10th Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2a. Texts and text sets are organized around a topic/topics to build students’ knowledge and their ability to read and comprehend complex texts proficiently.

Grade 10 units and corresponding text sets are developed around a theme of culture and cultural conflicts in the largest sense. All units, with the exception of Unit 4, bear the word “culture” in their unit titles; unlike the other three units, Unit 4 addresses conflicts of cultures in the application of justice as played out across literature in drama and novels.

• In Unit 1, Cultural Conversations, students explore diverse cultures by reading texts that reflect on the connection between one’s cultural heritage and sense of identity to argue to what extent a person’s culture influences how he or she perceives the world and other people.

• In Unit 2, Cultural Perspectives, students expand the examination of culture from Unit 1 to include how culture affects people’s perspectives on the concepts of family and justice--including people from diverse cultures--and can come to understand one another through art, as well as universal human concern.

• In Unit 3, Cultures in Conflict, students continue their exploration of culture by reading and studying Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, to analyze a complex community, the institutions that enable it to function, the conflicting roles of its members, and the way in which it is affected by political and social change.

• In Unit 4, Dramatic Justice, students read texts from ancient Greece to modern times in a quest to analyze the complexity of justice and the universal struggle across time and cultures as expressed through literature. In that study, students evaluate and critique oral interpretations, analyze conflicting motivations of complex characters, and trace major themes as they evolve across the literary canon.

• In Unit 5, Cultural Bridges, students conduct an in-depth examination of climate change and the surrounding controversy, analyzing how conflicts over environmental resources are increasingly a source of culture clash.

The sequence of texts and lesson scaffolds are designed to support students as they read to comprehend complex texts. Students read text independently, in small groups, and as whole group read alouds. In addition, students are asked to actively monitor their reading comprehension through the guiding questions of the Setting a Purpose for Reading and Second Read sections. Unit texts are distributed at varying levels within the quantitative and qualitative measures appropriate to the grade band. Finally, in each Activity, students are provided with text-dependent questions to engage them actively and provide scaffolding for students in need.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2b. Grade 10 materials contain sets of coherently sequenced higher order thinking questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language (words/phrases), key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts in order to make meaning and build understanding of texts and topics.

Within most activities of each unit students work independently, in small groups, and as a whole group responding to questions and completing tasks that require analysis of individual texts and text sets. The sequence of texts and tasks are designed to support students as they build knowledge and skills through progressively more complex text-based interactions.

Each unit activity introducing a new text follows a common pattern. An activity feature, Preview, explains the what and why of the lesson/activity followed by Setting a Purpose, an activity feature fostering self-monitoring through “while-reading” task engagement with the text. For example, in Unit 2 Activity 3, Preview tells students what they will be reading, a memoir, and the why, “[to] analyze the narrative techniques that the author uses to tell her story,” an essential skill for the successful completion of the unit’s Embedded Assessment 1, when students will write their own narrative to “convey a cultural perspective.” Preview also engages students in vocabulary development, asking them to “circle unknown words and phrases. Try to determine the meaning of the words by using context clues, word parts, or a dictionary.” Setting a Purpose asks students to annotate the text while reading the memoir, an excerpt from Funny in Farsi, finding important narrative elements. Following the first reading, Second Read asks students a series of increasingly rich, text-dependent questions, each classified as a question related to better understanding Key Ideas and Details or Craft and Structure. In some question sets, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas is also included within this portion of the lesson.

Following Second Read, students become engaged in Working from the Text, a frequently collaborative activity typically engaging students in a directed but more personally responsive work, e.g., working with a graphic organizer, preparing a summary, classifying text ideas, comparing and contrasting concepts and approaches, etc. In Unit 2, Activity 3, students complete a graphic organizer analyzing narrative elements and providing correspondent details from the narrative as textual evidence. After having worked through the activity text/s in various ways, Check Your Understanding asks students to respond briefly to a guiding question, typically in writing but sometimes through discussion. For example, in Unit 2, Activity 3, students are asked to reread “the description of Dumas’s mother’s lack of education. Discuss with a partner: How can adding background information about a character add depth to a character in a narrative?” The activity ends with Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text. In Unit 2, Activity 3, students are asked to “Write an essay to explain how the incidents portrayed in the narrative make a point about a particular aspect of culture.” The unit activities and texts work progressively, leading students to toward the first of two Embedded Assessments appearing midway through the unit and again at the unit end. In Grade 10 Unit 2, Embedded Assessment 1, students are tasked with writing a narrative about an incident, either real or imagined, that conveys a cultural perspective.” Students are reminded they have studied “narratives in multiple genres, and [you] have explored a variety of cultural perspectives. You will now select the genre you feel is most appropriate to convey a real or fictional experience that includes one or more elements of culture.” The Embedded Assessment draws on skills and knowledge that has been practiced through the various activities of Unit 2, Activities 2.1 through 2.10.

Not only do daily activities build in knowledge and skill, writing prompts also increase in complexity over the course of each unit. For example, Unit 1, Activity 2, the first explanatory writing prompt, asks students to explain a cultural artifact by writing an essay that describes the artifact, how it is used, and how it connects to the student’s culture. In Unit 1, Activity 3, the second explanatory prompt instructs students to examine the similarities and differences between the formation of cultural identity as analyzed by academics and as experienced by individuals, drawing on both selections as they explore this issue. The directions remind students to be sure to effectively incorporate multiple direct quotations from both texts, introducing and punctuating them correctly. A third explanatory writing prompt, Unit 1, Activity 6, asks students to explain how author, Amy Tan uses the central conflict between mother and daughter to develop the theme of the work in “Two Kinds.” The progression tasks from descriptive to comparison to analyzing the use of a literary device to developing a theme. This increasing sophistication prepares students to demonstrate competence when completing Embedded Assessment 1 as they write a reflective essay explaining their cultural identities, discussing how their sense of cultural identity compares to that of parents, peers, or strangers and how cultural conflict can influence one’s perspective.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2c. Grade 10 material contains a coherently sequenced set of text-dependent and text-specific questions and tasks that require students to build knowledge and integrate ideas across both individual and multiple texts. Within most activities of each unit, the sequence of questions, texts, and tasks are designed to build student knowledge and strengthen student skills. Teaching and learning materials provide explicit instruction in research-based reading strategies and text annotation, analytic discussion, and academic writing.

Reading closely is a central activity of every unit: “During the first read, students are encouraged to engage with the text and annotate it with questions and thoughts. When they return to the text for a second read, students search for answers and evidence in response to thoughtful text-dependent questions found after each passage. The questions have been written to tap into the complexity of the text: thematic complexity, structural or linguistic complexity, or content knowledge demands.” Overall, these questions are text-specific and/or text-dependent and are not framed across texts; however, some Second Read questions reference generalities related to themes, literary elements, literary devices, or conventions, further supporting the acquisition of knowledge within and across texts.

In addition to discussions fueled by text-dependent questions, a mix of argumentative, explanatory, and narrative writing prompts provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding and analysis of texts through written expression. Performance tasks allow students to integrate the knowledge and skills they have acquired to demonstrate proficiencies in reading and language standards through writing. Most embedded assessments ask students to expand on unit texts by conducting independent research to integrate knowledge acquired on their own with knowledge gained in the classroom.

Unit activities are typically threaded together through a thematic focus connecting one day’s lesson to the next day’s lesson and therefore, the text of study in one activity to the text of study in the following activities. Additionally, Embedded Assessments occur twice in each unit; they ask students to use knowledge and skills gained through previous lessons to demonstrate proficiencies and growth. Each unit follows a similar pattern in developing student ability to successfully build knowledge from single texts and synthesizing knowledge among texts. Day one of each unit begins with Preview, an overview of the unit’s first Embedded Assessment; thereafter, most activities or lessons build to develop student skills and knowledge in the performance of that assessment. After the completion of the first Embedded Assessment the second half of the unit begins, this time with a preview of the second Embedded Assessment which culminates the unit study. Thereafter, most ensuing activities progress to build student proficiencies to complete the second assessment. Through this reiterative process, students gain knowledge and skills to the immediate text under study while simultaneously considering how to integrate their learning into the upcoming performance task.

Day 1 of Unit 3, Activity 1 begins with the preview of Embedded Assessment 1, a reflective essay explaining their cultural identity. The assessment will follow Activity 8, and prior to the assessment students will “read poetry, short stories, and essays—all focusing on some element of cultural identity.” Activity 1.2 introduces essential academic vocabulary for the unit, culture, and cultural identity, terminology that will support students as they explore “the concept of culture and the role it plays in personal perceptions.” The first conventional text is introduced in Activity 3.3 and follows the program protocol for engaging students in new text: Preview, Setting a Purpose, Second Read, Working from the Text, and Check Your Understanding. Writing to Sources, a more extensive writing feature, frequently follows Check Your Understanding. Preview indicates the students will be reading two texts “to compare and contrast how the main idea is developed through the authors’ distinct voices.” The first text is an essay, “What is Cultural Identity?” and the second is a personal narrative, “Ethnic Hash.” Setting a Purpose instructs students to underline words that help “define the concept of cultural identity” and “circle unknown words and phrases” during the first reading of each text, an activity meant to build necessary knowledge to complete the embedded assessment. Each text is read and discussed separately. Following the first read of “What is Cultural Identity?” Second Read engages students in a closer reading of the text, prompting students to consider questions that are both text-based and text-dependent. For example, students are asked the explicit text-based question, “Based on the information given in the text, explain the difference between ‘cultural heritage’ and ‘cultural inheritance’” and the slightly more inferential text-dependent question, “What is the purpose of beginning the selection with the individual’s sense of identity and then moving to shared webs of meaning?” Working from the Text asks students to write an objective summary of “each section of the text” and then asks students to respond to more probing questions that are related to the Embedded Assessment yet to come, e.g., “Reflect on invisible aspects of your culture. What differences exist between you and your culture?” and “What are some examples of your culture? Explain how these aspects are dynamic.” Through these questions, students consider not only the text they are currently reading but the text they will be creating in few days.

After reading and rereading “What is Cultural Identity?” the second text is introduced. The instructional protocol again proceeds with Setting a Purpose, instructing students to underline words that help “define the concept of cultural identity” and “circle unknown words and phrases.” Following the first reading, Second Read asks students a series of text-based and text-dependent questions, e.g., “How does the author use food to develop her ideas about ethnicity?” and “What does the metaphorical title suggest about Williams’s cultural identity?”

This discussion is followed by a Language and Writer’s Craft lesson on formal and informal voice, and a Check Your Understanding activity wherein students complete a Venn diagram comparing voice between the two texts. Unit 3, Activity 3 culminates in Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text. Students are asked to use “your notes as the basis of an essay that examines the similarities and differences between the formation of cultural identity as analyzed by academics and as experienced by individuals. Draw on both selections as you explore this issue.” Students are reminded to use formal academic voice (as studied in the lesson), develop a clear thesis, use transition words, provide a concluding statement, and effectively “incorporate multiple direct quotations from both texts, introducing and punctuating them correctly.” Additionally, an Independent Reading Link sidebar in the lesson asks students to consider their independent reading and “consider people’s awareness of how their cultural identity is shaped—through ethnicity, family history, and/or geographical location. Note in your journal specific texts that cause you to reflect on how your own cultural identity has been shaped.”

This lesson activity is followed by a series of activities following the same instructional protocols to build background knowledge not only through a single text but also through the synthesis of understanding brought about through broad reading. Unit 3, Activity 5 introduces a novel excerpt from The Joy Luck Club and Unit 3, Activity 6 shares a biographical excerpt from Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, artwork, a poem and a memoir. Each isolated text joins the library of texts built across the unit’s study and through the students’ independent reading in preparation for Embedded Assessment 1, “a reflection about your own cultural identity and argue to what extent a person’s culture influences how he or she perceives the world and other people.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2d. The Grade 10 questions and tasks support students’ ability to complete culminating tasks in which they demonstrate their knowledge of a topic through integrated skills (e.g. a combination of reading, writing, speaking, and listening).

During each unit, students complete two Embedded Assessments, one midpoint in the unit and the second at the unit’s end; the Embedded Assessments ask students to work collaboratively as well as independently. Each one is a unique performance task that allows students to show knowledge proficiency with texts, concepts, and skills representative of multiple grade-level standards and taught through previous lesson sets. The Embedded Assessments require students to deepen learning through analysis and synthesis, presenting their findings through a variety of products: essays, multimedia presentations, speeches, dramatic interpretations, and anthologies. Each unit strategically builds towards the culminating assessment and provides teachers with usable information about student readiness. Skills needed to complete the performance tasks, e.g., writing processes, technology fluency, and speaking and listening skills, are modeled and directly taught as well as practiced in relationship to the performance task. Further supports exist within the student and teacher materials to ensure students are able to complete the performance task. Additionally, many of the text-dependent questions related to Second Read as well as the questions and activities in Check Your Understanding align to the culminating tasks.

In Unit 1, Embedded Assessment 2 asks students to collaborate “with your peers to write an essay that responds to the following synthesis prompt: To what extent does one’s culture inform the way one views others and the world?” In preparation for this assessment, students have read a variety of texts including informational, personal essay, poems, and short stories with a primary focus on cultural identity. To complete the Embedded Assessment, groups are asked to reach a consensus and write a preliminary thesis or claim on the extent to which culture shapes perspective, ensuring each group member contributes a section that supports the thesis with evidence identifying cultural influences (SL.9-10.1a). Students must also support claims with evidence from at least three different texts read, viewed, or listened to in this unit (R.9-10.1, R.9-10.2, and W.9 –10.2, W.9-10.4 and W.9-10.5). To support students in completion of this task, a series of questions guides students through planning and prewriting, drafting and revising, and editing and publishing phases of the task, e.g., Who is your audience, and what are their concerns that must be addressed as counterclaims? What counterclaims will you acknowledge and what evidence do you have to refute them? Have you maintained a formal style throughout? In addition, the Scoring Guide outlines student expectations. Supports also exist in the Teacher’s Edition to help teachers identify that students are prepared to address these tasks. Teachers are encouraged to “have students revisit the group norms they have established and add to or revise the list as they embark on collaborative writing,” for example. Other supports include having students review the Scoring Guide to understand criteria, submit preliminary theses and outlines along with individual assignments for each group member, provide class time for student collaboration, and having teachers “model how to use the Scoring Guide to generate questions for peer revision, such as, ‘Does this paragraph integrate relevant examples from texts and personal insight to support the claim?’”

In Unit 3, Embedded Assessment 1 asks students to create a presentation that examines “one aspect of tribal culture presented in Things Fall Apart, its significance to the Ibo community, and to compare and contrast how that cultural aspect changed from precolonial to postcolonial Nigeria.” In preparation for this assessment, students have read the novel, Things Fall Apart, focusing on colliding cultures. To complete this embedded assessment, students select research questions to help compare and contrast one aspect of pre- and post-colonial Ibo culture (W.9-10.7), find and incorporate textual evidence of a cultural aspect from the novel Things Fall Apart (W.9-10.9), gather additional authoritative resources to answer their research question (W.9-10.8), and record their research in an annotated bibliography. Finally, students must utilize effective speaking and listening techniques to engage their audience (SL.9-10.4) as well as take notes during the presentation of their peers (SL.9-10.3). To help students to complete this task, a series of guided questions helps students to think through the planning, creating and rehearsing, and presenting and listening phases of the task, e.g., “How could you use a presentation tool such as PowerPoint or Prezi…?” “How will you choose relevant images and write appropriate captions to engage your audience?” “What are the effective speaking and listening techniques you will need to use to engage your audience?” In addition, the Scoring Guide outlines student expectations. Supports also exist in the Teacher’s Edition to help teachers identify that students are prepared to address these tasks. Teachers are encouraged to “provide examples of effective research questions and review the criteria for an annotated bibliography,” for example. Other supports include showing students examples of PowerPoint and/or Prezi presentations in order to illustrate effective and ineffective strategies, encouraging students to rehearse through their entire presentation as another group evaluates them, using the Scoring Guide criteria in order to provide feedback for improvement, and review the basic criteria for an effective presentation such as font size and color; use of images or graphs; use of notecards or a script to avoid reading off the screen; and quantity of text. Teachers are also encouraged to have students “Work together as a class to write a set of “best practices,” or look online for tips.

In Unit 5, Embedded Assessment 1 asks students to present “a solution to the environmental conflict your group has researched.” In preparation for this assessment, students have explored a variety of texts including documentary films, speeches, articles, editorials, and press releases, with a focus on the art of persuasion. To complete this embedded assessment, students are asked to apply the speaking skills practiced in Unit 3 and use logic, evidence, and rhetorical appeals to advocate in the effective delivery of a group presentation “designed to contextualize the conflict for your classmates and justify your approach to resolving it.” Students are to use maps, visual aids, or other media to engage the audience (W.9-10.6) and integrate oral source citations to cite research (W.9-10.8). In the process, students use technology to produce, publish, and update their writing product and to link and display information flexibly and dynamically. To help students to complete this task, a series of guided questions helps students to think through the planning, drafting and organizing, and rehearsing and presenting phases of the task, e.g., “How will your group identify common ground…?” “What background information will you provide to give a context for the conflict?” “What evidence and citations will you include to develop claims, counterclaims, and reasons?” In addition, the Scoring Guide outlines student expectations. Teacher materials provide supports that include reviewing with students the work done in previous activities to prepare them for this project, including research, annotated bibliographies, position papers, and collaborative work completed in the preceding unit activities.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2e. Grade 9 materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts. Materials include a consistent approach for students to regularly interact with word relationships and build academic and figurative language in context.

Opportunities to build vocabulary are found throughout the instructional materials. A cohesive, year-long description of vocabulary instruction is found in the Language Development section of The Front Matter, Teacher’s Edition found in the listings under the Teacher Resource tab on the program’s landing page. The Front Matter describes the program’s approach to language skills and knowledge as “part of an integrated approach to reading, writing, speaking, and listening with instruction that focuses on language as a flexible tool that can be adapted for specific contexts.” The section goes on to specifically outline four instructional features embedded within each unit: Academic Vocabulary featuring Tier Two terms and concepts; Literary Terms equipping students with Tier Three language from the ELA domain; Word Connections featuring roots and affixes etymology, cognates, word relationships, and multiple-meaning words; and Academic Vocabulary in Context featuring glossed terms at the point of use for words with insufficient context clues to aid in comprehension. Additionally, Language and Writer’s Craft activities along with Grammar and Usage sidebars provide language instruction and grammar support in the context of reading and writing within the unit. Language Checkpoint activities offer optional practice opportunities for students to develop or refresh their knowledge of standard English conventions.

Other unit features support teacher instruction and student use of vocabulary in various contexts. The Unit Overview, a feature page of each unit, presents a sidebar listing of Academic Vocabulary and Literary Terms introduced, taught, and studied in each unit. Within the activities or lessons, the Setting a Purpose for Reading feature frequently asks students to identify “unknown words or phrases” and determine their meaning using “context clues, word parts, or a dictionary.” Additionally, Planning the Unit offers two features, Supporting Students’ Language Development and Digital Resource: English Language Development Activities, offering additional supports in scaffolded language instruction to ensure students have opportunities to learn, practice, apply, and transfer the language needed to “develop the content knowledge, skills, and academic language needed to perform well on the Embedded Assessments.” The application of words across texts or in ways that support accelerated vocabulary learning in reading, speaking, and writing tasks is most strongly supported through Tier 3 study of language related to literature, rhetoric, and other studies of the ELA domain and reiteratively applied in analysis and communicated through speaking and writing.

In Unit 3, Unit Overview lists Academic Vocabulary and Literary Terms for study across the next 20 activities or lessons. Academic terms listed are: reliability, validity, plagiarism, annotated bibliography; literary terms listed are proverb, folktale, archetype, epitaph, motif, foil, characterization, foreshadowing, tragic hero, hamartia, irony, dramatic irony, verbal irony, andsituational irony. Over the course of the unit, students frequently interact with these words in the context of texts, activities, and tasks. In Unit 3, Activity 2, two essential unit terms, proverb and folktale, are featured in sidebars, the former defined as “a short saying about a general truth” and the latter, “a story without a known author that has been preserved through oral retellings.” Activity 3.2 focuses on these two terms, going beyond definitions to engage students in interpretive and analytic activities. In the first activity, students are provided with a series of proverbs and asked to write an interpretive explanation; the second activity asks students to analyze folktales for the qualities of the genre: characters, setting, plot, symbols, archetypes, meaning, and universal significance. All terms listed in the Unit Overview are featured in activity sidebars, and each activity provides similar treatment of featured words; terms are fully defined and contextualized and, thereafter, repeated many times through the unit’s study in both receptive and expressive modes. Sidebars supported through activities such as this provide rich, multidimensional interaction with language and accelerate vocabulary learning. The second half of Unit 3 builds on academic and literary vocabulary preparing students for Embedded Assessment 2, an analytical essay asking students to examine a character’s response to the cultural collisions depicted in Things Fall Apart. In the essay, students must “analyze how the collision challenges the character’s sense of identity, and explain how his or her response shapes the meaning of the work as a whole.” Deep understanding of concepts such as archetype, motif, foil, and irony will help students to more accurately and critically analyze the work in reading, writing, and speaking. These activities are foundational to students as they build academic vocabulary enabling them to read diverse literary texts, research among primary and secondary sources, and become college and career ready.

In Unit 5, Unit Overview lists ten Academic Vocabulary and nine Literary Terms for study across the next 20 activities or lessons. The unit feature, Supporting Students’ Language Development Section, notes that numerous “resources are available in this unit to help teachers differentiate instruction for English language learners or other students who need extra support in English language development.” The associated ELL Support Document found on the listings under the Teacher Resource tab on the program’s landing page indicates teachers should “consistently apply and practice strategic vocabulary development support for Academic Vocabulary with tools such as interactive word walls, diffusing, vocabulary graphic organizers, and QHT work.” The Digital Resources feature indicates where ELD-focused activities for three texts within the unit can be found, i.e.: Academic and Social Language Preview, Interpreting the Text Using Close Reading, and Collaborative Academic Discussion. Each of these activities uses an excerpt from the text under study to support language learning essential to understanding the isolated text, the concepts under study, and the larger goals of the unit. For example, Unit 5, Activity 5.11a Academic and Social Language Preview draws vocabulary from the Activity 5.11 text, “A Roaring Battle Over Sea Lions.” The activity begins by providing a three-column chart listing selected words for study, e.g., dam, controversy, and prey. The second column of the provides a contextual reference as a direct quotation from the text. In the third column, students are asked to “work with a partner to see if you can determine the word’s meaning using context clues or your knowledge of word parts.” Following completion of the chart, students work through a series of Language Practice exercises, e.g., practice matching photographs with vocabulary words or phrases, using a dictionary and marking the root word, and turn and talk using words from the vocabulary list. Unit 5, Activity 11c, Collaborative Academic Discussion, engages students in small group or paired discussions around academic language and literary concerns. For example, Activity 5.11c asks students “Does the author of this article choose a side in this controversy? Cite evidence to explain your reasoning,” and then it provides a sentence frame for student response, “It seems to me the author of this article _____.” The activity ends with the feature, Asking Questions, which typically begins by providing an explanation of the text’s content or message and then asks students to write a response. For example, in Activity 5.11c, students are told, “‘A Roaring Battle Over Sea Lions’ explores a conflict between animal rights activists and fishermen and tribal members of the region. With your small group, discuss the stakeholders in this conflict and the agendas of both groups.” Thereafter, students are to write their own opinion using a writing frame: “In my opinion….The appeal I found most effective...One thing I still wonder is…”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2f. Grade 10 materials contain a year-long, cohesive plan of writing instruction and tasks which support students in building and communicating substantive understanding of topics and texts.

Opportunities to build and communicate learning of topics and texts through written expression are found throughout the instructional materials. A cohesive, year-long description of writing instruction is found in the Effective Expression section of The Front Matter, Teacher’s Edition found in the listings under the Teacher Resource tab on the program’s landing page. The Front Matter explains the program provides “multiple opportunities for authentic, task-based writing and writing to sources. As students are learning to write, they learn to consider task, audience, and purpose in structuring and organizing their writing. Direct instruction in writing in different modes—narrative, argumentative, and explanatory—is a primary focus of unit instruction.” The section goes on to delineate five areas integrated within unit activities and additional resources available through the teacher resource tab: guided instruction in the major modes of writing; direct instruction emphasizing incorporation of details, reasons, and textual evidence; short and extended research writing focused on evaluating sources, gathering relevant evidence, and citing and reporting findings accurately; integration of research-based strategies supporting the writing process; and formative writing prompts, performance-based embedded assessments and optional mode-specific writing workshops.

Several unit features also support student growth in writing skills. Language and Writer’s Craft and Language Checkpoints features “build students’ knowledge of grammar and conventions, making them more proficient, confident, and creative writers and more effective self- and peer-editors.” Explain How an Author Builds an Argument, another frequent unit feature, presents formative writing prompts encouraging the use of academic vocabulary in various contexts. Additionally, each unit presents two performance-based embedded assessments and a corresponding rubric outlining performance expectations. Instruction is progressive, incorporating strategies and protocols to support students' writing independence as they work towards mastery. Finally, a portfolio of student work is cultivated over the course of the year and acts as a final assessment of student writing development.

Unit 1, Activity 2 leads students in the preliminary work of defining and exemplifying the term, culture. Using note-taking strategies such as a word web and graphic organizers, students record thoughts, ideas, and notes evoked by iconic images presented by the teacher and discussed in class. Later in the activity, students are asked to list five items they could bring to class that would “express something about your cultural identity.” The first formative writing task of the year is presented in the Activity 2 Explanatory Writing Prompt: “Choose one of the five items from your list as the focus of a brief essay that explains the object to an audience that is unfamiliar with what it is, how it is used, and how it connects to your culture (and personally to you).” Students are instructed to describe the object using vivid and concrete language; explain the object’s connection to their culture, and explain the object’s personal significance. As a formative writing assessment, teachers are urged to check for student understanding “by asking for volunteers to share their explanatory essays.” Although not specifically stated, one might assume teachers can use the samples from this initial prompt to assess student proficiency and inform future instruction.

Unit 3, Activity 8 asks students to respond a question arising from Things Fall Apart. In preparation for the writing, students are asked to prepare for a Socratic Seminar by responding to a series of assigned questions as well as formulating novel, interpretive, and universal questions. After working in small groups to generate and address questions, students participate in the Socratic Seminar, taking notes in a two-column graphic organizer over peer responses. Following the seminar, teachers are directed to “ask students to select one of the questions from the graphic organizer and use it as the basis of an analytical paragraph.” Prior to writing, the Language and Writer’s Craft feature presents a mini-lesson on Academic Voice, advising students that literary analysis is “typically written in academic voice, which uses a straightforward, formal style and avoids a conversational tone. Academic writing focuses readers on the ideas as presented in the text, rather than on the personality and voice of the author.” The lesson includes a definition of formal diction and provides students with the characteristics of formal and informal writing styles. Student instructions state “[b]efore you begin the following writing prompt, look over your notes, which were probably written in an informal style and voice. When you respond to the prompt, you will want to use a formal style and voice to lend credibility to your academic writing.”

Throughout the year, The Teacher Wrap urges teachers to provide opportunities and time for students to move the work of their embedded assessment writing from Working Folders into the Student Portfolios: “Keeping a portfolio of work is an important strategy for having students go through regular self-evaluations of their academic progress.” Additionally, Teacher Wrap suggests the reflection questions related to each of the ten embedded assessments occurring over the course of the year also be included in the portfolio.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2g. Grade 10 materials include a progression of focused, shared research, and writing projects to encourage students to synthesize knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials.

Opportunities to build skill in research as well as synthesize knowledge and understanding across classroom activities and research-based projects are found throughout the SpringBoard materials. The Front Matter of the Teacher’s Edition indicates that “SpringBoard provides multiple opportunities for authentic, task-based writing and writing to sources” with many writing tasks requiring students seek evidence beyond those texts provided as part of the curriculum. Additionally, students are engaged in short-term tasks and longer-term projects wherein they practice and demonstrate proficiencies in “evaluating sources, gathering relevant evidence, and citing and reporting findings accurately.” Specifically, the Grade 10 materials include a steady “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.” Students begin with basic research skills, which build in complexity and are applied in diverse ways throughout the year, both collaboratively and independently. The Teacher Wrap provides teachers with support in “employing projects that develop students’ knowledge of different aspects of a topic,” as well as “resources for student research.” Students are given opportunities to complete short projects as they develop the foundational skills necessary to move on and complete long projects typically encompassed in the embedded assessments.

Unit 1, Embedded Assessment 2 asks students to “write an essay that responds to the following synthesis prompt: To what extent does one’s culture inform the way one views others and the world?” Students are expected to support their claims “with evidence from at least three different texts you have read, viewed, or listened to in this unit.” To prepare for this assignment, activities preceding the Embedded Assessment focus on how the attitudes and perspectives of others affect or influence one’s own perspective. Additionally, preceding activities analyze how rhetorical devices and elements of argument influence one’s perspective. In Activity 1.14, students draw on and synthesize the unit’s readings to take and support a position in response to this prompt: “To what extent does a person’s culture inform the way he or she views others and the world?” To complete this assignment, students not only review the unit texts but also incorporate textual evidence from the readings into a cohesive essay using correct punctuation and in-text parenthetical citations, demonstrating proficiencies in standards W.9-10.7 and W.9-10.9 as well as SL.9-10.1.

Unit 3, students continue their exploration of culture by reading and studying Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, analyzing the complex Ibo culture and community, the institutions that enable it to function, the conflicting roles of its members, and the way in which it is affected by political and social change. Embedded Assessment 1 asks students to “to examine one aspect of tribal culture presented in Things Fall Apart, its significance to the Ibo community, and compare and contrast how that cultural aspect changed from precolonial to postcolonial Nigeria.” Prior to reading the novel, Activity 3.2 and Activity 3.3 ask students to “[g]ather, evaluate, and cite sources to answer questions about the historical, cultural, social, and geographical context of the novel,” including completing a protocol to help them evaluate the validity and reliability of online information. The Academic Vocabulary feature in the same lesson defines and explains the terms validity and reliability. As part of the assignment, students must generate research questions to help them compare and contrast an aspect of pre- and post-colonial Ibo culture, find and incorporate textual evidence from the novel, and record research in an annotated bibliography.

In Unit 5, the Unit Overview informs students they will study the issue of climate change “one, to understand the issue and the conflicts to which it contributes, and two, as a model for a research project that you will present to your classmates.” To complete the task, students “conduct research on stakeholder positions” by analyzing “the relationship between cause-effect claims and the use of supporting evidence” and by evaluating “how filmmakers use evidence and rhetorical appeals to support a claim.” In Activity 5.12, students collaborate “to select an environmental issue for a research topic” and identify “stakeholders in order to focus research and draft a preliminary topic proposal.” In Activity 5.14, students prepare an annotated bibliography and examine “the link between careful documentation and ethos as a researcher.” The embedded assessment asks students to “deliver a group presentation designed to contextualize the conflict for your classmates and justify your approach to resolving it” including incorporating multiple pieces of evidence and citations to develop claims, counterclaims, and reasons, and integrating oral source citations to cite research.

The materials reviewed for Grade 10 meet the criteria for Indicator 2h. Grade 10 materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.

Grade 10 materials provide students with numerous opportunities for independent reading both in and outside of classroom. Each unit incorporates two independent reading assignments connected to an aspect of the unit study or theme and sometimes directly related to the embedded assessments. Six close reading workshops of various genres or modes are found in the Teacher Resources tab and provide opportunities for enrichment or accelerated learning. Each workshop provides three texts, each with explicit instruction advancing students' independent reading skills. Each text moves through four activities: a guided activity, a collaborative activity, an independent activity, and assessment opportunities for the entire workshop. Additionally, literature studied by the whole class, e.g., novels and plays, sometimes require independent reading beyond the classroom. Accountability is maintained through double-entry journals, reader/writer notebooks, independent reading links, independent reading checkpoints, and in-class discussions for which students must be prepared. Teachers, meanwhile, are provided with guidance for the inclusion of independent reading within the text and with ideas and suggestions for fostering reading independence through the Planning the Unit guide and the Teacher Wrap.

Unit 1 exemplifies how independent reading is established throughout the year. Each unit requires the students to read two texts independently, one during the first half of the unit and the second during the latter half of the unit. Independent reading suggestions for each unit are found in Planning the Unit page and “have been chosen based on complexity and interest.” While typically related to the unit’s theme, students have a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts from which to choose. Texts are equally varied by Lexile measures. For example, in Unit 1, suggested selections range from Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin (810L), Black Boy by Richard Wright (950L), Meridian by Alice Walker (1010L), and When I was a Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago (1029L). Teachers are urged to “encourage students to do their own research and select titles that intrigue them.”

In the first days of each unit, students create their Independent Reading Plan and share their plan with a partner: “How do you go about choosing what to read independently? Where can you find advice on which books or articles to read? What genre of texts do you most enjoy reading outside of class? How can you make time in your schedule to read independently? How do you think learning about new cultures might change your perspective of the texts you read independently?” Additionally, students are given guidance in their reading selection and how their reading may apply to the unit’s theme. For example, in Unit 1 the Independent Reading Link notes, “In this unit, you will be exploring cultural identity. For your independent reading, find texts by authors who share your cultural ideas and make comparisons about shared experiences and experiences that are different.”

The Teacher Wrap gives teachers guidance in setting up the Independent Reading as well: “Review expectations as noted in the Independent Reading Link. Include a deadline by which selections should be made and reading should begin.” Additionally, the Teacher Wrap suggests differentiated approaches to support those who struggle gain independence as readers: “As students develop their independent reading plans, consider giving students who are at an early stage of English language development the option of reading a text in their home language. These students can build on native language literacy as they begin to develop academic English.”

As students proceed through the unit, connections are drawn between their independent reading and in-class readings through the Independent Reading Links found as sidebars throughout the teaching materials. For example, in Activity 1.3 the sidebar notes, “From your independent reading, select an example that illustrates a character’s cultural experience. The character may be part of a smaller cultural group within a larger and much different culture. Discuss the text with your peers, sharing how characters experience cultural identity.” Teachers, likewise, are guided to engage students in their independent reading throughout the unit and are reminded in Teacher Wrap to draw students' attention to connections between their independent reading and the texts studied in class.