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I met today’s guests at the 2022 NCSS Conference when I attended their session on elevating and prioritizing teaching hard histories in the ELA classroom. Both curriculum specialists for the school district of Philadelphia—which includes about 250 schools—Christy primarily works with middle schools and Alison primarily works with high schools.
The Big Dream Christy’s dream is that all students can access grade level texts, and they are on the way to achieving that dream soon! In addition to Christy's dream, Alison’s dream is autonomy for students and teachers to make the best choices for their needs. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content The culture of partnership seems to be in place in many places. Leaders share the vision of partnership. Sometimes it doesn’t happen in the way it’s envisioned. Paraphrasing Dr. Ibram Kendi, Christy shared that racist policies lead to individual racism, not the other way around. The hope is personal mindsets will shift when we introduce new curriculum and have honest conversations as educators wrestle with it. There is a legacy of heavy-handedness around pedagogical practices, so there is a bit of fear around having the autonomy to do things differently than they’ve been done in the past. Another tension is due to emergency certifications and the larger context of teacher training, teachers may not have been equipped with the tools they need to be culturally responsive to the needs of their students. Christy shared an analogy: We’re not trying to give people overwhelm with a bunch of dieting recommendations, we’re saying eat nourishing meals and eat a walk every day. We’re not inventing something brand new. We’re trying to take away some things that were added to teachers’ plates that were not helping teachers and students. Action Steps The simplified goal: Read good books. Talk about them. Write about them. Curriculum Created: For each unit, we share a core text and provide daily lesson guidance documents, which includes core components of a reading or writing lesson. Each unit comes with an overview, which includes Essential Questions, big ideas, and alignment to Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s HILL model (5 pursuits). Step 1. Try to align ELA novels and texts to grade-level History units and content. Step 2. Choose culturally relevant texts. Choose one canonical text and teach it critically. Step 3. Develop lesson guidance, not lesson plans. (This enables teacher autonomy and offers opportunities for personalization in response to students’ identities in each classroom.) Lesson guidance includes things like: an opening, mini lesson, shared reading, discourse, write in response to reading). Step 4. Develop a writing-based summative assessment (multimodal writing or traditional writing). Recommendations for Leaders Doing Similar Work An Approach to Implementation Challenges: Particularly in high school, teachers are often attached to the texts they’re teaching. There’s some sticky spaces around that. They’ve pushed it back to schools to determine what they were comfortable with and what their students needed with the lens of Am I just falling back on what I know? Am I pushing myself? They’ve learned to trust schools and leaders to make those decisions and honestly communicate when that’s a struggle. Being open to the conversation is critical. Not Starting From Scratch? If you’re working with existing resources, there is still room for shifts. ”We think that novel-based units are the way to go…We start with the premise that there is no wrong text to teach in a classroom. It’s how you teach it.” We have to work within our locus of control. For example, if there’s a short story with problematic messaging, relate it to the identities present in the classroom (the teacher’s and the students’ identities), and determine how to talk about the text. Positive Deviance: Parable of the Sower and Sula units were made and previously taught by teachers prior to this district-wide curriculum design work. These units were already received well, so it became part of the standard curriculum. In fact, all units were designed by teachers and coaches in the district, which helped build trust in the curriculum. Book “Home Runs” for Students: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo and Born a Crime by Trevor Noah One Step to Get Started Shift conversations about ELA instruction to building knowledge. Books teach us about the world. What knowledge are we choosing to build? How is that built by the books we teach? Skills are very important to reading and writing, but without knowledge, they are kind of useless. There’s a lot of research on this coming out now! Stay Connected You can connect with Christy via email at [email protected]. You can find Alison on LinkedIn. You can also find the School District of Philadelphia’s secondary ELA curriculum here. To help you begin to think about leading teams to create new curriculum, I’m sharing my Curriculum Boot Camp Planner with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 117 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 1 17 of the time for Teacher podcast. Today, I'm speaking with Christy Chang and Dr Alison mcmonagle. Christie is an E L A curriculum specialist with the school district of Philadelphia, specializing in the middle grades. In this role. She develops curriculum resources and professional development for teachers and school leaders at the district. Previously, she was a middle grades E L A teacher and K A E L A coach. Allison is an E L A curriculum specialist with the school district of Philadelphia, specializing in secondary literacy, particularly high school students. In this role, she develops curriculum resources and professional development for teachers and school leaders in the district. Previously, she was college professor and then a middle school and high school E L A teacher. I am so excited for this conversation. Let's get right to it. I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons. And here on the time for teacher podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula, grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning running baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings. 00:01:07 If you're a principal assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nerd out about co creating curriculum with students. I made this show for you. Here we go. Christie and Allison. Welcome to the Time for Teacher podcast. Thank you for having us. I am so excited to get into this conversation today. I think to start us off. I would love to know what you think is important for listeners to know as we jump into this conversation. So there's kind of like the context in us meeting at N CS s and kind of the the presentations. I don't know if you want to share a little bit about that piece or, or kind of the origin of, of this project we'll be discussing but anything that feels relevant for listeners. Um Sure, Christie and myself were presenters at the National Council for Social Studies Conference in Philadelphia. We are both E L A curriculum specialists for the school district of Philadelphia. So the conference was just down the street from our office and we presented on our E L A curriculum that we are rolling out this current year that we're in right now. Um And we talked about how we wanted to elevate and prioritize hard histories within that curriculum. 00:02:17 So Lindsay, you were in our audience as we were speaking about that and then we just connected about how we wanted to continue the conversation around um these hard history. So Christy and I both work with secondary learners. Primarily Christie focuses on the 6 to 8. I focus on the 9 to 12, but we kind of moved back and forth. Just both of us talking about secondary literacy and particularly literacy for all students. But we spend most of our time talking about like E L A instruction. Anything I missed there, Christie. No, I think you did a great job. Awesome, beautiful. So I think thinking about being an audience member in that, that workshop, I was connecting with the reading that I had done by Doctor Patina Love. And she talks about freedom dreaming in this beautiful way that I always like to frame these conversations with. And I, I think there's such a connection here to what you were all working on where she describes dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And I just love this as a sense of dreaming because dreams can be anything but when we ground them in the critique of injustice and we think about teaching hard history in an E L A context. Um I think there's so much potential to kind of describe that and talk about that and dream in that space. 00:03:22 So I'd just love to hear from you both if you want. Um You know what, what is that big dream that you hold for E L A instruction or any any interpretation of that question? I think for me, when I think about freedom dreaming for our students, like in our district, it's for them to be able to access grade level text, which sounds very not sexy. But like if they're able to do that, then they're able to develop as thinkers, not just in the classroom but beyond the classroom when uh I would say it matters even more. And so that to me is the dream. But I think that dreams kind of like, it's, it's like barely, it's like not in our grasp yet. Um And I think that for us in developing this curriculum, we kind of chipped away um a little bit of that dream. So I feel really grateful for that. Yeah, I think that makes me think about that makes me like reflect back on my time when I was a classroom teacher. 00:04:31 So when you're a classroom teacher and you're thinking about curriculum and what you're teaching to your students, particularly in the 9 to 12 or secondary space as an English teacher, you just have so much autonomy over making the right choice for the kids that are in front of you and responding to the students in front of you, responding year over year. If a new book comes out, if this, you can stop and talk about a cultural event if you want. And what I think I struggle with in this position over, I mean, I don't know how many schools we have Chris 250 something. So there's a lot of schools and in this position, you want to uplift that teacher autonomy and letting people respond to the students in front of them and respond to the world around them. But at the same time, you're tasked with sort of norm on what good instruction looks like. And so it's just this very strange tension that I kind of, I don't even think I've come to terms with yet for myself. So, but I'm thinking about freedom dreaming. It's that autonomy piece like autonomy for students, autonomy for teachers to make the best choices and like center those grade level text. 00:05:36 But what they do with those grade level tech and how they work with them reflects their needs. And so when I think about my dream for curriculum and instruction, it's really like the word autonomy comes up a lot. But that seems somehow a contrast with what my job is. Foundation. Like, it's a tricky, it's a tricky situation. I haven't made sense of. But yeah, so that like grade level tech thing, but also that autonomy to be responsive to our students because we have such a large district and we have so many different kinds of students and kinds of schools and there's not like one thing that we can all be doing, that's the one thing that will make everything get better, you know. So, yeah, that's what that's what I think about when I hear that. Yeah. And I, I love both of those responses because I think they speak to leading me into my next questions. I think often about like kind of the four pillars of, I don't know if they're pillars but things that I often talk about like buckets of, of ideas. Um And like two of those pieces. One is I, I often call it voice, but I think connected to autonomy is how do we kind of cope create, right? 00:06:38 How do we have this culture of collaboration between teacher and student and um central office or, you know, like family community, um local contact, all of the pieces so that it is truly personalized. So I, I always struggle with the kind of off the shelf curriculum like, oh yeah, as a teacher, like my joy was in creating for the students in front of me who changed every year and that contacts changed every year, the world changes every year. So how do we, how do we hold that tension? And like, like you, I think Alison, your, your point on that is like really um something something that I struggle with and I think something that, that a lot of um people in positions like this, I think a lot of listeners are instructional leaders. Um and, and thinking about that tension at the same time and then Christy to your point, I think thinking about the value of it in the world right beyond the classroom. Often, I think about what assessments we can have that are civic action projects or, you know, taking what you learn and actually applying it in some way that advances justice. Like that's a hard um lift sometimes when we're so used to write an essay, take a test, you know, what, whatever it is prep for the standardized test uh that you'll take at the end of high school or middle school or whatever. 00:07:44 So I, I think thinking about those pieces of kind of that culture of partnership, of that voice of, of student and teacher in autonomy of what is that authentic assessment and, and application to the world. And then also this piece of bringing in and centering um hard histories. And also I think I'm thinking about Dr Goldie Mohammed's work and, you know, the Hill Hill model of thinking about joy at the same time as we have criticality um and identity and all these pieces like, where do you feel like you are in all of that? Um as a, as a kind of district uh in your roles as a department. Um what feels like really strong and what feels like maybe an area that you're, you're kind of like working towards pursuing more. Um I'm gonna like, give you kind of a non answers a little bit. But so the mindset stuff, I would say, I probably spend 85% of my time thinking we have the mindset stuff down. Right. Because I'm like, up here and everyone around me has it down. 00:08:46 Or at least they know what to say to have it down. And a lot of the people I have teachers I work with and principals I work with, share those values with me and they have it down. But then you're, you have do professional developments, you go to visit schools and you're like, oh, no, we don't. Um And so that mindset and I don't even know if you can ever really get it to 100% you know, because you're talking about people, you know, and people are people, especially when you're talking about 250 plus schools full of people. Um So I would say the mindset we're doing really well with, I think we still need to continue to work. But I do think particularly with our English teachers, at least on the district level, we have made a clear shift in the way our district perceives like the function of an English classroom. Um And what kind of content should appear in an English classroom. I think we're all like, I don't know if you agree Christy, but I think we all like are in the same place for that. 00:09:48 Um ok. Um Yeah, I, I was thinking about how there's this parallel idea from one of in Aram Kendy books. So he says it much better. So, but I'm gonna like, synthesize it, this idea that like racist policies actually yielded like individual racism rather than the other way around. And so taking that kind of relationship, I think of like our curriculum as a type of policy or a type of system that we're introducing this time, hopefully for the better. And so then when we do that, then the hope is that personal mindsets will shift when they need to and that process isn't clean cut or smooth. There are gonna be times as we, as we've experienced this year where we see a type of wrestling or mindsets that are, you know, coming up on the surface that we need to address. But I think that those are really good signs actually because if we saw that it was a smooth process, then we're certainly not seeing what's actually happening in schools and, and these shifts that really need to happen, not just at the district level, but also with individual teachers in classrooms. 00:10:59 I absolutely love that idea of curriculum as policy. And so I, I just, I just want to pause and like, let that think in for listeners because that is so profound. And I also think when you think about the mindset piece that Alison you started talking about and then Chrissy, your, your addition to that I think really makes it feel to me like you do have like the, the full mindset even at all levels because my, my kind of perception of that is you have the policy or the kind of curriculum thing, which to me, in the way you're talking about is more of like a guideline and like a right, you still have that autonomy, you still have that flexibility to personalize for your class. And so we are, we're adopting the mindset of like these things are important to us as like kind of guiding pillars and please feel free to jump in and be like, no, that's not it at all what we mean. Um But that we are willing to co create and that the mindset is around working together collaboratively and honestly to co create what that looks like for our specific classrooms. I'd love to hear if that perception is lay off or if that feels no, I think I, because my next point is gonna be about the pedagogy like we, that is kind of what we're working on. 00:12:05 I would say the mindset feels more shifted again, not, not a perfect seamless shift, but it feels shifted the pedagogy. There's just such a, there's such a legacy in our school district of for whatever reason. I mean, we could speculate on it, but there was sort of like a heavy handedness coming from central office about what schools were allowed to do. And the legacy of the app runs deep like deeper than you could realize coming if you came because I did my teaching down in DC and then I moved back up um from here and I got into this position and so just like that, that tension and confusion, I'm like, what do you mean? You take 20 minutes to do a shared reading and you can't go over 20 minutes like stuff like that. And I think that legacy runs so deep that some people when we said, ok, there's some looseness here. We want you to make the best decisions. Um We want you to be culturally responsive to your students. We're like, oh yay, like I'm in and then there were people who that's terrifying for and I'm talking teachers um principals at some, at one point, assistant superintendents like it was just everywhere that fear. 00:13:17 And again, we could speculate on why that was there. We don't really know for sure, but it was like a fact of what we were working with so that pedagogy is like a, that's a tougher shift. And um you know, I think Christie and I both sort of struggle with how we can work to dismantle this fear of autonomy. We also work in a district where there is a lot of teachers working on emergency certifications. We have a lot of long term subs. Um It can be a challenging district to work in at times large urban district. So, you know, if you're talking about autonomy and making the best choice for the students in front of you, there's a assumption there that every teacher has the proper tools and training to make those choices and that maybe isn't necessarily true either. So, there's all of these sort of tensions that you're kind of working with at the same time. But we want to uplift autonomy. We want to be culturally responsive. So how to be culturally responsive in like the realities of the job? 00:14:21 I think that makes sense. Yeah, that definitely makes sense because you did you have something on? Um Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to say that like when we talk about our curriculum, it's not this like secret patented thing that no one else knows about. Um it's just simply like reading good books and talking about them and writing about them, which wasn't um systemically happening, I'd say in our district. And so like an analogy that I think of is like if someone wanted to lose weight and they were told follow this diet and that diet and wear this belt and do this exercise and there's just so much information overload of what they need to do that they feel very frazzled and then nothing quite works. But like we're just saying, eat nourishing meals and take a walk every day. And like that, like simplification of it is really what I think the shift is, I mean, even that is like a simplified statement, but we're really not inventing something brand new. We're simply really trying to um take away some of the practices in the classroom that were actually just being added on top of other practices. 00:15:36 And it wasn't really doing a lot of good for teachers and students. And that being said, there are absolutely teachers that we've encountered who have been teaching great books this whole time for decades. Just not listening to a word central office said and just teaching great books and having these wonderful lively classrooms like that absolutely was happening. But it's more so about like us lifting that kind of practice up to the forefront and being like, this is what it all could be rather than like no one here doing any of, you know, like it certainly was happening. Absolutely. Yeah. That makes me think about like the, when you're speaking about like, kind of the fear I often think of like adaptive leaderships, like, um, resistance as loss like that idea of like I'm resistant or I'm fearful. I actually perceive like a loss, like maybe a loss of my identity as a good teacher or something like, oh, I've been doing it wrong and I need to do it different and, but there's so much, like, wrapped up in that, that can be very intense to unpack for people. But I love that idea of kind of almost like a positive Deviance approach of like, here's where this is working really well, like, look at this teacher doing this great thing. 00:16:38 Like, how do we pick pieces from that? And emulate it, right? And personalize it in our own spaces. And, and that, to me feels like what you are both talking about and, and I'd love to, I think Chrissie thank you for kind of naming and this is a beautiful analogy and like kind of naming what this is, what it means to talk about. The curriculum. There is like eating nourishing food. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of those pieces that you have? Like? What does that curriculum look like? Is it like a suggestion of these books? These kind of essential questions? Um What is that kind of guidance around curriculum that you all because you all have been working on this really cool project around hard history? So can you speak a little bit about that? Um Sure. So um our 10th graders at the beginning of the year read Nella Larson's Novel Passing. And what we do is we provide, um we call them daily lesson guidance documents with the understanding that because of the realities of an English classroom, because the realities of a school, what you plan to get done in a day, it might take you three days or half a day, right? So we give some sort of um loose space there. 00:17:43 So we just guide you through the like core components of like a reading lesson if it's a reading lesson or writing lesson, if it's a writing lesson. Um Each unit comes with something we call an overview and the overview gives you essential questions, big ideas, we show how the text you're reading and the activities you're gonna complete are aligned with Goldie Muhammad's five pursuits. So like sort of like the, the things lift those things out for you while you're looking at the, the text. And so a novel like passing, I was talking about this act of passing um in the 19 twenties in Harlem and Chicago. And so if you're really going to dig into the deeper meaning of this book, you're going to need to understand the context around like what is passing, why would people pass? What was game play? What was lost in the, in the act? So it, it's a curriculum that really digs into this. What is a beautiful short novel by Nell Larson that makes very clever use of like flashback and narrative voice. 00:18:45 So all these traditional things you'd wanna find in a complex text at Gray level. But then it also uplifts this like challenging part of our history around, you know, systemic racism in um Chicago. And we, we're not talking about the South here, we're talking about Chicago and we're talking about Harlem. And so the unit is doing both of those things. So it's building that knowledge around this hard history, this challenging part of our past as a nation. But it's also asking students to think about like the function of a motif, the function of narrative voice. Um It, the, the way that it's structured, it's split into three parts and it's called, each part has a different name. Like all those, like different, typical literary things you'd expect a student to be able to do. So, what we want to do in the curriculum is bring both of those things together. Beautiful. I love, I just love thinking about what could that literally look like? What are the, what are the things that you're giving us guidance? And so that idea of the essential question, the key idea is the five pursuits the text to write the core, the core text. 00:19:51 Um And then the idea of like, I can't remember what you called it, but like the lesson pieces, like the suggested reading, writing activities, I think it's beautiful and and back to the point of simplification when we're so overloaded with all of the things, things that we have to do or learning a scripted curriculum or like all of the things that can feel like this added burden and how beautiful to just simplify it and think about it from that lens from, from the lens of like a teacher implementing or, or doing something with this and also from the curriculum director lens of like how do we design and put this together in a way that is helpful and and doing the most it possibly can for teachers and students. Um So just super cool stuff there. I'm wondering about, we talked a little bit about mindset in terms of, you know, this is the first year it's being implemented in terms of implementation and kind of teacher reception and, and what people are doing with this, what are the things that you're seeing in terms of the teachers who are really successful with this in terms of maybe a, a group of teachers or something that, that maybe initially struggled and are now doing great work. What kind of things can you tell listeners about to kind of give them a sense of hope and possibility for doing this? 00:20:54 I think, um maybe particularly in high school, you're gonna have teachers who are attached to the books that they're teaching. So if now we're saying now teach these other books. Um when in actuality, if you wanted to teach um Romeo and Juliet instead of the poet X, it's not the end of the world, right? Um The poet X is a little more culturally relevant to our student population, but Romeo and Juliet is a great book the ninth graders really enjoy. Um So like some sticky spaces around that and like really pushing it back to schools and networks to think about what they were comfortable with and what their students needed with that lens of like, am I just falling back on what I know? Am I pushing myself um certain some of the books we asked teachers to read and we struggled with this question of like opt out of certain teachers were like, I don't feel comfortable reading that book. Is it more harmful to students? Have teachers teaching a book? They don't feel comfortable teaching? Is that an excuse to not push yourself to teach a new book? It's, there's no way to really know in our position and you just have to trust schools and principals and we have um different networks led by assistant superintendents. 00:22:07 We have to trust them to make the decisions and what we hope and what we hope we've cultivated a spirit of is that they will just tell us when they're making those decisions. So maybe it can be a part of that conversation. So some people were like, great, I want to teach all these books and some people were like, oh, I wanna play with a little bit. Um and just kind of just being open to those conversations and not being like, this is absolutely what you were doing because we said you were doing this because then you lose that open conversation because frankly, they're probably gonna do it anyway. So if you shut down that dialogue, then you don't know what's happening and then you don't, perhaps there's a school that is not teaching any culturally relevant books and you've shut down that conversation with them. So now you have no idea that they're not doing that. Um So that is something we ran into sort of and again, that autonomy piece like. But what does autonomy mean when you have a district level curriculum for a very large district? And they don't know, I don't know what the right answer is there. 00:23:10 Hey, everyone, it's Lindsay. Just popping in to tell you about today's episodes. Free resource, my curriculum, bootcamp planner. If you're interested in outlining unit, whether it's about E L A and hard histories or something totally different. Go to Lindsay with clients dot com slash blog slash 117. Back to the episode. Yeah, I think that's, that's so important to be able to think about that. There are all of these tensions that exist, right? And there's not necessarily a clear path towards this is the right answer. And I think that's helpful for curriculum directors to, to think about as they listen to step outside and just really grappling with this, that, that tension is part of it. And what are some of the ways that you've kind of, you know, thought through it? It's helpful to hear someone else, you know, thought. So I think this is really valuable and, and I'm thinking about the actions that you have found helpful in terms of either navigating those tensions or from the perspective of how you designed. Right. So, so maybe someone is listening, I know several curriculum directors of, of in multiple spaces of different curriculum areas um or subject areas that are thinking about. We need to make that shift we need to basically do what you all have done, but we're just like it feels like an overwhelming task. 00:24:16 And so how do we even begin to approach it? Um Is there anything from either perspective like working on the implementation side or working on the just design side that you would say were really helpful or have been things that you, you've done that you think others should hear about? I think if I'm thinking about other people coming from other districts, they might not have had this context of needing to create a curriculum from scratch or being, you know, asked to do this. So if they um are already working from like with resources, like core resources and an anthology of short stories, for example, while, you know, we're biased and we think that novel based units are the way to go if you have core resources like that, I still think that there's a lot of room for shifts. Um especially when we start with the premise that there is no wrong text to teach in a classroom. It's really how you teach it. 00:25:19 Um And so let's say there's a short story that is, has maybe some problematic messaging the teacher can then think about, well, how does this message relate to the identities present in the classroom? And then how do we talk about this text? And so, um you know, we always have to work within our locus of control and I think that planning around any text um by first thinking about the identities in your classroom starting honestly with the teacher um is really important and I think we'll see some Dyna dynamic shift in the learning experience from that premise. Yeah, that's a beautiful idea because I do think there are people who are like we, we have this thing and can we adapt it then? And do we have to start from scratch? I think I love the, the beauty in what, what you all have done, which I'm not sure actually. Is that creating from scratch? Did you, did you all start from from scratch? Yeah, I think there's so much beauty and possibility in that too. 00:26:23 So I'd love to kind of hear what your process was if you're, if you're willing to speak on that because you chose all these texts, you have these essential questions and key ideas developed. Um How did, how did that work? How did you, what was your starting point or what was kind of like your process? Um We wanted to as much as possible. And again, it's, it's hard in a really large district where for a long time, there hasn't been necessarily like um norm on the pacing of classes in secondary. But as much as possible, we tried to over uh take our novels and align them with the content that they were learning in their social studies or history classes. So like 10th grade, they learned African American history, we use um novels that speak to that. And so that was a starting point with novel choices. We tried to pick a mix of culturally relevant and canonical text like at least one canonical text because what we wanted to do was show that canonical texts still have a place in the classroom. But they need to be, you need to critique how you're teaching them. 00:27:26 So it texts like of my men or death of a salesman or things fall apart. Like they've been around for a while. They have the power to move people. And um kids really respond to those texts, but like, how are you teaching it? Are you teaching it the same way? You've been teaching it for 20 years? Um And we know a lot of teachers in our schools have been teaching those books for a really long time. So we're like, OK, let's push the envelope here. So we did some of that. Um We knew we wanted them to be less in guidance, not less in plans because we wanted that autonomy. We talked about earlier. We wanted to give a space for teachers to make the right choices. And we, that was a decision very much supported by all the leadership in our district. Like they wanted the same thing we had on uh undergone a curriculum audit in previous years by uh a large research institution, then an educational nonprofit. And they both said the same thing like your materials are not responsive to your students. And your lack of achievement can be connected to that lack of cultural responsiveness. So we knew that we wanted to find a way to engage our students back in that English instruction and to give that autonomy and let teachers make the best choices for them, for their classroom. 00:28:37 So we design the lesson documents just the keeping in the main things that you do in a classroom, you have an opening, you have maybe you need a mini lesson to build content knowledge to do some vocab work. Um You have a shared reading, you have discourse, you write in response to your reading. We wanted every unit to end with a summit of assessment that was um writing either either a multimodal writing or traditional writing assignment. So we wanted to prioritize writing as well because Christy and I both like foundation, we believe that um in secondary E L A, you should be expressing yourselves in writing again, like opening up that definition of what you mean by writing, but there should be an expression of ideas in writing. Um So we just kind of work with those like simple principles. And then we started to build out documents and we had the privilege of working with teachers from our district. And some of the units that you'll see in our curriculum are units that teachers have been teaching like our powerful of the sewer unit was a unit, um, that was taught to, um, 11th graders at a high school here and we used it for 12th grade. 00:29:42 Um, or a unit was the unit that a teacher taught and I taught Sula for years as well as a teacher. So we had them take stuff that they've already used and kind of test it in the classroom and turn it around and just kind of give it out for us. And then we gave people the books and the materials and we're like, you know, here you go. And some people have completely hit the ground running and teaching all of the books. Some schools are like, right, we're gonna do two books and then we're gonna still use like an anthology or a textbook. And to us, you know, that's fine. I think we just wanted to shift this conversation around like we, we have to change what we're doing in the classroom because what we're doing in the classroom isn't working. And we know that building knowledge and we know that being culturally responsive and choosing culturally relevant materials and culturally relevant teaching strategies are going to improve instruction. So we wanted to build materials that do all those things. And I think generally the response has been overwhelmingly uh positive where it resonates with a lot of teachers. 00:30:45 Um Alison mentioned how, you know, sometimes we would take a book that's already being received well in classrooms and, and choosing a book like that. I think that's a huge part of like the trust. It's like teachers knowing that it's being taught already. And also um our units were developed designed by teachers and coaches in our district. And so I think that also um helped with this shift where teachers were like, ok, I could trust this. Um so, you know, no process is perfect, but I think overwhelmingly teachers have received it well and appreciated the the resources and just the opportunity to read good books with kids again. Like I said, there were some teachers that have been doing this for a while and either doing it against their principals wishes or doing it, you know, just because no one goes in their classroom and very much or maybe their princip was completely supportive. Like we also had um I know we had a couple of high schools that had started their own novel unit and book based unit projects. 00:31:46 And so, you know, this was the thing, things that were happening. So when we like put a stamp on it, like, yes, this is good. I think that was also pretty affirming for lots of teachers who are already teaching like this. And now they were like, yes, I'm gonna, this is my thing. I know how to do this. I'm gonna keep doing it. So, you know, sometimes it, it helps to have someone high up be like, yes, you're right. And I think there was also a lot of the buy in that came from a sort of affirming that these things that you thought were the right thing to do are the right thing to do. You may not have this in place yet. And I'm, I'm just wondering like, what your thoughts are. I love that you said what the teacher feedback has, has been and like that there's been a lot of positive, positive reception there. I'm wondering what it is like for students. Have you had any feedback yet or are you kind of look planning to see what that is at the end of the year? Um, I, there are certain books that have really been home runs with kids like that, we have our ninth graders read the poet X. Uh, and that has just been like, everywhere you look, there's incredible feedback about that. Um, we have our 11th graders were born a crime and people are really gushing about that. 00:32:51 Um There's other books where like, uh, you know, maybe that was like a bit of a mess. We should have rethought that. But then other teachers are like my kids love that. But if I say, like, we've definitely had teachers come to us and like, show us materials and be like, my kids absolutely loved this book. And I think that that's because they were like, oh, I didn't know kids could be interested in this book, you know. Um So, yeah, I would say we've seen from, from students, students will let you know real quick whether or not they think your ideas are good or bad. So, you know, that is amazing. I feel like just hearing that enables people to think about the possibility is that even if this is a really challenging process to go through and even if there is like tough, like um you know, partnering with teachers and, and, and that tough, like I, but I feel like there's a bit of fear here already, like all of it is worth it when that, that teacher who maybe initially was like, I don't know about this. Sees like all the students in her class now just like, oh my gosh, I love reading. Like what? Oh I love teaching now all of a sudden, right? There's kind of this like joy that is just exponential growth that happens when you do this. 00:33:54 Um So OK, so cool. I'd love to kind of move to, to the wrap up questions here where thinking about someone who has been listening to this and all of the possibilities for designing this, implementing um a new curriculum with teachers. What is one place you would encourage that they start what is kind of one action step that they could take, they're done with the episode, they're ready to do something like where would they begin this journey? I think shifting the conversations around E L A instruction at your school. To like this importance of building knowledge and that what knowledge are we choosing to build? Um And if people aren't talking about the importance of building knowledge and being thoughtful about what kind of knowledge you're building for your students and how that's built by books, I would say that that's a starting point because so much of what we did is driven by this idea that books can teach us about the world in which we live in. And like that, you know, windows mirrors sliding glass doors that like what are we choosing to expose them to and tell them about why are we choosing it? 00:34:58 So, but it all started with the fact that like books teach you about the world you live in. And if that's not a mindset that everyone shares, um then I would say that that would be, would be a starting point. I mean, I think along with that reframing where skills fall in the E L A classroom because I mean, it could be a whole another hour long conversation. But um with what Allison is saying about prioritizing knowledge building, uh that means that something that has been happening in the classroom has to be, you know, shifted to the side. And for us, I think that skill because like reading skills are very important strategies are very important to reading, especially independently. Um But understanding how without knowledge, those skills are kind of useless. Um And so having those conversations. And I think a lot of good research and articles are coming out right now that would help anchor um, discussions about that shift. 00:36:02 I love that and I love that you all use Doctor Mohammed's framework too to kind of situate skills and knowledge in that kind of five pursuits. Like we have five, it's not just these two. Um And then I also love the idea of kind of figuring out what books teach us and, and what knowledge we're we're pursuing because I, I think about that from the concept of like even restorative practices. Like often I, what I would do is like, um with in my own classroom and think about, you know, the shared values that we hold and if we can identify a shared value or at least identify the value that someone else is kind of like holding in a conversation or in an action like that resolves like 95% of conflict, right? And so there's like this shared value conversation that I think I'm connecting to in terms of what you all are talking about, like the books that we, books and text that we traditionally teach kids. What is that showing them about what we think they deserve to know and not know? Right. Um Are we telling them about the whole world in which they live or just a very specific slice of the world? And if we are just telling them about that slice of the world. Why are we, why are we doing that? Um I think about that as a starting place. 00:37:05 Yeah, that's beautiful. And so I, I asked these final two questions of, of all of our guests. Um just because I think it's super fun uh to ask this first one, but I think everyone on here is constantly learning and growing. And I mean, Chrisy, you just talked about like the research that's, you know, coming out and that you're a attuned to that. So what is something that you have been learning about lately? Now? It can be job related. It could also be like, I think someone had told me they were learning to fly fish. I, I guess like it could be anything. I am not learning to fly fish. Um Christy and I have both become increasingly invested like this project is still ongoing, the curriculum, but we're feeling a new shift, which is so cool um about literacy in general across content areas for adolescents. And that is really like what we both do that 6 to 12 space. So we've been spending more and more time talking about disciplinary literacy, talking about literacy practices across content areas. So me specifically a lot of what I've been spending my time working on and reading about is, you know, what do we do about older readers who are lack a lot of those foundational skills that they need to be effective. 00:38:13 And then like how does, what we think we should do? How does that fit in with the space that I work in? Like, what advice can I give people? Because this is kind of a burning question everyone's having and lots of districts are making moves about, you know, how to support literacy for all students, not just seeing literacy, that's something that sits in E L A. Um So that's really what a lot of time our time is being spent on these days and thinking about that question of like this adolescent literacy crisis, if you will like, what does that mean for us and how can we use our positions to help? I'd also add that we are really interested in unpacking writing instruction for 2023. And what shifts we need to make considering so many advancements since you know, the development of like, you know, these writing models that are good, but perhaps they need some um adaptation. So I think we're exploring that. Um But on a personal level, I'm very eager to learn how to use the cricket. 00:39:15 So that is my next goal. Amazing. I am so excited. Um I loved this conversation so much and honestly, I am just really excited to follow all the things that you all are doing. So I am wondering if when you can share where people can connect with you either as individuals or, or your districts. But also I'm I'm adding this additional question and is it? Do you have your curriculum somewhere that is public that people can see it? And where would they find that? Because I think people are going to be really interested in just taking a look. We have a um publicly accessible website where all the units are held. So maybe in your show notes, we can include that link. Absolutely. We'll do that. Yeah, because I think to get to the link, you have to go through something that's like pay, not pay wall, like it's a staff wall, but then you get out the other end and it's open. So just getting straight to the link would be the most effective way to get through that. Perfect. We can definitely add that. Do you want to share either your personal social media platforms or the, or the website for the district? What feels comfortable to share? 00:40:21 I'm not, I don't really do all those things because she's very active on Twitter. She's a Twitter person. So I'm sure she can, I do check Twitter very regularly, but I don't remember my handle because I never post anything. We will link it, share. Um Yeah, we could share that information in our email addresses in the show notes as well so that you could reach out to us. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. That will work perfectly. I will put all of those links in the show notes and then also the blog post that we'll write up for this episode as well. Thank you both Allison and Christy so much. This has been a pleasure to have you on and I'm so excited about the work you're doing. Thank you. It was fun. If you're leaving this episode wanting more, you're going to love my life, coaching intensive curriculum, boot camp. I help one department or grade team create feminist anti-racism curricula that challenges affirms and inspires all students. We weave current events into course content and amplify student voices which skyrockets engagement and academic achievement. It energizes educators feeling burns out and it's just two days. Plus you can reuse the same process any time you create a new unit which saves time and money. 00:41:26 If you can't wait to bring this to your staff, I'm inviting you to sign up for a 20 minute call with me. Grab a spot on my calendar at w w w dot Lindsay beth lions dot com slash contact. Until next time leaders continue to think. Big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network, better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode. Quotes:
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AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
March 2025
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