Claire’s Scope and Sequence

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28 thoughts on “Claire’s Scope and Sequence”

    1. Yes! Thank you! I just printed these out so I can digest them a bit.

      Re: culture

      I don’t think we are avoiding it or promoting it, but allowing it to emerge naturally, which it does. Questions always come from the kids or from a sense of wonder in the group about something, so it’s not like the teacher imposing “oh now we need to learn about country x.” Isn’t it kind of like “untargeting?”

      1. Yes! Untargeted culture is how I involve culture in classes: as it arises. That happens a lot in little ways. Also by using video & songs — students notice & ask. However, especially to some Chinese natives, that doesn’t sound like enough. Some of them feel craft projects are necessary: making Beijing opera masks, etc. (Things that almost no young person in China cares about.)

        1. Steven Ordiano

          Interesting Diane Re: Culture. With Spanish sometimes the heritage curriculum is so “cultural” (for lack of better word) that it isn’t even what is now appreciated in the country where they actually speak the language.

          Video and Songs are excellent (a break for us providing all that input)

    2. Lance wrote this somewhere (more or less): One can read all of the Latin authors and in the process know Roman culture. One can learn everything there is to read about Roman culture and not know/learn Latin.

  1. Claire, this is going to take some printing out, sitting down with some coffee, and looking over. Three-day weekend coming up. I smell a plan. But from what I have skimmed of this document and the WIDA standards this looks super-promising.

  2. RE: culture

    Would suggested discussion topics be out of the question? They would be suggested, so they could encompass broad categories one might expect to learn about, but isn’t limited to only those topics (e.g. “Family” is important to kids. It doesn’t have to be established as a traditional “unit” in a traditional timeline, but it’s likely to come up in class at some point).

    1. Steven Ordiano

      “Would suggested discussion topics be out of the question?” I think it’s individual when it is this specific. One way would be to be able to still provide input (hopefully compelling) and still “untarget culture” like jen suggested above.

    2. As I digest all of this and prepare to submit some version to my “unified arts” team next week, I think I’ll frame culture as emergent and give “examples of topics that emerge commonly from student inquiry” (is that the right jargon for “stuff kids ask about because they want to know”) and then state what came up this year. That way ppl who are looking for a list will see a “list-like structure” but it will not be prescriptive.

      I may or may not use the school-wide templates. These also are supposed to align with our school wide rubrics (which don’t align with SLA but yeah).

      1. Lance you said:

        …some of us might be on board, but have our hands tied, and need something that isn’t prescriptive but pleases administration…

        I don’t think that your hands are as tied as you think. Our bosses just may need some education to align with what THEIR bosses are asking of them. We need to ask clarifying questions at a higher level about the requirements for accreditation. We can and at this point maybe should ask our governing bodies in each part of the nation we are in if narratives and other means of explaining curriculum and programming decisions are accepted or even preferred over templates to fill out. We can ask if there are specific templates for curriculum documents, like Scope and Sequence or curriculum maps required of schools. We can ask if schools are free to chose their own format for curriculum documents. I wonder how they would respond. It may just be that they in fact do not specify any particular template for the presentation of information about curriculum or programming decisions. Anyone willing to check that out? I’m too lazy.

        1. I’m down with doing some informal investigation. Lance’s questions resonate with me because the school I’m teaching in is about to undergo the big reaccreditation process. I am in a unique position to ask a buncha hard questions at this time since I have nothing to lose job-wise. Heh…I rather like my new mantra “what are they gonna do, fire me? oh yeah, they already did :)” Maybe this new professional tangent is giving me more fire power. Yes. Solar plexus. Check.

          Lances’s questions resonate with me AND in the bigger deeper picture, I’m all in with these shifts because there is way more at stake than vertical alignment. Kids’ lives. Teachers’ lives. Life in general. Using my current school as a microcosm, and everyone here has similar stories: attempted suicide rate skyrocketing, rampant anxiety and depression, anyone? anyone? We have a grant-funded program “Project AWARE” acronym stands for “Advancing Wellness and Resilience Education” but I have seen nothing that I consider “resilience education” happening. I think a small sector of kids has something going on with the social worker, but resilience needs to be the main fabric, no? Not just a few sequins sewn on.

          By “informal investigation” I mean asking a few folks in both my new and old schools about these exact questions. At my old school I went through 2 cycles of reaccreditation so that process is relatively fresh.

          Will let you know what I find out.

        2. And I will continue with my “informal investigation” of the International Baccalaureate Language Acquisition division. They make us write unit plans using a mesh of key concepts and related concepts, and writing these statements of inquiry. It’s something all subject areas have to do under IB. I wonder if anyone high up in IB admin, specifically, anyone in the Language Acquisition division, is frustrated with the conceptual framework we have to adopt too. I have to find those people and build a coalition.

      2. It’s a good feeling to know from you, Ben, and others that what we are doing does inevitably marginalize us in our school communities. Despite being the only Spanish teacher at my school of 800 kids who has stuck around for more than a year, who has not totally lost it mentally, jumped shipped, antagonized kids, or been let go, I still get marginalized by admin.

        Thank God there is a high demand for Spanish teachers out there, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to challenge the status quo as much. (Granted, as I’m getting older I find myself challenging the status quo more indirectly.)

  3. On the culture topic, I like to use the term “emergent”. Whatever emerges from the interest among the class. Totally non-targeted. Unless a teacher wants to target something, like reading the story of La Llorona or looking at some pictures from one our trips. But as Steven says, maybe this is the thing for an individual teacher to include in their syllabus if they want, but hopefully not in any official dept docs.

    1. It has so many uses and the most important one is to get administrators on board with TPRS. It’s harder than you would think because it involves articulating that communicative language is worth TEACHING (not just letting kids pick it up on the playground and wasting years of instructional time).

      Foreign language is not that different. You’re going to use the communicative performance indicators to justify your use of TPRS as a truly communicative CI method.

      It’s also key for protecting students and creating rubrics that assess them based only on what they CAN do compared to what they reasonably could do for their place in a larger Scope and Sequence. We aren’t penalizing Level 1s for not producing output because the Scope and Sequence says that’s just not developmentally appropriate. No grade inflation, no abusive tests, just fair, authentic assessments.

      For a specific example of how I use it to modify across levels, revisit where I recorded myself modifying and scoring two rubrics in the Authentic Assessment 6 thread. I scored a Level 4 and Level 1 so differently with the same rubric by just deciding “is this ability appropriate?” I just thought about it for a second or two and used my S&S which I have memorized –but you can certainly print a copy and reference it as needed. The S&S is just a guide to help make formative assessments more fair, not to create extra work for us.

      I know it’s a lot to take in, but we’ll focus on how curriculum is the bridge that connects instruction in TPRS and assessment to create a more fair and valid assessments. We teach kids (instruction) where they are (assessment) using what they are interested in. Sounds simple but we’ll give it a fancy name, constructive alignment, and learn how to defend it with solid research, that will look very similar to what Krashen has said about language acquisition. We’ll pull all this theory out briefly so we can defend ourselves at data meetings, and then pack it all away nicely the “basement” to forget about for the rest of the year (to use Ben’s house analogy). Ben’s going to switch the discussion to the forum where you can ask these kind of questions as we prepare for July.

  4. I really like this S&S. The more I think about the no culture stance the more I realize that arbitrarily placing culture into a course is something I mostly do for myself because I’m fascinated by culture. It doesn’t come from my students’ hunger for cultural input. It’s just another one of those things that we like, that we want to impose on students. Maybe because it’s one of the few actually interesting things we are expected to do in FL classes, or because it’s one of the only ways to make this language that has been so analytically dissected and separated from the heart have a connection to real people. But I realize that by focusing on distant unfamiliar people under the guise of cultural study, we ignore the real people that fill the classroom.

    1. “But I realize that by focusing on distant unfamiliar people under the guise of cultural study, we ignore the real people that fill the classroom.”

      Just wanted to say this is beautiful. Grant does a great job of bringing the concept of culture down to the real people in the classroom. He has made me see that intercultural competence begins by respecting the people to your left and your right.

      Also I believe that despite Chomsky’s idea of universal grammar, the different ways meaning is encoded in our different linguistic systems is fundational to r culture. Maybe more than we inow. Our language tells us whether or not there is a difference between a Usted type person and a tú type person…or if we are all pretty much the same like in English. Or if there is a difference between things wished for and things thst are in the lpane of reality, or if they are all going to use pretty much the same verb to exist – reality and the hoped-for world.

      So language is culture, it forms us and shapes our perceptions and some of our deepest thoughts. And then below those thoughts, maybe there is another, deeper, more animal, layer. Where experience is not encoded in thought, in language, but in impressions, light, smell, touch, in deeper ways. But that layer of thought is built on language, and that, to me, is culture.

  5. A couple of great sentences are above:

    Craig: …by focusing on distant unfamiliar people under the guise of cultural study, we ignore the real people that fill the classroom…..

    Tina: …so language is culture, it forms us and shapes our perceptions and some of our deepest thoughts. And then below those thoughts, maybe there is another, deeper, more animal, layer. Where experience is not encoded in thought, in language, but in impressions, light, smell, touch, in deeper ways. But that layer of thought is built on language, and that, to me, is culture….

    Thus, when a language class becomes a social studies class that is absent of the language as the catalyst for and soul of culture, we can’t really call it studying the culture. Language enriches and enlivens, and so we should teach it as the primary vehicle to uncovering the culture and leave the English out. Narrow and deep use of the language gets it done when it comes to culture, so we can penetrate to the marrow of the thing.

  6. I just got approved to submit a proposal for Spanish electives that utilize CI. These classes will be independent of our normal 1-5AP track and I can make them what I want. But they have to be approved, meaning I have to make them look acceptable to the admin. Can I use this as a starting place for my proposal?

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