A Road Map to Better Writing:
Mapping and Aligning Curriculum
Moments after the dismissal bell rings at J. Clyde Hopkins Elementary, almost two dozen teachers and the principal file into the school’s bright and cozy library. With soft drinks in hand, the group launches into a conversation on what they’ve learned about teaching writing this year.
Early in the year, faculty members at this 618-student school in Sherwood, Oregon, had looked at their student scores on state writing assessments and concluded that something needed to be done. While Hopkins’s reading and math achievement topped the 90th percentile, writing scores were at 68 percent—about equal to the state average but considerably below Sherwood School District’s average. Hopkins staff wondered: If their students were doing so well in reading and mathematics, why weren’t they getting the same results in writing?
To attack the problem, the teachers agreed to meet in grade-level and schoolwide teams. Their goal was to create a new curriculum aligned with state standards, paying special attention to conventions, traits, and genres.
“Somewhere in the middle of the process, they realized we didn’t have a consistent [writing] program,” recalls Principal Nanci Sheeran. “We needed to know at what grade level things were taught.” Together, they set out to map the curriculum—physically drawing charts that showed what they were already teaching, month-by-month, in each grade and how that related to the standards. The gaps and redundancies were graphically clear. Through consensus, the teachers began to revise the writing curriculum to provide more effective, coherent instruction that was congruent with state standards and assessments.
That’s not an easy task, according to Jayne Sowers, a Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) staff member who provided assistance for the process. Mapping and aligning curriculum involves “a carefully planned change in what is taught, when it is taught, and most important, how it is taught to improve student learning,” says Sowers. “It requires questioning what we have been doing. It means spending time making new materials [and] it means compromising with others.” Sowers worked with the teachers at Hopkins to develop and evaluate tools to guide the process: The results are being compiled in a training manual—Mapping and Aligning the Curriculum To Improve Student Learning—to be published by NWREL at the end of 2005.
Reflecting on the year’s work, fifth-grade teacher Lisa Miller admits, “It’s time- consuming, it requires energy, and you run into conflict because people have different ways of doing things. But, overall, you end up learning from each other.” For Kim Ellsworth, a first-grade teacher, the value of mapping was “seeing what everyone does and what their expectations are for the kids coming to them at the beginning of the year. It made me think about the things we’re teaching too much, that don’t need to be repeated each year.”
As the workshop breaks up, the charts and graphs are tucked away for the summer but the mapping experience won’t be discarded. Principal Sheeran knows “it’s a continuing process” and she’s scheduled time to continue the work during staff development days next year. “As we come up with ways as a staff to look at things in a calm, collected manner, we can make a difference with kids. It isn’t just about testing: It’s about kids learning that writing, math, and reading are fun and something they’ll want to do for the rest of their lives.”
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