Prayer.” The Teacher Edition Teaching Notes suggest that the instructor make expert groups: “Based on their initial reactions and discussion, you can make decisions about which students to assign to each of the essays for the jigsaw activities that will follow.”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 11, students participate in a Socratic Seminar as part of the Section Diagnostic. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide guidance on organizing the whole-group activity, including teaching strategies. For example, the Teaching Notes suggest to “reorganize the classroom chairs in a circle so students can see each other,” or “provide each student a sticky note with a given discussion strategy to use during the conversation.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 5, Lesson 5, students work in pairs to proofread each other’s writing. The Teacher Edition includes the following guidance for the group activity: “To begin, model this activity with a student’s paper. Use a think-aloud strategy to show students how to proofread a paper.” The student-facing materials also provide guidance for group interactions: “Exchange your paper with a different partner. Read through your partner’s draft as a proofreader. Look for the following:

      • errors in grammar or usage

      • citation errors

      • any confusing or unclear sentences or ideas

      • verb tense issues.”

    • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 1, Lesson 1, students begin working in research teams for the Culminating Task. The Teacher Edition includes the following guidance for grouping students: “The ideal size for each presentation team is between four and six students: one moderator, two or more commentators, and one synthesizer. The optional, dual role of technology specialist can go to one or more students, or it can be shared as a secondary role by every student in the team—one or more students can be a technology specialist in addition to their core role. Descriptions for each role can be found in the Presentation Guide.”

Indicator 3Q
02/02

Materials provide strategies and supports for students who read, write, and/or speak in a language other than English to meet or exceed grade-level standards to regularly participate in learning English language arts and literacy.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 3q.

The Program Guide includes teacher guidance on working with students learning English as an additional language. Materials embed support for English learners within the student-facing materials to help them access complex text and reach grade-level proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition outline options and strategies, such as Reference Guides and sentence starters, that teachers may use to support English learners. Attention to academic and Tier 2 vocabulary is evident in the materials, including the Teaching Notes emphasizing the importance of students learning vocabulary within a meaningful context. Materials provide multiple opportunities for students to engage in discussion with their peers, “often using newly acquired academic and Tier 2 vocabulary with sample discussion stems as support. Through these discussions, English learners are able to strengthen their Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).”

Materials provide strategies and supports for students who read, write, and/or speak in a language other than English to meet or exceed grade-level standards to regularly participate in learning English language arts and literacy. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 3, students utilize a Vocabulary in Context Tool when working with vocabulary. The student-facing materials provide instructions including, “You might use a Vocabulary in Context Tool for words you can decipher from the text; for others, you might use morphology to decipher the meaning, or a reference resource to check if your meaning is accurate.” Materials include questions in the Vocabulary in Context Tool to support students with using context to determine the meaning of a word, including but not limited to: “Does the author use any metaphors to help me determine the meaning of the word? Does the word use any prefixes or suffixes that can give me clues to the word’s meaning?”

    • The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include reminders such as, “Native English speakers might grasp nuances in contextual clues, such as tone or cultural references, while English learners might not understand, making it all the more difficult for them to define the targeted vocabulary word.” Guidance includes additional details and suggestions on providing student support, such as creating mental images and associations.

  • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 3, Lesson 2, students discuss themes in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include strategies to provide student support and differentiation suggestions for students who are struggling with using academic language in a discussion. The Teaching Notes provide guidance, such as modeling how to use academic language in a discussion: “Script what students say during the discussion, focusing on strong examples of academic vocabulary and discussion stems. Write sentence starters on the board to help students formulate responses.” Teachers can direct students to the Academic Discussion Reference Guide and provide prompts. A reminder in the Teaching Notes states that “You might offer English learners the option to discuss the topic in their home languages and report their discussion in English.”

  • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 5, Activity 5, students review some key vocabulary from Chapters 2–4 that is content-specific or challenging. Student-facing materials include the following directions: “Review the Vocabulary List from Chapters 2–4 of the text. In your group, assign each member a set of words from the list to define. Individually, locate the words as they are used in the text, using the provided page number, and consider the following questions for each: What is the meaning of this word? What strategy did you use to determine the meaning (context, morphology, reference resource)? How is its meaning important to the text?”

    • Teacher Notes in the Teacher Edition include additional guidance for supporting English learners: “[I]f a word under study is a cognate—a word that shares similar spelling, meaning, and pronunciation with a word in another language—in the student’s native language, you might make connections between the cognate and the new vocabulary word. A cognate provides a bridge to the English language for English learners.”

  • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 2, students complete a first reading of an article that summarizes the history of opposition to mandatory vaccinations. Students annotate the article’s introduction with text-specific tasks relating to a quotation available in the student-facing materials. Questions include, but are not limited to: “1. Identify where in the article this sentence appears. 2. Write a short paraphrase of the sentence.”

    • The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include strategies for student support and differentiation for students who struggle with comprehending the complex text. Teachers use a list of provided questions to determine which supports will be necessary. Questions include, but are not limited to: “Are students struggling with the vocabulary and language? If so, would nonlinguistic representations of concepts be helpful? Preteaching key vocabulary with visual supports can be especially beneficial for English learners.”

Indicator 3R
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Materials provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics.

Students have several opportunities to read and view materials and assessments that depict individuals of different genders, races, ethnicities, and other physical characteristics. Materials offer a wide variety of texts and topics that balance information of different demographics. Materials work to maintain a balance of positive portrayals in representation to prevent the prevalence of negative stereotypes harmful to students. Because materials include a multitude of voices and perspectives, students have the opportunity to see themselves succeed based on the representation of characters in the text they read throughout the units.

Materials provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials and assessments depict different individuals of different genders, races, ethnicities, and other physical characteristics.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, students read a variety of texts that deal with issues that impact different individuals or different genders, races, ethnicities, and disabilities. For example, students examine The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and selections from Kenji Yoshino’s Covering: The Hidden Assult on Our Civil Rights where he discusses how people are penalized for their race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, and disability.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 3, students read about the experiences of a Chinese-American woman in the text “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. The text assists students in understanding and appreciating the point of view and perspective of Tan’s depiction of individuals that differ from the dominant culture. The Teaching Notes provide the following information to describe Tan’s perspective in the text: “Amy Tan’s work blurs the lines between narrative fiction, memoir, and essay. ‘Mother Tongue,’ one of her many autobiographical narratives, is classified as an essay, primarily because Tan presents a number of observations and claims about language and its use. She discusses ‘all the Englishes I grew up with,’ chief among them her mother’s Chinese-American version of the language.”

  • Materials and assessments balance positive portrayals of demographics or physical characteristics. Materials avoid stereotypes or language that might be offensive to a particular group.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, students examine the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. This novel includes various character representations of life in an African village in the late 19th century. This text balances positive portrayals of demographics by juxtaposing some of the common negative stereotypes of African life with positive perspectives. For example, the main character’s father is a representation of the negative stereotype of a lazy African. The author balances this stereotypical character with the strength and prowess of the main character.

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the central text, Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, focuses on a forgotten figure in the science community, as the unit overview explains: “For more than 50 years, almost nothing was known about Henrietta Lacks, one of the most influential persons in modern medicine, until Rebecca Skloot decided to tell her story in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” This text “portray[s] Henrietta Lacks and the legacy she left with regard to class, race, ethics, and science,” as noted in the unit description.

  • Materials provide representations that show students that they can succeed in the subject, going beyond just showing photos of diverse students not engaged in work related to the context of the learning.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 3, Lesson 4, students view a 1995 video of Barack Obama reading from his memoir Dreams From My Father. This video focuses on the experiences of a diverse individual who demonstrates a high level of perseverance to reach success. Students can draw inspiration from Obama’s experiences. The Teaching Notes provide the following guidance: “This discussion is intended to help students reflect on Obama’s reading and memoir in its entirety, and to make connections with Amy Tan’s personal narrative essay, also written as a memoir. Students are then directed to write about an incident they recall from their own lives, and to think about how they might borrow from Obama or Tan in their telling of it.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, students examine Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical and compare the portrayal of characters in the musical with the historical figures using primary sources. The diverse cast of Miranda’s play and understanding of his creative process can create opportunities for students to see how they can succeed in performing arts.

Indicator 3S
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Materials provide guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide insufficient guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning.

The instructional materials include Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition that occasionally encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning. The Program Guide emphasizes a generalized, asset-based approach to learning across Grades 9–12 for students with diverse learning needs: “All students’ language, literacy, cultural knowledge, communities, and diversity are assets that should be leveraged as they develop and express their understanding in English language arts.” Although materials specify assets that should be leveraged, materials do not provide sufficient opportunities for teachers to draw upon student home language or for students to develop home language literacy.

Materials provide insufficient guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide suggestions and strategies to use the home language to support students in learning ELA. Teacher materials include guidance on how to garner information that will aid in learning, including the family’s preferred language of communication, schooling experiences in other languages, literacy abilities in other languages, and previous exposure to academic or everyday English.

    • No evidence found

  • Materials rarely present multilingualism as an asset in reading. Students are rarely explicitly encouraged to develop home language literacy and to use their home language strategically for learning how to negotiate texts in the target language.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 1, students explore the central question, “How do we determine the right thing to do?” Students engage in a peer-to-peer discussion and complete a Quick Write in response to the following question: “5. If you were to provide an answer to the Central Question today, what would it be?”

      • The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide ideas for support and differentiation using an asset-based lens: “Students are encouraged to bring the knowledge, insight, and curiosity they already have to enhance their experience in the unit. English learners in particular benefit from making connections to their cultural and social backgrounds.”

Indicator 3T
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Materials provide guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide insufficient guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning.

Materials miss opportunities to capitalize on the diverse cultural and social backgrounds of students. Learning goals and instructional activities do not consistently leverage students’ cultural and social backgrounds. Opportunities for students to feel acknowledged during tasks based on customs of other cultures or sections of the materials provided in multiple languages are lacking.

Materials provide guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials make limited connections to the linguistic, cultural, and conventions used in learning ELA. Materials rarely make connections to the linguistic and cultural diversity to facilitate learning.

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, students have the option to write about “a story or parable drawn from your own cultural or religious background.” In Lesson 7, as students begin composing their Section Diagnostic, the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include the following guidance: “If you have a diverse class in terms of cultural and language backgrounds, students might be separated into home language groupings so they can initially express and discuss their stories in their home languages.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 1, Lesson 8, students analyze the structure and grammatical examples in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include the following information to make connections to the linguistic and cultural diversity to facilitate learning: “You might also have English learners think about how the construction of a mentor sentence compares to the construction of sentences in their home language, in order to build connections from one language to another.”

  • Materials rarely include teacher guidance on how to engage culturally diverse students in the learning of ELA.

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 2, students read excerpts from “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” from the United Nations General Assembly. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition note that the text may be challenging for culturally diverse students and include the following guidance: “Are students missing requisite background, prior, historical, or cultural knowledge? If so, would they benefit from a short text or video that builds background knowledge?”

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 1, students read and annotate “An African Voice” by Katie Bacon. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest to “[…] encourage English learners to annotate the text in their home language.”

Indicator 3U
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This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.

Indicator 3V
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This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.

Criterion 3.4: Intentional Design

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The program includes a visual design that is engaging and references or integrates digital technology, when applicable, with guidance for teachers.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 integrate technology such as interactive tools, virtual manipulatives/objects, and/or dynamic software in ways that engage students in the grade-level/series standards, when applicable.

Materials include a visual design that is engaging and references or integrates digital technology with guidance for teachers. Materials include a Remote Learning Guide with details to assist educators, and local customization for asynchronous and synchronous learning is available. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition and student-facing materials include guidance when teachers and students collaborate using digital tools. The visual design of the materials is not distracting and the layout of the materials is consistent across units and each grade level. Most organizational features in the materials are clear, accurate, and error-free. Materials provide guidance on the use of technology to support and enhance student learning.

Indicator 3W
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Materials integrate technology such as interactive tools, virtual manipulatives/objects, and/or dynamic software in ways that engage students in the grade-level/series standards, when applicable.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 integrate technology such as interactive tools, virtual manipulatives/objects, and/or dynamic software in ways that engage students in the grade-level/series standards, when applicable.

Materials include a Remote Learning Guide with details to assist educators, including but not limited to: monitoring student learning, establishing a remote classroom culture, and technology solutions to facilitate virtual instruction. Unit Readers, as well as digital texts, are available for teacher and student use. The Remote Learning Guide notes that “Students and educators can find the digital texts by using the bibliographic information provided for each text on the Text tabs at the section, lesson, and activity levels in the program.” Students can annotate texts and work collaboratively in a remote setting. Editable tools are available as downloadable Google Docs. Customization at the local level can include consideration of text types and strategies when working asynchronously and synchronously.

Materials integrate technology such as interactive tools, virtual manipulatives/objects, and/or dynamic software in ways that engage students in the grade-level/series standards, when applicable. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Digital technology and interactive tools, such as data collection tools, simulations, and/or modeling tools are available to students.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 9, students participate in a Socratic Seminar about “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Socratic Seminar and Philosophical Chairs Discussion can occur asynchronously or synchronously to engage students in their learning and ensure all students have equity of voice. The Remote Learning Guide includes guidance to support providing these learning opportunities utilizing digital tools. For example, materials suggest the use of Parlay Live Round Table, “an interactive discussion tool that allows educators to set up a Socratic Seminar. It allows tracking of participation and other tools to encourage students.” Materials include additional guidance to support the use of a Conference App and set expectations, protocols, and note-taking in a structured environment.

  • Digital tools support student engagement in ELA.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 2, students use the Academic Discussion Reference Guide when sharing responses to the Moral Machine quiz experience. The Teaching Notes in the teacher edition state, “Model how to use academic language in a discussion: Script what students say during the discussion, focusing on strong examples of academic vocabulary and discussion stems.” The Tools also offer opportunities for modeling in asynchronous and synchronous environments. The Remote Learning Guide includes suggestions for modeling and additional guidance to collect evidence when working synchronously: “Share a model of the Google Doc version of the tool via screen share. Model your thinking as you move through the tool, reflecting on the prompts within the tool and the resulting textual analysis.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 2, Lesson 2, students learn how to delineate an argument, considering its perspective, position, supporting claims, and use of evidence. The Teaching Notes in the teacher edition includes this reminder: “Students will use this tool throughout the rest of the unit, both to analyze others’ arguments and to plan their own, so modeling and practicing its use at this early stage is very important.” The Remote Learning Guide includes suggestions for modeling and additional guidance to collect evidence when working synchronously:

      • “Share a model of the Google Doc version of the tool via screen share.

      • Model your thinking as you move through the tool, reflecting on the prompts within the tool and the resulting textual analysis.”

    • When collecting evidence, teachers can prompt students to submit Google Docs or if they are using PDFs, they can “send a picture or scan of their completed tool via email or the LMS.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 1, students review the Unit Text List to familiarize themselves with the texts they will analyze and discuss throughout the unit. The student-facing materials provide text locations with details for tradebooks, digital access, unit readers, and CD/DVD. For example, “Digital Access: You can find these texts online. Use the information provided in the Unit Text List or on the Materials tab for the activity to conduct a web search for the resource. Digital Access resources include online articles, videos, podcasts, and other web sources.”

  • Digital materials can be customized for local use (i.e., student and/or community interests).

    • The Remote Learning Guide includes guidance for asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities. When working asynchronously, such as utilizing a video-sharing website and interactive videos, guidance includes, “If the LMS allows, add guiding questions directly to video, or use a third-party app (e.g., EdPuzzle) to insert questions into the video.” Teachers can also use an embed code if the LMS allows: “This will alleviate students from leaving the online classroom and entering another less secure site.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, teachers can use the Remote Learning Guide to support synchronous learning opportunities that use screen share for lessons, including videos, and make digital annotations. The Remote Learning Guide suggests utilizing screen sharing during synchronous learning, which allows the use of digital resources. During asynchronous learning, the Remote Learning Guide includes the following guidance: “Annotate the text with the class, sharing their metacognition or thinking aloud while also writing their thinking directly on the shared document, a whiteboard model, or a PowerPoint slide.” Additional guidance includes, “If permissible, create a Google Docs or Word version of the text. Individual copies will need to be created (the LMS might have an automatic feature for this). Students can use the comment, highlight, and underline features to annotate the text. Consider using a third-party technology resource for annotation (e.g., Hypothesis, NowComment).”

Indicator 3X
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Materials include or reference digital technology that provides opportunities for teachers and/or students to collaborate with each other, when applicable.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 include or reference digital technology that provides opportunities for teachers and/or students to collaborate with each other, when applicable.

Students work collaboratively throughout the units. Both the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition and student-facing materials include guidance when teachers and students collaborate using digital tools. One main feature of the materials is the use of Google Docs, which offer opportunities to share drafts and comment directly on student work. This feature provides teachers with continuous opportunities to make individual and group projects collaborative through Google’s sharing capabilities. Materials, particularly the Remote Learning Guide, also reference digital technology, such as Zoom, Padlet, and FlipGrid, that offers opportunities for collaboration and help facilitate discussions.

Materials include or reference digital technology that provides opportunities for teachers and/or students to collaborate with each other, when applicable. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials include or reference digital technology that provides opportunities for teachers and/or students to collaborate with each other.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 1, students discuss as a group the pathways they wish to pursue during the Culminating task. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest displaying student responses using technology: “If available, it might be useful to have students write down their responses on a digital platform, such as on an online discussion board, within a Google classroom, or on a site such as Padlet.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 1, Lesson 1, the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide teachers with guidance on tools they can use in the unit to facilitate remote or virtual learning:

      • “If you are using this unit in a remote- or virtual-learning context, you might consult two resources: the general Odell Education Remote Learning Guide and the unit-specific Alexander Hamilton Remote Learning Guide. The Odell Education Remote Learning Guide provides general guidance for strategies and structures that can be used for synchronous and asynchronous learning, flipped classrooms, and blended learning. The Alexander Hamilton Remote Learning Guide provides remote learning suggestions for each lesson.”

    • The Remote Learning Guide includes examples of how to facilitate collaboration through “discussion boards and collaboration tools” such as the LMS (Learning Management System), Parlay, or Flipgrid.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 1, Lesson 5, students participate in a discussion about a character in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Students use a digital tool to guide their collaborative discussions: “With a partner, use the Academic Discussion Reference Guide to participate in a discussion. Start by sharing your claims about Okonkwo’s attitude about characteristics he perceives as feminine. Consider the following question: What is Okonkwo’s attitude about gender roles? In other words, is his attitude about characteristics he perceives as feminine the same for women as it is for men?”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 2, Lesson 2, students analyze claims from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot using the Forming Evidence-Based Claims tool, which is a Google Doc. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest, “You can partially complete the form in order to give students a start on the tool.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Ethics of Public Health Decisions, Section 3, Lesson 7, students work collaboratively on a peer-review activity within their research teams. Materials reference the digital Delineating Arguments Tool to support student collaboration within their groups: “In research teams, students present their arguments and engage in a peer review process in which each team member does the following: uses the Delineating Arguments Tool to communicate the elements of the argument they are planning; explains the relationships among those elements, and the implications for developing their position; suggests possible claims, counterclaims, and supporting evidence that might be used to develop their position; listens to and records feedback from the group, based on the criteria for the final argumentation task.”

Indicator 3Y
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The visual design (whether in print or digital) supports students in engaging thoughtfully with the subject, and is neither distracting nor chaotic.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 include a visual design (whether in print or digital) that supports students in engaging thoughtfully with the subject, and is neither distracting nor chaotic.

The visual design of the materials is not distracting and should support student learning and engagement. The layout of the materials is consistent across units and grade levels. When appropriate, materials include guidance on locating texts in the student-facing materials and provide reminders for accessing other Tools and Guides to support learning. The student-facing materials and Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition clearly communicate information. The Teaching Notes consistently include headings that signal when support is available for a specific purpose, such as the following sections: About the Author, Concept, Text, Topic; Teaching Strategies and Decisions; and Student Support and Differentiation. The Tools and Guides support student understanding of topics, texts, and concepts. Materials are typically free of errors.

The visual design (whether in print or digital) supports students in engaging thoughtfully with the subject, and is neither distracting nor chaotic. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Images, graphics, and models support student learning and engagement without being visually distracting.

    • Materials balance the use of blank space on home and landing pages, as well as in the various Tools and Guides. The landing page design utilizes an abstract art theme. In each grade level, the Unit Homepage contains an abstract art icon for each Foundation, Development, and Application Unit. Program Resources icons also utilize abstract art similar to that of the landing page.

    • Materials consistently use the same icons throughout each grade and unit. Appendix G of the Program Guide contains the key for iconography used throughout the materials. Icons include: Unit Reader Texts, Digital Access Texts, Tradebook, and Multimedia Text. Additional icons, such as an image of a piece of paper with a pencil indicating students can “Download PDF’’ and an image of a sheet of paper with the Google Drive symbol in the center indicating students can “Download GDOC,” appear as needed during instructional activities.

  • Teacher and student materials are consistent in layout and structure across lessons/modules/units. Images, graphics, and models clearly communicate information or support student understanding of topics, texts, or concepts.

    • The Program Guide includes guidance on the layout and structure of the materials: “Each grade’s homepage organizes the available units by type—Foundation, Development, or Application—and provides each unit’s title. Also found on each grade homepage are the following program resources:

      • Reference Guides: a downloadable PDF consisting of all of the program’s reference guides

      • Program Guide: this program guide, available as a PDF Purchase

      • Unit Readers: a link to an external site where users can purchase unit readers and student materials

      • Course-at-a-Glance: an overview of the units available for the grade level.”

    • Each Unit Homepage contains the following tabs:

      • Unit Overview: The Unit Overview describes the unit and provides links to the sections of the unit.

      • Culminating Task: The Culminating Task provides the unit’s Culminating Task prompt. The Culminating Task Checklist and Evaluation Plan for the unit are available as downloadable PDFs.

      • Text Overview: The Text Overview tab contains the unit’s Text Overview (PDF), which identifies the texts used in the unit and includes recommendations for independent choice reading texts.

      • Materials: The Materials tab houses documents specific to the unit, including the Evaluation Plan, Text Overview (teacher-facing), Unit Text List (student-facing), Culminating Task Checklist, and any other relevant documents.

    • The Program Guide explains the organization of instructional units: “HSLP units are broken down into sections. The navigation bar at the top of the page permits users to easily navigate between sections.”Each Section Page contains the following tabs:

      • Section Overview: This tab provides a brief description of the knowledge, skills, and habits addressed in the section, as well as which major texts are used. Links to the lessons included in the section are also available here. Each lesson link includes the lesson’s overview and is labeled as Core, Optional, Section Diagnostic, or Independent Reading to facilitate navigation and planning.

      • Learning Goals: This tab houses the section’s learning goals, which are derived from the evaluation criteria.

      • Section Diagnostic: This tab provides the Section Diagnostic prompt. It also includes the Culminating Task Connections, which explains what students will do and demonstrate in the formative task, and how it will help prepare them for success on the unit’s Culminating Task. In the case of the teacher version, a description of how the Section Diagnostic helps prepare students for success on the Culminating Task is provided.

      • Texts: This tab lists the texts for the section, which are divided into core and optional. Each listing includes the text’s title, author, publisher, and date of publication.

      • Materials: This tab lists the materials used in the section, and divides them as tools, question sets, or reference guides.

    • Each section is then broken down into lessons, which users can navigate among using the navigation bar at the top of the page. Each Lesson Page contains the following tabs:

      • Lesson Overview: This tab contains a description of the lesson and links to its activities. The links include four sources of information: the activity number, the foci of the activity (Read, Write, Listen, View, Present, Discuss), whether the activity is core or optional, and a brief summary of the activity.

      • Learning Goals: This tab provides the lesson learning goals, which are expressed as student-facing “Can I…?” questions that reflect the knowledge or skills goals of the lesson.

      • Texts and Materials: This tab follows the same organizational features as the section pages, providing only texts and materials pertinent to the respective lessons.

  • Organizational features (Table of Contents, glossary, index, internal references, table headers, captions, etc.) in the materials are clear, accurate, and error-free.

    • Materials are typically free of errors; however, materials contain some labeling errors. For example, in the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 2, Lesson 2, “A Fable for Tomorrow” by Rachel Carson is listed as Optional in the Texts list under the Texts tab in the student-facing materials. The reading and related activities take place in a Core lesson. Materials list the text by Rachel Carson as Core in the Text Overview and Unit Text List.

Indicator 3Z
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Materials provide teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, when applicable.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 provide teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, when applicable. 

The Teacher Edition provides guidance on the use of technology to support and enhance student learning. In many cases, the Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition include ideas for extending student learning with technology, such as using specific digital tools. In other cases, the Teaching Notes provide guidance to support student learning, such as with specific digital tools to help clarify students’ understanding.

Materials provide teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, when applicable. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Materials provide guidance for using embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, where applicable.

    • In the Program Guide, materials explain how texts within the units can be accessed digitally. Students can use the Unit Text List for digital access: “These texts can be found online. The information provided in the Unit Text List or on the Materials tab for the activity can be used to conduct a web search for the resource. Digital Access resources include online articles, videos, podcasts, and other web sources.”

    • In the Remote Learning Guide, materials include a table of instructional strategies with technology solutions. For example, materials suggest teachers use Pear Deck and EdPuzzle for “interactive tools for videos or slides,” Snagit, Screencastify, Quicktime, and Loom for “modeling and screencasting,” and Hypothesis, NowComment, highlighting and commenting features on Google Docs. or Word for “digital annotating of text.”

    • In the Remote Learning Guide, materials explain the technology used to facilitate digital annotations:

      • “If permissible, create a Google Docs or Word version of the text. Individual copies will need to be created (the LMS might have an automatic feature for this).

      • Students can use the comment, highlight, and underline features to annotate the text.

      • Consider using a third-party technology resource for annotation (e.g., Hypothesis, NowComment).”

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Do We Determine the Right Thing to Do?, Section 1, Lesson 2, students complete a Moral Machine quiz from the MIT website. This digital tool is used to help students examine their thoughts and beliefs. The Teacher Edition includes the following guidance: “At the end of the quiz, you can find options for better summarizing the reasons behind each judgment, and you can learn how the class’ choices align with the data the site has collected from participants worldwide.”

    • In the Development Unit, Alexander Hamilton, Section 2, Lesson 7, students rewatch three musical numbers from the filmed production of Hamilton to deepen their understanding of the perspectives displayed. The Teacher Edition provides timestamps for each of the three musical numbers: “The video timestamp for ‘Stay Alive’ is 45:58-48:36. The video timestamp for ‘Meet Me Inside’ is 50:25-51:52. The video timestamp for ‘Guns and Ships’ is 54:48-57:00.” The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition includes the following guidance: “In order to help students recall and expand their thinking about these three songs prior to further study in the next activity, consider rewatching these scenes from the filmed stage production with the original Broadway cast, which is available via Disney+.”

    • In the Development Unit, Telling Stories, Section 1, Lesson 1, students watch the video “Introduction to Storytelling” from Pixar Animation Studios’s Khan Academy unit. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition explain that “A transcript is available on the website for students who benefit from reading along,” and that students may benefit from viewing a short clip from a Pixar film.

    • In the Development Unit, Things Fall Apart, Section 2, Lesson 3, students fill out their Attending to Details Tool, which can be accessed in the form of a Google Doc, to answer the question: “What happened during the Colonial Era in Nigeria?” The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition explains: “The Attending to Details Tool supports and guides a process for preparing to read, reading, and initially reacting to a text. This is a helpful process to internalize when you are working with a complex text that might require multiple reads, or one that is being read over a long period.”

    • In the Development Unit, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Section 4, Lesson 5, students learn about cinematic techniques to prepare to watch the film adaptation of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Students then create presentations to share their analysis of the text and film adaptation. The Teacher Edition provides guidance on how students should create their presentations: “For this activity, students should create their multimedia slides through an online platform, such as Google Slides, so you can display the slides on an overhead projector…You might create a model slide, especially if you have more words than student groups.”