• In a school system without a curriculum director, how can the English department best share their individual class curriculum?
• How can this curriculum be revised to create coherence while honoring various teaching methods and choice?
• How can this curriculum be assessed by teachers for scaffolding skills and aligning with Common Core requirements.
• How do ELA Common Core changes influence the material and methods of the department?
• How can the 7-12 English department revise, align, and share a curriculum in a timely manner without creating an enormous individual workload and sacrificing personal time?
• How can I create investment in this project by other members of my department and the administration?

Why?

My leadership proposal is to create continuity, coherence and a method of sharing curriculum among the 7-12 English department at Calvin Christian Schools.  Due to a private school environment, our staff is not given instruction on curriculum requirements or alignment with standard requirements.  Therefore, all English teachers create and revise their own individual class curriculum.  The problem lies in that we really have no idea what each other is teaching (in terms of works or skills being covered).  If we had a means to review each other’s curriculum, we could be more intentional in scaffolding instruction and aligning with the Common Core goals.

Procedure

• Approaching my principal with my project inquiry in correlation with the Third Coast Writing grant.  Present the strengths and weaknesses I currently see in our curriculum communication.  Asking for professional development time to be allocated for the department to work on the curriculum.
• Approaching the members of my department with my inquiry.  Alerting them to the coming changes and alignment with Common Core standards.
• Bringing in the resource of 2 books and sample shared curriculums from other school districts.

Year 1:

• “What Are We Doing Well?” Discuss our strengths as a department, the essential elements that we want to keep, and what parts of the curriculum are successful
• “What Do We Want?” Discuss format and components to include for this “shared curriculum” document by examining other models (such as the documents on St. Joseph‘s website).
• “What Are We Doing Now?” Individually create a document detailing what we are currently teaching.

Year 2:

• “What Do We Want to Change?” Examine what we are currently covering to examine  over-lap, areas of scaffolding and holes with Common Core alignment.

• “What Are We Doing Now?” Finalize and publish a “shared curriculum” for each class, aligned with Common Core standards and implement in the classrooms.