| Curriculum Paper Report – Written Assessment # 2 | Academic Report |

Contents:

Introduction/Curriculum Focus pg 2

School & Class Context pg 2

Inclusive Teaching Principles pg 2-3

Curriculum features pg 3-5

Potential challenges of curriculum implementation pg 5

References pg 6

Word count: (excluding references) 1,630
Word Count: (Report and Curriculum Plan combined) 2,499
Curriculum Focus
The curriculum plan that I have designed is aimed at a Year 8 English class. I have selected the novel ‘Holes’, by Louis Sachar, and have built a novel study around the text. The plan is a six week unit, and the intention is for students to engage with the text, while completing scaffolding tasks to build up to a written piece of assessable work. I have selected this particular novel for a couple of reasons. The language used is fairly simple, and this will assist with student understanding of the text. Also, as this novel has been turned into a film, students have the option of watching the film in their spare time (or as a part of their activity booklet), to assist in attaining meaning from the text. As the ‘choice of curriculum, instruction, and discipline styles can be the difference between success and failure…’ (Obiakor, 2002), I have attempted to include a level of flexibility within the curriculum so that the individual teacher can teach to their own strengths regarding instruction; however, I have also attempted to pick the most engaging and relevant novel that I could find to make the learning as meaningful as possible.

School & Class Context
The unit has been designed to be taught at my school. All students have access to computers in all lessons. Our school streams English classes into mixed ability and advanced classes; this unit has been designed with a mixed ability class in mind. An average class size is approximately 26 students in the Middle School. As I do not teach English this year, I have designed this unit with a colleague’s class in mind. My colleague’s class contains three students with diagnosed learning difficulties (two with dyslexia, and one student with Oppositional Defiance Disorder), one autistic child, and four ESL students.

Inclusive Teaching Principles
This curriculum plan has been designed with the primary focus of being an inclusive program in which all students can succeed in the general curriculum. Inclusive teaching is where ‘students with disabilities are served in the regular classroom with instruction provided by the regular classroom teacher’ (Conway, 2005, pg 106), and I believe that the program that I have developed allows for the teacher to do this. I have attempted to build in a high degree of flexibility into the content and assessment to allow for the appropriate modification of work for students with learning difficulties, but also for teachers to be able to further extend students as an ‘…… inclusive curriculum is not just for students with additional needs but also for all students.’ (Conway, 2005, pg 107) An inclusive curriculum should ‘allow students with extraordinary gifts and talents to move at their natural learning rate; students who are average and slower than average to learn to the best of their ability, and students with specific learning needs to receive creative and effective supports to maximize their success’. (Carrington, 2002, pg 3) This plan is specifically developed so that all students can work together in the classroom, making exclusion unnecessary, and meaning that struggling students could ‘participate with their peers in meaningful academic situations.’ (Kasa-Hendrickson, 2005, pg 59) Reference to specific areas of the curriculum that have been purposefully been designed for inclusivity are in the following section.

Curriculum Features
There are several features in this curriculum plan that have been specifically designed to include all students in the curriculum, and have them experience success. 1. Teacher-led reading
The curriculum plan has allowed for time in class for the teacher to read the novel aloud. There are several reasons for this. For students that struggle with reading print on a page, this allows them to hear the novel, assisting comprehension. It also ensures that all students in the class read, or hear, the whole novel. Subsequently, when it comes to completing the assessment, there are no students in the class that miss any of the narrative, and therefore cannot complete the work.
An additional benefit to the teacher reading the novel aloud is that the teacher can stop at points during the text, and discuss arising concepts or ideas, or can decode new vocabulary. ‘Where teachers identify the key concepts and then seek materials to address those concepts, or develop the materials themselves, there is a greater likelihood that students will be exposed to all key concepts.’ (Conway, 2005, pg 115) The teacher is therefore able to maximise understanding for students, and address terms or concepts immediately in the text while they are relevant.
Teacher led reading can also engage the more advanced students in the classroom, by assigning some student speaking roles in conjunction with the teacher. This engages advanced students by involving them in the process, and helps hold the attention and engagement of the other students as they are no longer hearing one continual voice. Using multiple student readers for particular characters can also help students differentiate between characters and follow the story.

2. Activity Booklet
This activity is designed to be worked on in class as the novel progresses. Students will complete a range of activities that will provide them with the knowledge and skills required for their essay assessment at the end of the unit. This booklet includes a variety of activities to engage all students; ensuring students that are struggling can successfully complete work that will help them to finish their final assignment, and to give the opportunity of extension to gifted students. The booklet contains questions and activities based upon Blooms Taxonomy, which addresses all levels of thinking. Students can choose which questions they wish to answer (with a minimum of 10 questions being required to successfully complete the assignment), however, all students must complete at least two questions from the higher-order thinking section. This allows students that struggle the chance to succeed while completing mostly lower-order thinking questions, while also extending them through the higher-order section. All activities in the higher-order thinking have optional scaffolding to ensure success; students have the option of requesting Venn diagrams, charts and diagrams with provided headings to help them begin. 3. Students selecting spelling words from the text
This feature allows students to take control of their learning. As a class, 10 words from the novel will be selected as the ‘spelling words’ to be learnt for the following week. Four bonus words will be selected for students if they wish to extend themselves, however these are optional. This feature is important for success, as it allows students to take ownership of their learning, by contributing to the process. 4. Assessment task (Essay)
The assessment task for this unit is an essay (The essay task is attached to the curriculum plan document). There are a couple of features of this task that have been included to ensure inclusivity for all students. Firstly, the word count requirement for the task has a range between 500-1,000 words. This allows for students that may struggle with writing great deals of text to achieve success, and also allows extension of more gifted students. Secondly, students are able to choose their essay question, from a selection of three. I believe that this choice enables students to write on a topic that they feel knowledgeable about, to increase their confidence. Also, as the questions have different levels of difficulty, it also allows students to create a response that is at their level. 5. Scaffolded Essay Plan
This is an explicit teaching of essay writing skills. Class time has been programmed in for class discussions, note-taking and completing scaffolded templates to ensure that students have a clear understanding of how to communicate their ideas in an essay format. By requiring students to complete a plan prior to beginning the draft stages of an assignment, it ensures all students are explicitly shown how to complete the task. This will eventually lead to students becoming more independent in their learning. (Knight, 1998, pg 23)

Potential Challenges of Curriculum Implementation
The biggest issue I would imagine in implementing this unit into my school would be the consideration of time (Conway, 2005, pg 110). With the introduction of the National Curriculum, the English curriculum is quite crowded, and the use of time is very closely managed. I believe that the insistence of reading the entire novel during class time would be the largest concern of the faculty, as this does extend the length of time necessary to teach the unit properly.
My proposed response to this issue is to suggest to the faculty that using the compulsory silent reading lesson to read aloud to the students would help make up the time, to ensure that the unit doesn’t run over time. The outcome of the silent reading lesson, and reading aloud to the students in this unit is the same. Students are engaging in written text, and they can count the class novel towards the ‘Premier’s Reading Challenge’. I have also aligned the unit with the National Curriculum outcomes and requirements to show staff that it could be implemented in exchange with another novel study, as it meets the same standards and requirements.
The other major concern about the implementation of this unit would be the engagement and inclusion of the autistic child in this particular cohort. She struggles to sit still for even short periods of time, and can be quite loud and disruptive in class. (Conway, 2005, pg 109)
The curriculum is designed with the intention of the class teacher to be able to swap between different activities during each lesson if necessary to keep students at a maximum level of engagement. It is hoped through the flexible nature of the activities that the teacher can use their discretion about when it is appropriate to change tasks to avoid any students disengaging from the content.

References:
Carrington, S. & Elkins, J. (2002) Comparison of a traditional and an inclusive secondary school culture. International Journal of Inclusive Education 6(1) 1-16
Conway, R. (2005) Adapting curriculum, teaching and learning strategies. In Foreman, P. (ed) Inclusion in Action Southbank: Nelson Australia
Kasa-Hendrickson, C. ‘There’s no way this kid’s retarded’: Teachers’ optimistic constructions of students’ ability. International Journal of Inclusive Education 9(1) 55-69
Knight, B.A. (1998) Teaching critical literacy skills to students with learning disabilities. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 3(4), pp. 20–24.