K-12 education has witnessed a sea of change in attitudes about curriculum as a serious reform strategy. The movement gained traction in the wake of the Common Core State Standards, when newly created curriculum products emerged. While there are an increasing number of high-quality, content-rich curriculum products available, as well as venues to…

This paper analyses the coverage of Indigenous topics in K-12 education in British Columbia (BC) using curriculum documents and course enrolment. It focuses on curriculum documents published between 1995 and 2010 and mandated in public education from 1995 to 2019, and argues that Indigenous topics were marginalized in the curriculum overall.…

The purpose of this Brief is to gain a better understanding of the barriers experienced by students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) and the need to ensure authentically represented within the curriculum, and to create a safe and inclusive learning environment. Data shows that students who identify…

Transition curricula are courses, learning modules, or online tutorials typically developed jointly by secondary and postsecondary faculty and offered no later than 12th grade to students at risk of being placed into remedial math or English programs in college. Based on interviews and other data, this brief describes key elements of English…

Students are active in shaping the implementation of any curricular intervention. At Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), more than 1,500 students in Grades 1 to 6 were recipients of the William & Mary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum units. In this article, we share students' perceptions related to the following three…

This study presents how beginning teachers create and teach an English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum in urban schools in the context of an educational reform movement driven by mandates such as Common Core State Standards (CCSS), high stakes tests, and prescribed curricula. They serve in schools with each using unique and individual curricula due…

The purpose of this case study research was to understand the ways in which an innovative, urban secondary English teacher (Ms. B) approached English Language Arts, when a set, standardized curriculum and testing were in place. The Common Core standards were prescribed within a required module-based presentation format. New literacies pedagogy…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…

At St. Joseph's School for the Deaf in New York, teachers worked together toward the common goal of developing and implementing a spiraling English Language Arts curriculum that would allow each teacher to build on skills students developed in earlier classes. They collaboratively developed instruction following the literacy workshop model…

English Learners (ELs) make up 9.6% of the total student population in the U.S. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Students with interrupted formal education (SIFE) are a subgroup of ELs who have had at least two fewer years of schooling than their peers, and function at least two years below grade level in reading and mathematics…

The purpose of this mixed-method study was to examine elementary teacher perceptions of mandated curriculum change. In the spring and fall of 2015, Illinois elementary school teachers in a north suburban school district participated in a focus group, an online survey, and follow-up interviews to gather data about teachers' perceptions of the…

This Framework is built upon the foundation of the 2010 "Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy," as well as earlier versions of the "Massachusetts English Language Arts Frameworks" published since 1997. The current Framework incorporates improvements suggested by Massachusetts educators after…

Across the country, adolescents are writing and performing spoken word poetry. In this article, the author works with members of a spoken word poetry group to develop ways to integrate spoken word into classroom and school communities.

A national study of English teacher preparation in U.S. colleges and universities revealed that faculty address changes in content and context salient to English education, particularly curricular, demographic, political, and technological changes, through initiatives at both the program and methods course levels. Programs require many hours of…

This 15-year program of research explored the extent to which prosocial attitudes and behavior of high school students were increased by focused lesson plans administered in dedicated high school classrooms over 1 or 2 academic semesters. The narrative describes the evolution of the Character Development and Leadership Program from a pilot study…