The grade 9-12 instructional materials for ThinkCERCA Core English Language Arts and Reading meet expectations for alignment and usability.

Anchor texts are well-crafted, content-rich, and rich in language and academic vocabulary; texts reflect the distribution of text types and genres required by the standards. The tasks, questions, and assignments are connected to the texts students read and require students to collect textual evidence. Units are grouped around a unit theme or topic and an essential question to build students’ knowledge over the course of the school year. Throughout the program, there are varied culminating tasks. While the program includes research activities, opportunities for practice are generally limited to one particular unit. 

Most questions and tasks are aligned to grade-level standards, and the Teacher Guide mostly includes sufficient guidance or resources to support standards-aligned, explicit instruction. The implementation schedules align with the core learning objectives and may be reasonably completed in the time allotted.

The materials provide comprehensive guidance to assist teachers in presenting the instructional materials, including annotations and suggestions in the Teacher Guides, some adult-level explanations so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject, and standards correlation documents. The program provides varied approaches to learning tasks over time, variety in how students are expected to demonstrate their learning, and opportunities for students to monitor their learning. The visual design of the materials supports learning. The design of the Student Guide and Teacher Guide is consistent throughout the program and across all grade levels. The materials provide teacher guidance for using embedded technology to support and enhance student learning. The platform allows teachers to use lessons and digital tools in presentation mode by displaying the Spark Teacher View.

The program includes reading, writing, and vocabulary assessments at the end of each module. The materials provide multiple opportunities to assess students’ learning through varied methods of formal and informal assessments and include suggestions for teachers on following up with students. The materials include accommodations that ensure all students can access assessments as well as general teacher guidance on implementing those accommodations.

The materials regularly provide strategies and support for students in special populations to work with grade-level content. They also provide multiple opportunities for advanced students to investigate the grade-level content at a higher level of complexity. Materials provide teachers scaffolds and tools to support students in participating in the regular lesson despite language barriers. Scaffolds and supports for students to use their home language to leverage their learning are generic.