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Curriculum At A Glance
| Author: | Aaron Schildkrout, with significant contributions from Kim Parker and Thabiti Brown
| | Description: | Expository Writing curriculum designed "with an eye towards" the state MCAS exam.
| | Participants: | High School students, ideally in grade 10 English or Humanities classes.
| | Schedule: | Year-long engagement through daily hour-long Writers' Workshop periods
| | Goals: | To teach students to become powerful expository writers.
| | Products: | Single paragraph Open Responses, 5 paragraph Expository Compositions, and an Expository Writing Portfolio (including extensive reflections and self-assessments)
| | Assessment: | On-going use of rubrics, detailed comments, and conferencing on a variety of writing assignments. Students also engage in extensive peer- and self-assessment.
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At CACPS our approach has been to teach skills, as much as possible, through comprehensive, rigorous, compelling "expeditions." However, we also recognize the need for instructional structures that aren’t “fully expeditionary” but that deeply engage students in the process of improving their skills; sometimes these instructional structures are designed with “an eye towards the test”. Our students, whether we like it or not, must take the MCAS. We try to use the test as an opportunity to improve the quality of instruction and the depth of learning at our school. In 10th-grade Humanities classes at CACPS, this involves an extensive year-long focus on Expository Writing. This focus occurs alongside a variety of other, more authentic, writing-based Expeditions (see the Justice/Injustice section of this site).
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Best Practices
