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Curriculum Update, March, 2008

Have Questions About Writing Lesson Plans? Check Out the New Lesson Planning Resource Guide!

I'm thrilled to announce that SABES and ACLS have produced a Lesson Planning Resource Guide that is ready for downloading. A draft version of the Guide was first introduced at the Network/MCAE Conference, piloted with teachers and then improved, based on their feedback. The Guide is designed to help teachers develop useful lesson plans that meet ACLS guidelines as described in the Massachusetts ABE Guidelines, Indicators of Program Quality, and other key policy documents. The Guide includes lesson plan templates, sample plans, and even a set of scoring rubrics, which teachers can use to design materials that fit their own teaching styles and approaches. Most of these materials were adapted from materials submitted by Massachusetts programs.

Thank you to Carey Reid, the Curriculum and Assessment Coordinators, and the ACLS Curriculum Group members for all their work in developing this guide, and particularly to Carey.

The links to follow to the Guide are SABES Homepage > Curriculum & Instruction > Instructional Materials, where visitors will find the Guide atop the list of offered materials. The direct link, however, is http://www.sabes.org/curriculum/lesson-planning-guide-2008.pdf. Please let us know if you find this resource useful.

COMING SOON to The Change Agent, March 2008: Democracy in Action

Thinking about how to integrate the election-year buzz into your classroom? Wondering how to invite students into a conversation about civic participation that includes voting but goes beyond it as well? Looking for lessons that evoke deep thinking about the meaning of democracy and the many ways adults participate in public life?

Like every issue of The Change Agent, the upcoming issue is over 80 pages and packed with student writing, multi-level articles and activities, graphics, quotes, ready-to use lesson plans, math problems, and more! The Change Agent comes out twice a year - in March and September. Each issue explores a topic relevant to the lives of adult learners.

And unlike any other issue of The Change Agent, the upcoming issue features a new tool -- links to audio so that learners can listen to student contributors read their pieces out loud. Now you can read the text in The Change Agent and listen to it online.

To order, one or two year subscriptions are available for $10 and $18 respectively, or bulk subscriptions include 25 copies of each issue, 2 issues a year, for $60/year. Subscribe by visiting www.nelrc.org/changeagent/ or calling 617-482-9485 ext. 3740.

Update on the Benchmarks from the Reading Strand of the Massachusetts ABE English Language Arts Curriculum Framework

In the Curriculum Update from this past June, we reported that the Reading Strand of the English Language Arts Framework were under revision. Many kudos go to the team of practitioners who worked on this revision: Lee Haller, (Jamaica Plain Community Center Adult Learning Program), Martha Mangan, (Lowell Public Schools Adult Learning Center), and Andrea O'Brien (Lawrence Public Schools Adult Learning Program). Cristine Smith at UMASS Amherst Education Department, Drey Martone at the UMASS Amherst Center for Educational Assessment also worked on this revision, and we appreciate their work and input as well.

This group has paved the way for another, final group of practitioners to complete the work they have done thus far. This group of practitioners includes Susan Lane Riley from SCALE, Somerville, Toni Borge from Bunker Hill Community College, Ellen Koretz from Charlestown Community Center and North Shore Community College, Glenna Zalenski from the Lawrence Adult Learning Program, Evonne Peters, formerly of Operation Bootstrap, Lynn, and currently t Marblehead Public Schools, and Beverly Rosario, ACLS, and formerly of Boston Centers for Youth and Families, Crittenton Women's Union, and Massachusetts Department of Corrections, Norfolk. Amy Trawick, Ph.D, will be facilitating our work. Amy is from the Center for Literacy Studies at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is also the Coordinator for the Equipped for the Future Reading Project, and a trainer for the USDOE STAR Reading program. Amy's degree is in curriculum and teaching, and focuses on adolescent and adult reading. Jane Schwerdtfeger and Drey Martone, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, have been very involved with the reworking of the reading standards and benchmarks up to now, and will continue to be as well.

The benchmarks ore organized for comprehending different text types. The text types include:

• Literary (including fiction, literary non-fiction, such as speeches, biography, autobiography, poetry, and drama);
• Informational prose texts (including expository writing, essays, critical reviews, arguments and persuasive writing), and
• Informational / procedural texts and documents (including workplace and community documents, instructional documents and communications such as maps, signs, manuals, tables, schedules, ads, applications, procedures, operating instructions, legal agreements, menus, guides, or brochures).

The benchmarks pertaining to the different text types may vary depending on the test type. The group will also be working on the other standards in the Reading Strand as well. We anticipate the revisions will be finished this spring and be ready for feedback at that time.

Questions? Please contact Jane Schwerdtfeger at janes@doe.mass.edu