Teacher-Led, Soup-to-Nuts ELA Curriculum Revision

 (Originally titled “Revamping the Curriculum as Teachers, for Teachers”) 

        In this article in Educational Leadership, Pennsylvania high-school teacher Marilyn Pryle describes how her English department decided to revamp their curriculum. While their school was getting good test scores, there were problems, including: “None of us knew what the other grades were doing,” 25-year-old anthologies, and a parent social media page critiquing book choices and singling out teachers by name. In short, says Pryle, “We needed order, transparency, and support.” 

        Budget cuts had eliminated the central office ELA director, but Pryle convinced the superintendent to make her a teacher-on-assignment for 2021-22 and have her lead this process: 

• Teacher survey – A poll of the 12-person department confirmed the grade-to-grade coordination problem, along with a lack of diversity among book authors and insufficient focus on global skills, authentic speaking and writing, media literacy, self-awareness, and cultural competence.
• Mission – Pryle had teachers write the top three goals of the department on index cards and used those to draft a statement of purpose and a chart of the steps they would follow. 
• Curriculum mapping – Pryle substitute-taught for each teacher for half a day, freeing them up to write month-by-month descriptions of the texts they were teaching, activities, essential questions, and assessments. By December, she had curriculum charts for all classes. 
• Standards – Pryle then spent two months looking at whether each teacher’s curriculum choices covered Pennsylvania’s ELA standards. “As the sole analyst,” she says, “I could immerse myself in the meaning of each standard and look for trends both in our strengths and our weaknesses as a department.” By spring, teachers met and looked at Pryle’s individual notes on standards covered and missed. The biggest gaps were public speaking, which pointed to the need to develop Socratic seminars and fishbowl discussions; and using technology, which got teachers thinking about publishing students’ work using apps like Blooket, Google Sites, and Goodreads. 
• Representation – Pryle presented spreadsheets of authors color-coded by race and gender, showing graphically a canon that was overwhelmingly white, male, and straight. “Our teachers found this analysis eye-opening,” she says, and there were lively discussions about keeping and letting go of “the classics.” Pryle didn’t issue a mandate, but there were some immediate changes: Passing was added as a counterpoint to The Great Gatsby, Things Fall Apart complemented Heart of Darkness, and To Kill a Mockingbird was replaced by The Nickel Boys. 
• Revisions – For the remainder of the school year, teachers worked on adding activities and assessments to address standards gaps, especially oral presentation, technology, and diversity. “Some changes were big and most were smaller,” says Pryle, “but all of them were in the right direction.” 
• Approval – The superintendent convened a committee composed of Pryle, the assistant superintendent, an elementary principal, three school board members, and himself. The overall reaction to the proposed changes was positive, but some board members pushed back on the age-appropriateness of some texts, including a few that had been taught for years. “I found this a bit frustrating,” says Pryle. “We know what we’re doing! How dare we be questioned!” But she bit her tongue, seeing that teachers couldn’t defend working in silos. She answered every question and the committee approved all the curriculum changes, followed by the full school board a week later, giving “an incredible morale boost” to Pryle and her colleagues. 
• Onward – Pryle is now back in her classroom, teaching world literature to sophomores six periods a day. “I am not the same teacher as when I left,” she says. “I now fully know what my colleagues teach, what they emphasize, and how my class fits with theirs. I know how our classes and departmental mission shape our students. And what I don’t know, I can look up.” The ELA curriculum continues to evolve, with fresh thinking and texts every year. 

        A postscript: district leaders were so impressed with the work of the ELA department that they decided to replicate it for math, releasing a lead teacher for a year to conduct a similar effort. 

“Revamping the Curriculum as Teachers, for Teachers” by Marilyn Pryle in Educational Leadership, February 2023 (Vol. 80, #5, online); Pryle can be reached at marilynpryle@gmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #973 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.