Standards

Standards are the established set of intended outcomes for students in each grade and subject. Standards dictate what students should be able to do and what they should know by the close of a course. Standards are most often imposed by government entities of education.

I plan to use standards as more general guiding principles in my pedagogy and planning. There is value in standards; they ensure that we are working towards a specific outcome and utilizing skills that will be used throughout students’ education. They also assist in the planning of units and curriculum. Many classes are structured around the gradual development of academic skills (MacDonald 1999). In theory, standards create a level playing field on which all students have the opportunity to develop the same reading, writing, and speaking skills. However, in reality, standards are far too general to achieve this level playing field among the diverse array of students in each classroom. Standards are a necessary aspect of any curriculum, especially in terms of federal and state guidelines for education, but they must be implemented with students in mind. Standards should guide, not dictate curriculum. Additionally, standards should always be made explicitly clear to students (Tomlinson and McTighe 2006). When students know exactly what they are intended to learn, there is generally greater acceptance and understanding of assignments. In my experiences as a student and teacher in training, students want to know that the work they are doing matters. The systemic desire for efficiency and productivity in school and work exists in students at an early age; everybody wants to know that the efforts they put into their work has clear purpose and will benefit them as they progress. Making standards visible and accessible to students aids in students' intrinsic desire to learn through their work.

In terms of middle and high school ELA, students should be able to recognize and utilize a variety of rhetorical devices and skills, including close reading, annotating, public speaking, and literary analysis. Because English is a humanities class, there is greater emphasis on learning how to think, present, and write about ideas and texts. As shown in the image below, the seventh grade class in which I am placed revolves around developing analytic skills such as comparing materials, citing evidence for ideas, and analyzing perspectives. The standards guide the ways students engage with material in the class. Assignments and assessments incorporate these skills in the context of every text/material. By engaging with these desire skills in a variety of ways, students grow more confident in their reading abilities. My future curriculum will focus less on the traditional literary canon and more on introducing students to a variety of texts and media with which they can practice their literary skills. The desired skills will come from state and school standards and will gradually change according to each classes’ progress and needs.