Developing Literature Curriculum

On The English Companion Ning, I often run across posts by new or returning teachers asking for advice on developing a curriculum. This is the process I use. It's important to note that I teach at a private school, so I do not have to use the CCSS, but I do keep them in mind for accountability.

For my 10th grade World Literature classes, I completed lengthy research to pick a central theme or idea for the year. I decided to go with Stories of the Sea for a number of reasons:

• Adventure books appeal to both genders
• There are many different types of conflict to discuss (man vs. man, man vs. nature, etc.)
• The books are clean but intelligent (an important consideration for my school)

The books I chose:
- Lieutenant Hornblower (England, France, West Indies)
- Whale Rider (New Zealand)
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories (India)
- Twelfth Night
- Kon-Tiki (Norway, South America, Phillipines)

I don't plan in detail at the beginning of the year. I prefer to adjust to the culture of each individual class and student before I make final decisions. However, I do brainstorm a general direction of where I'd like to head.

As my classes typically make use of Project Based Learning (PBL), I always start each unit by thinking of essential questions.

In September, my Honors class will start with Kon-Tiki. After a rich discussion on Heyerdahl's passion for adventure, learning, and achievement, I want to set my students free to explore and reflect on their own interests and passions.

As you can see at the top right of the board, my goal this year is to awaken curiosity.

As you can see, I'm still in the planning phases. Exact phrases and the wording of my essential questions are still in flux. In this unit for Whale Rider, I plan to read the short book aloud while my students discuss through a backchannel.

This particular unit for Lieutenant Hornblower is in the brainstorming phase. I want my students to use the true PBL model to construct their own answers to the essential questions, but I'm not sure what that will look like (which isn't a bad thing, it's in the nature of PBL). The novella is one of my ideas... but we will see. I'm curious to get feedback from my students on how they would like to approach these questions. I need to keep balance in mind - good suggestions along with gentle prodding to help students take charge of their learning. My goal is for the students to craft purposeful projects that have real-world importance.

My challenge this year is to also fit in the required research paper. I'm thinking of shortening the assignment, as we will be conducting research and writing the entire year. That will leave the last few weeks of May into the first week of June to complete the paper. I do like the assignment, as it sums up the year neatly. Students take an aptitude test, chose a career they are interested in learning more about, write a paper, and give an Ignite presentation.

This is how I think through the literature portion of my year. For more on how I approach scheduling ELA across a week of five 42 minute periods, see this post.