Newport Independent Schools shared this High School Spanish III Curriculum Map.
Newport High School
High School Spanish III
Throughout the 1990s, the Kentucky Department of Education produced excellent documents that told us what our students should know and be able to do. In the late 1990s, Newport teachers began working with consultants from Oldham County to clarify the specific knowledge that students should have as a result of progressing though our program - from preschool through 12th grade.
We called the product of the series of summer workshops Newport's Sequences of Learning (S of L). The document provided us with awareness of the responsibility of each grade level to build upon the work of the previous grades and listed the specific demonstrators and power verbs assigned by our teachers to specific grade levels. The document was over 1,000 pages in length.
In 2002, in order to make the S of L document more user friendly, grade level Sequences of Learning Checklists were developed. Checklists are correlated to the S of L through a numbering system. Next, we realized that unless we had commitment as to "when" the content was covered within each grade, we really didn't have commitment.
In 2002, three teacher representatives were selected by each school to work with their school faculties to map the "when." These representatives came together in the summer of 2003 to develop the first rough draft of Newport's Curriculum Map. The maps have now been used by teachers for a complete school year and have gone through a committee review process in January 2004 and May 2004.
Mapping work has provided our teachers with insights into other curriculum issues such as:
"I haven't been covering this at all." (gaps); "I am going to have to shorten this unit so that is focuses on the essential learning." (Focus on the heart of learning, not the periphery); "I didn't know that you also taught that." (spiraling and overlaps); "I didn't remember that we assigned this content to this grade level."; "How will I cover all of this material." (abandon the fluff), etc., etc.
Newport Independent Schools' Comprehensive Improvement Plan - Academic Performance component identifies next step objectives. In activity A1.a.1: in January and May of 2005 the curriculum committee will review and refine "maps" to establish better vertical and horizontal alignment, and activity A2.a states that by December 2004, a district wide committee will develop a rubric to help ensure consistent, quality standards-based curriculum planning throughout the district.
For more information about this map, please contact Jennie Enix at Newport Independent Schools.