This was in 2010, when I had just committed to homeschooling my daughter. I was fishing around for the proper grade level curriculum for my precocious student, and the verbs and nouns didn't have much meaning to me... "identify letters and sounds"... "apply artistic processes and skills"...
"Doesn't this just mean 'learn to read' and 'paint and color'?" I thought.
When I started as a fourth grade teacher in a California public school classroom, the standards suddenly seemed a lot more important, but I struggled to make sense of them. For example:
"Describe the Spanish exploration and colonization of California, including the relationships among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians (e.g., Juan Crespi, Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portola)."To whom did my students need to describe this information? I wondered. The exploration and colonization of California were sometimes mutually exclusive, so how do I tackle this standard? And, may this Pittsburgh girl ask, sheepishly, who are those guys?
Now that I'm working to become certified to teach in Pennsylvania public schools (where, thank goodness, I have heard of the historical figures), learning to apply the Commonwealth's standards to my classroom curriculum is suddenly at the forefront of my mind. In my classroom, students will need to meet or exceed very specific standards in order to be ready to move to the next grade -- if I fail to fully understand or apply a standard to my students' lessons, they will be ill prepared.
Unpacking a Standard
Before I began Module 5 of TEACH-NOW's program, the concept of "unpacking a standard" was new to me. Now I understand that when a teacher fully unpacks a standard, and carefully considers all of the components that go into the description of a standard, they gain many clues as to how to design their curriculum. The standard becomes more than a suggested course of study but a broad and detailed guide as to how to proceed through that course of study.For example, one of the sixth grade English Language Arts standards in Pennsylvania reads:
CC 1.4.6.Q Write with an awareness of the stylistic aspects of writing. * Vary sentence patterns for meaning, reader/listener interest, and style. * Use precise language. * Develop and maintain a consistent voice.I have now learned to carefully seek out the big ideas in a standard by focusing on the nouns. In this case, we are focusing on these nouns: awareness (of the stylistic aspects of writing), sentence patterns, meaning, reader/listener interest, style, language, and voice.
Furthermore, I would look to the verbs for the skills students should learn to meet this standard: write, vary, use (language), develop and maintain (voice).
It is also helpful to restate the standard, pulling out each big idea and skill one by one. For example, I could re-parse some of this standard, thus creating a guide for individual lessons, by saying:
- Vary sentence patterns for meaning
- Vary sentence patterns for reader/listener interest
- Vary sentence patterns for style
The Strength of Unpacking
When I look this closely at a standard, carefully pulling each concept away from the dense verbiage, it becomes much clearer to me how to create a curriculum that helps students meet this exact standard, rather than my own interpretations of it.
Potential Weaknesses of Unpacking
If I carefully pull out individual strands within a standard, I may become either overwhelmed with the amount of information I need to include in a lesson. (e.g., "I could spend two class periods just on varying sentences for reader/listener interest!" or "How am I going to assess students for varying sentence patterns for style alone?")
When I unpack a standard, I am also relying on my own interpretation of the verbiage in that standard. My idea of varying sentence patterns for meaning may be different from this skill as interpreted by a seventh grade teacher working next door. The solution to this potential weakness is to be sure to schedule consistent and ongoing planning time with all of the English Language Arts teachers in the middle school in order to ensure we are coming away with similar interpretations of the standards.
Backwards Mapping
Backwards Mapping, as it applies to the creation of curriculum, is to always have the end in mind throughout the design and execution of the curriculum. If we keep this in mind, and share these precise goals with our students, our lesson planning becomes more fluid, consistent, and meaningful.Now that I have learned about backwards mapping, I am re-thinking my approach to teaching fourth graders a particular writing unit last year. "Wouldn't it be interesting," I thought, "to teach the students how to create words for themselves, just as Shakespeare did?"
I plumbed around on the Teachers Pay Teachers website and found a word invention curriculum, downloaded it, then attempted to plug it into our ongoing, unrelated English Language Arts curriculum.
The result was utter confusion. I had put up posters about word invention, and I alluded to it in some of our reading, but the students never focused directly on the concept, and they were confused. As a result, my on-a-whim word invention lessons were a big flop. I had missed many aspects of backwards mapping in this case.
If I had used the concept of backwards mapping, I still could have used that moment of inspiration in another way: by crafting a series of lessons that mapped to a standard I was working on with my students, and more deliberately placing it in the curriculum. I could have taken a breath, and possibly saved this idea for a future class rather than impetuously trying to force my inspiration on an already busy classroom.
Were I to have backwards mapped in my classroom -- if I had the constant habit of keeping an eye on the eventual goal, in both lesson planning and execution -- it could have been a big hit. The students would have been familiar with the standard they were working to achieve -- it may even have been posted on the board. Then my word invention curriculum would have had a place in their minds -- perhaps it could have been a meaningful part in their sonnet writing unit, rather than a dangling, confusing series of worksheets I downloaded from Teachers Pay Teachers.
The strength of backwards mapping, it seems to me, is its ability to make curriculum and lesson planning meaningful, ensuring it maps to a standard.
A potential weakness of backwards mapping is that it may not allow for spontaneity in the classroom. There are times that it does make sense for the class to dive into a new, unexpected topic, perhaps one that doesn't map directly to a state-mandated standard. So an over-reliance on curricula that are solely based on backwards mapped standards may deprive students of those surprise "left turns" that a class can take as they follow their collective passion in an unexpected direction with their teacher as a guide.
In summary, I feel much more capable of writing and executing meaningful curricula now that I better understand the concept of unpacking a standard and backwards mapping. I'm looking forward to getting started!
References
California State Board of Education. (2000) History-Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools: Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve.
Pennsylvania Department of Education (2014) Academic Standards for English Language Arts: Grades 6-12.
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