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Anna Bradshaw details how she successfully implemented Wit & Wisdom and mastered pacing to maximize time with her students.

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In this third installment of a five-part blog series, Great Minds teacher-writer Emily Gula connects with students and teachers around the country to learn about their successes using in their English classrooms.

Wit & Wisdom lessons explore five Content Framing Questions. The Content Framing Questions are key questions that lead students through a series of five stages of reading called Content Stages: Wonder, Organize, Reveal, Distill, and Know. Each of these stages builds an important habit of mind to help students closely read complex text.

The chart identifies each content stage, a typical version of its associated Content Framing Question, and the type of thinking and reading students engage in during each stage.

Although a century separates the experiences of World War I soldiers from today's youth, students in Sara Young's eighth-grade language arts class at Maysville Middle School have deep knowledge of the experiences of soldiers in World War I. Maysville eighth-graders engaged in study of the Wit & Wisdom module The Great War, which is centered around All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

I had a conversation with Sara Young and her principal, Erik Winland. They shared how Wit & Wisdom 's third Content Stage, Reveal, deepened students' understanding of this challenging World War I novel and its powerful history.

DIGGING DEEP

The Reveal Content Stage guides students to delve deeper into the gold of a text through targeted analysis. By closely reading shorter sections of text and focusing on one specific element, students develop a better understanding of the text as a whole. The Reveal is flexible: students explore what is most distinctive about any given text. Reveal questions might probe word choice, literary devices, text structure, illustrations, and many other elements.

Winland observes how the multifaceted Reveal stage has changed how his students learn: "I see fresh things they are doing every day...I see it as a principal and as a parent. I hear kids talking about language arts class. Kids are excited to go there."

In a lesson focusing on Chapter 9 of All Quiet on the Western Front, students in Young's class examined comradeship among the characters as they explored one Reveal lesson's Content Framing Question: "What does a deeper exploration of the incident in the shell-hole reveal?" Through closely studying this scene, students gathered evidence to discuss the main character's attitude towards his comrades, and gained a greater awareness of the war's effects on soldiers. Young highlighted how focusing on one line in Chapter 9 made an impression on students. The main character, Paul, describes his fellow soldiers in this way: "They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades" (Remarque 212). After analyzing this quote, Young's students explained that for Paul, his comrades "were his everything."

By digging deeply into a single line, students discovered how one sentence could illuminate a theme running through the entire text: war profoundly affects individuals as well as society at large. In an earlier Reveal lesson, students explored trench warfare from another angle by studying descriptive details. Students chose one piece of textual evidence that best conveyed how trench warfare affected Paul and explained what made the paragraph's description powerful. Students shared, "Paul has changed, along with the world around him" and "He learned that since the war, things will never be normal again."

ANALYZING ART

While many Reveal lessons revolve around close reads of literary and informational texts, students in Wit & Wisdom classrooms also closely read works of art that further build knowledge about the module topic. While studying The Great War, Young's students examined the cubist painting Soldiers Playing Cards by Fernand Léger. Young observed how her students learned to closely study a piece of art, just as they would analyze a written text. After examining how the artist used geometric shapes to depict the soldiers, students discussed what the artist's choices could reveal about attitudes towards warfare. Students shared how the soldiers "were almost like robots...or machines." Young says, "I was amazed by how much they were able to pull out from that painting." Zooming in on certain features provided evidence to support students' recognition of the implicit meaning of the painting as well as the module topic.

PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF

Exploring distinct elements within one painting or story demonstrates the depth of knowledge that one text or work of art can offer. Reveal lessons help students mine the gold of texts and encourage them to dig deeper with each new reading. Young explains how Reveal lessons highlight the importance of multiple reads. "Rereading has become so important...[Students] can...focus on different parts in the book ... like going back to personification or looking at a soldier's perspective."

Wit & Wisdom lessons reveal the possibilities within a text and the more nuanced understandings that students are capable of unpacking. The Reveal stage provides a scaffold for students by elevating certain elements of the text that more experienced readers may naturally notice. Through exploring a diverse range of text elements, students analyze how each affects the meaning of the text overall.

Winland describes how the Reveal stage can be challenging, but rewarding: "It expands the minds of our language arts kids...When it gets tough, because it will get tough...expect that the kids can do the work...Don't deviate from the program because a kid is struggling. Keep pushing him and don't give up on him." Taking time to deeply explore a text is worth the effort. The Reveal stage creates new entry points for students to explore texts with deeper understanding, and prepares them to discover the essential meaning of a text in the next Content Stage-the Distill stage.

Through their study of The Great War module, Young's class went beyond an introduction to the World War I era and gained a richer understanding of the experiences of individual soldiers and the war's lasting effects. Young explains, "Students were shocked when it was put into context of how close in age they were [to the soldiers]...They found all of that enlightening."

Works Cited

Léger, Fernand. La Partie de Cartes. 1917. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. Kröller Müller, Web. Accessed 1 July 2016.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated by A.W. Wheen, 1929, Ballantine Books, 1982.

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In the Reveal stage students closely read shorter sections of text and focus on one specific element, developing a better understanding of the text as a whole.

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I remember flipping through the Wit & Wisdom ® Teacher Edition for the first time six years ago. I relished the thoughtful organization and consistency of each lesson and the stunning artwork in each module. Although I found the curriculum impressive, I had concerns about using the curriculum in my Grade 8 classroom.

During the first year, which was a pilot for the Grade 8 teachers, I resolved many initial concerns as I learned how to use the preparation protocols to unpack each module, Focusing Question arc, and lesson. But one concern remained: assigning homework. Why was I choosing not to assign the reading homework?

During the first year of implementation, 45 minutes were dedicated to teaching Wit & Wisdom. It was impossible to teach the full lesson in a class period, and our pacing suffered. In year two, the district restructured our schedule and provided language arts classes with 90-minute blocks. For many reasons, that still didn't seem like enough time to get through an entire Wit & Wisdom lesson. In my second year of implementation, my students were experiencing Wit & Wisdom for the first time-they hadn't participated in the pilot in Grade 7. The students' lack of familiarity with the curriculum led the department to continue to read entire texts in class, often as read alouds, and it consumed too much of the 90-minute instructional block.

Initially, it seemed logical to have students complete the reading homework in class. They hadn't received that much homework before, and the rigor of the curriculum itself was a big change for my students. I also thought I could ensure that students read, and understood, every page of our texts if I read them aloud. Throughout the second year, students spent a lot of the instructional time completing assigned homework readings during class.

During year two, pacing was a regular topic of conversation at departmental meetings. All of the Grade 8 teachers were working hard to improve their use of instructional time, but teaching a lesson in a day still seemed challenging in some modules, especially those with significant reading homework. At the end of that year, the Grade 8 teachers decided that we would assign the homework with fidelity the following year to improve our pacing.

As I prepared to make this shift, I worried whether any of the students would complete the homework assignments and how the lesson might unfold if no one completed the reading. I wondered whether parts of the lesson that depended on students reading specific passages for homework would be less effective if students didn't complete it. I considered what I would need to prepare to support the students who didn't complete the homework.

Despite these concerns, I moved forward with plans to assign the homework with fidelity in year three. I still remember the mantra that everyone in the department adopted as we embarked on what seemed like a radical choice to start assigning all the homework as homework: "Trust the curriculum." To help with homework organization, students received three-prong, two-pocket folders. Each folder included any needed handouts and a chart that detailed the daily homework assignments. It became apparent that assigning that homework, especially reading assignments, for completion outside class would become one of the most important choices for maximizing instructional time.

Instead of putting information in a pocket folder, I now post that information on Canvas®, an online classroom management tool our school uses for blended learning. In Canvas, I provide a link to an audio version of the text that students use to complete reading assignments for homework. Interestingly, some students prefer to follow along while listening to a read aloud, while others prefer to read independently. I don't need to check every students' homework because the accountability for completing homework is incorporated in the lesson. I learn a lot about student understanding during lessons, and I document what I notice as the class progresses through the module. The focus of my notes relates to the knowledge and skills needed for upcoming assessments like Focusing Question Tasks and the End-of-Module Task.

Now, in year six of implementation, most students complete the assigned homework, and I have learned to let go of my worry when a student occasionally doesn't. Often, the homework is a first read of a text that students revisit in a lesson. Any given lesson offers a variety of student activities, and they are not solely dependent on whether a student completes a homework assignment. Yet the curriculum also provides enough accountability that students receive natural consequences for failing to complete a reading, such as not being able to participate in a discussion or needing more time to locate text evidence. Most students learn that doing the reading helps them to be successful in class.

For example, in Module 2, the homework assignment from Lesson 14 includes reading pages 123-136 of All Quiet on the Western Front while annotating for emotional responses (or lack thereof) of the men in the Second Company.

In the next lesson, students share those annotations with the class. Students who completed their homework excitedly share what they found, and those who didn't complete their homework still benefit from the conversation. Later in the lesson, students purposefully reread as they answer several text-dependent questions. All students can participate fully in the lesson because of the rereading.

Assigning a first read as homework also reflects the Wit & Wisdom Content Stages in an age-appropriate way. It is unrealistic to expect students to read a portion of a complex text once and immediately progress to the Reveal stage in an analytical discussion with their peers. Instead, students start at the Wonder Stage as they wrestle with the text for the first time as homework. Then, as students engage with the text again, they can progress to further stages of understanding. The Wit & Wisdom Content Stages support middle school students in reading longer, more complex text with greater independence-a skill they will need to draw on in high school and beyond.

I can see with clarity now that by assigning homework, I set high expectations. I expect students to share in the effort necessary to reach their potential. And with students completing assigned readings outside class, pacing has improved: I can teach a whole lesson and a Deep Dive in one 90-minute block. Now, I always encourage new Wit & Wisdom teachers to "trust the curriculum" and assign the homework to students, even during the first year of implementation.

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Maximizing Middle School Instructional Time with Reading Homework

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Krystle Gleason shares how she overcame pacing challenges in her Grade 8 classroom and learned to trust the Wit & Wisdom curriculum.

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Prioritizing Fluency Practice in the Middle Grades

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Great Minds PD Fellow and literacy coach McLean Beto explores the importance of investing in fluency instruction, especially for students in middle school.

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Connecticut ELA Standards Alignment Study - Great Minds

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A detailed analysis to demonstrate how grades K-8 of Wit & Wisdom align with the Connecticut state standards.

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Scarborough's Reading Rope provides a model for understanding the components of skilled reading. This blog series examines each of the strands of the Language Comprehension half of the rope and how Wit & Wisdom® strengthens these upper strands. Image courtesy of Dr. Hollis Scarborough, 2001.

In Scarborough's Reading Rope, the Vocabulary strand refers to the quantity and quality of a student's known words. To comprehend challenging texts, students need a wealth of vocabulary knowledge.

Simply put, when students know more words, they can comprehend more of what they read.

Students enter school with a wide range of vocabulary knowledge-presenting a common challenge for educators (Hart and Risley, 7). Gaps between students with limited and extensive vocabulary knowledge often persist throughout their education. But that doesn't need to be the case. E.D. Hirsch Jr. states that "vocabulary is a plant of slow growth." When educators use a high-quality curriculum to intentionally support the growth of vocabulary knowledge, they are planting seeds that can close the gap between students.

Growing Vocabulary Knowledge in English Language Arts

Given the word knowledge gap in kindergarten students, schools have a responsibility to grow students' vocabulary. Most students will be exposed to new words through reading (Cunningham and Stanovich 2-3).

Teachers can increase students' word knowledge in three research-based ways:

1. Use conceptually coherent text sets. A conceptually coherent text set is a group of texts sequenced to build students' understanding of the deeply related knowledge and concepts within the texts. In a study conducted by Cervetti, Wright, and Hwang, students who read conceptually coherent texts built more knowledge of the texts' words and related concepts than readers who did not read a conceptually coherent set of texts (773).

2. Focus on volume of reading. Volume of reading refers to the amount, quality, and frequency of students' reading, including classroom texts and independent reading selections. Cunningham and Stanovich draw the conclusion from several of their own studies that once students learn to read, the act of reading is the quickest way to learn new vocabulary because words used in written texts are rarer and more specific than words used in spoken language (1). Engaging students in frequent reading implicitly grows their word knowledge.

3. Conduct direct instruction. Providing knowledge-building texts and reading instruction offers a base for developing students' word knowledge. Teachers should enhance text-focused instruction with direct vocabulary instruction of words that appear in or directly relate to students' classroom reading (NICHD 4-17).

Wit & Wisdom relies on these three research-based practices to develop word knowledge.

How does Wit & Wisdom build vocabulary knowledge?

All Wit & Wisdom modules include vocabulary instruction. Some vocabulary instruction is implicit as students make meaning out of the texts they encounter. Lessons also employ explicit, direct instruction for important module vocabulary.

Implicit Vocabulary Instruction

Wit & Wisdom builds on conceptually coherent text sets. Researchers such as Stanovich and Cunningham show that reading is the best way to grow vocabulary. Wit & Wisdom places rich, knowledge-building texts at the center of instruction. Through texts and topics that build coherent knowledge, all students encounter meaning-rich words, often used repeatedly in texts, during Wit & Wisdom instruction.

Wit & Wisdom offers Volume of Reading (VOR) text lists. Wit & Wisdom provides teachers and families with VOR lists that include many texts that can be found in schools or local libraries. These texts extend the knowledge developed in each module and are excellent selections for students' independent reading. The module texts and VOR lists offer ample opportunities for implicit vocabulary acquisition. As students repeatedly encounter vocabulary in their reading within the module, they build a stronger understanding of the words in each new context.

Direct Vocabulary Instruction

In Wit & Wisdom, teachers also directly instruct on vocabulary words related to the knowledge students build by reading module texts. Wit & Wisdom provides explicit instruction on words that students will use in their reading, writing, and speaking. These words fall into three categories.

Content vocabulary includes words that are words that are necessary for understanding a central idea of the domain-specific topic. In Grade 3 Module 1, students learn words such as photosynthesis and nutrient that are content words necessary to understand how sunlight helps sea plants make food in the text Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Sea.

Academic vocabulary consists of high-priority words that can be used across disciplines, will likely be encountered in other texts, are often abstract, and frequently have multiple meanings, which are unlikely to be known by students with limited vocabularies. An example from Grade 3 Module 1 includes academic words such as informational and nonfiction that help students talk about the role the text plays in the module overall.

Text-critical vocabulary includes words and phrases that are essential to students' understanding of a particular text or excerpt. During Module 1, Grade 3 students learn text-critical words such as luminous and immense to make meaning in Amos & Boris.

Summary

At all grade levels, students encounter new vocabulary words in their reading, record the words in their vocabulary journals, and use the words in their conversations about the module content. Students are also challenged to use the explicitly taught vocabulary in the module's speaking and writing tasks.

Vocabulary instruction grounded in knowledge-rich, coherent text sets and volume of reading has the potential to close significant gaps between students who enter school with varying word wealth. When this instruction begins in kindergarten and continues to build throughout students' education, the slow-growing plant of vocabulary becomes repeatedly fortified. Educators must plant the seeds of vocabulary instruction as early as possible and then care for the steady growth over time of vocabulary knowledge by using a coherent, knowledge-building curriculum.
Works Cited
Cervetti, Gina N., Tanya S. Wright, and HyeJin Hwang. "Conceptual coherence, comprehension, and vocabulary acquisition: A knowledge effect?" Reading and Writing, vol. 29, no. 4, Apr 2016, pp. 761-779. SpringerLink, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-016-9628-x.

Cunningham, Anne E., and Keith E. Stanovich. "What Reading Does for The Mind." American Educator, American Federation of Teachers, Spring/Summer 1998, https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/cunningham.pdf.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf.

Hart, Betty, and Todd R. Risley. "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3." American Educator, American Federation of Teachers, Spring 2003, https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2003/hart_risley.

Hirsch, E.D. Jr. "A Wealth of Words: The key to increasing upward mobility is expanding vocabulary." City Journal, Winter 2013, https://www.city-journal.org/html/wealth-words-13523.html.

Willingham, Daniel T. "How Knowledge Helps: It Speeds and Strengthens Reading Comprehension, Learning-and Thinking." American Educator, American Federation of Teachers, Spring 2006, http://witeng.link/0869.

About Hannah Dieter

Hannah Dieter is a director of implementation services on the Humanities team at Great Minds. In this role, she leads a team of implementation leaders who support schools and districts across the country with their implementation of  Wit & Wisdom and Geodes. Before joining the Great Minds team, she was the director of early childhood education for Lorain City Schools in Ohio. Hannah is also a former kindergarten teacher and instructional coach. She is currently working on her master's degree in reading science from Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.

About Tanisha Washington

Tanisha Washington is a director of implementation services on the Humanities team at Great Minds. In this role, she leads a team of implementation leaders who support schools and districts across the country with their implementation of Wit & Wisdom and Geodes. Before joining the Great Minds team, she was an assistant principal for a charter school in Washington, DC. As an assistant principal, Tanisha was a member of the 2013 New Leaders' Aspiring Principals program, the 2018 Relay Graduate School of Education's National Principals Academy, and the 2018 School Leader Lab's leadership cohort. Tanisha is also a former elementary school teacher and has a master's degree in elementary education from American University in Washington, DC.

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Hannah Dieter and Tanisha Washington explore the Vocabulary strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope and how Wit & Wisdom builds vocabulary knowledge.

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Scarborough's Reading Rope provides a model for understanding the components of skilled reading. This blog series examines each of the strands of the Language Comprehension half of the rope and how Wit & Wisdom® strengthens these upper strands. Image courtesy of Dr. Hollis Scarborough, 2001.

In Scarborough's Reading Rope, the Language Structures strand refers to semantics-how word choice develops meaning-and syntax, the grammatical rules of a language.

The language structures used in writing often differ from how we speak, so building a strong knowledge of semantics and syntax helps readers comprehend challenging texts.

The Role of Language Structures

Why is knowledge of language structures critical for students' reading development?

1. Complex texts have complex language structures. The complexity of language structures within a text contributes to quantitative and qualitative measures of text complexity. Longer sentences, figurative language, and low-frequency words increase the complexity of a text. To read increasingly complex texts successfully, students need support navigating complex structures and word choice to understand how each contributes to the text's meaning.

2. Knowledge of language structures helps readers track information within a sentence or across a text. A skilled reader uses their knowledge of language structures to accurately summarize and make logical inferences. Without understanding how to refer to a noun used in a previous sentence, for instance, students quickly lose the ability to make meaning of challenging texts.

3. Reading comprehension relies on subtleties of language structures. Semantics and syntax both affect meaning. You may have seen (or even own) a coffee cup with this frequent but clever pairing of sentences:

"Let's eat Grandma!"
"Let's eat, Grandma!"

To understand the joke, a reader needs strong knowledge of how the comma placement in the second sentence changes the meaning. Developing knowledge of language structures strengthens students' ability to glean meaning from sentences.

The Power of Integrated Instruction

Ideally, teachers help students build knowledge of language structures by guiding students to analyze the language of complex texts and apply that learning to their own writing. But educators haven't always approached teaching syntax this way.

Traditionally, grammar has been taught isolated from texts and content knowledge, focusing primarily on students' ability to identify, describe, and define grammar rules (Fearn and Farnan 64). Often, traditional grammar instruction begins and ends with error correction, which reinforces negativity and insecurity with writing (Cleary; Shanahan 18). The traditional approach lacks the component of grammar's deep relationship with meaning.

To make meaning from complex texts, students must be able to analyze the relationships among words, phrases, and clauses at the sentence level. This ability builds students' reading habits and stamina (Liben and Pimentel 9). It also improves students' written communication (Fearn and Farnan 79).

When students analyze a text's sentences, they develop an understanding of grammatical rules (syntax) and the strategic use of words and phrases to carry meaning (semantics). In an integrated English language arts classroom, students also receive explicit instruction on crafting similarly structured sentences that convey meaningful ideas about students' learning.

Wit & Wisdom's Approach to Teaching Language Structures

Wit & Wisdom builds students' knowledge of language structures by anchoring learning in the module texts. When students learn from the language used in complex texts, they build a skillset that strengthens their reading comprehension and written expression.

At any grade level in Wit & Wisdom lessons, teachers can regularly find language structure instruction in two places:

Deep Dives: Students engage in daily 15-minute Deep Dives that focus on building language-structure knowledge and skills. The content of Deep Dives directly relates to a Wit & Wisdom core lesson. Students might categorize module-specific words for their shades of meaning, engage in a morphological analysis of an important word from a module text, or analyze the construction of sentences from a core text.

Reveal stage lessons: The Reveal stage often requires students to analyze the effect language structures have on meaning. Students answer the question, "What does a deeper exploration of _____ reveal?" This sentence is often completed by an element of language, such as an author's word choice or the use of figurative language.

Wit & Wisdom Prologue™

All learners need opportunities to build knowledge of language structures used in writing, especially in academic and expository texts. To make content learning accessible for multilingual learners and students with language-based learning disabilities, additional instruction may be needed to support language and reading comprehension (Haager and Osipova 8). Prologue, a collection of 30-minute lessons for grades 6 through 8, supports students' language development to prepare for Wit & Wisdom instruction.

Summary

Teaching language structures improves students' reading comprehension, and teachers' approach to this instruction matters. Teachers can cultivate comprehension and effective communication by integrating reading and writing instruction and by providing focused time to study how language conveys meaning.
Works Cited
Cleary, Michelle Navarre. "The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar." The Atlantic, 25 Feb 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/the-wrong-way-to-teach-grammar/284014/.

Fearn, Leif, and Nancy Farnan. "When Is a Verb? Using Functional Grammar to Teach Writing." Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 26, no. 1, City University of New York, spring 2007, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ787964.pdf.

Haager, Diane, and Anna V. Ospiova. "Enhancing Academic Instruction for Adolescent English Language Learners with or at Risk for Learning Disabilities." Insights into Learning Disabilities, vol. 14, no. 1, 2017, pp.7-26, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1165739.pdf.

Liben, Meredith, and Sue Pimentel. "Placing Text at the Center of the Standards-Aligned ELA Classroom." Achieve the Core, Student Achievement Partners, 24 Aug 2021, https://achievethecore.org/page/3185/placing-text-at-the-center-of-the-standards-aligned-ela-classroom.

Shanahan, Eileen. "From Finding Error to Finding Wonder: A Shift in Grammar Instruction." Voices from the Middle, vol. 28, no. 3, National Council of Teachers of English, March 2021, https://library.ncte.org/journals/vm/issues/v28-3/31174.

About Hannah Dieter

Hannah Dieter is a director of implementation services on the Humanities team at Great Minds. In this role, she leads a team of implementation leaders who support schools and districts across the country with their implementation of  Wit & Wisdom and Geodes. Before joining the Great Minds team, she was the director of early childhood education for Lorain City Schools in Ohio. Hannah is also a former kindergarten teacher and instructional coach. She is currently working on her master's degree in reading science from Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.

About Tanisha Washington

Tanisha Washington is a director of implementation services on the Humanities team at Great Minds. In this role, she leads a team of implementation leaders who support schools and districts across the country with their implementation of Wit & Wisdom and Geodes. Before joining the Great Minds team, she was an assistant principal for a charter school in Washington, DC. As an assistant principal, Tanisha was a member of the 2013 New Leaders' Aspiring Principals program, the 2018 Relay Graduate School of Education's National Principals Academy, and the 2018 School Leader Lab's leadership cohort. Tanisha is also a former elementary school teacher and has a master's degree in elementary education from American University in Washington, DC.

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Hannah Dieter and Tanisha Washington explore the Language Structures strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope and how to help readers comprehend challenging texts.

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This Month's Focus

The Humanities team at Great Minds® stays updated on the current scientific research on literacy. We bring research to life in our curricula and make research accessible to educators in our blog posts. In this month's post, Meg Wexler explains how explicit instruction in morphemic awareness helps students implicitly acquire vocabulary in their reading.

Unearthing New Vocabulary in Complex Texts

When I taught Wit & Wisdom® in the classroom, my students came to understand that making meaning of a text is like mining for precious gems. To unlock the text's meaning, they needed to dig for knowledge by using the skills and strategies we were learning in Wit & Wisdom. Vocabulary shines as one of the most precious gems we uncover in a text. Understanding the words in a text allows students to access the knowledge the text offers. Students also develop lifelong word recognition knowledge that they can apply to new texts they encounter.

Wit & Wisdom intentionally builds vocabulary knowledge through implicit and direct instruction. One form of direct instruction featured in Wit & Wisdom lessons is morphology instruction. Morphology lessons increase students' morphemic awareness as they learn how morphemes-the smallest units of meaning in language-construct words. As students grow morphemic awareness, they strengthen the Vocabulary strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope, allowing them to dig deeply into new texts. Students can leverage morphemic awareness to unearth new vocabulary and knowledge from the texts they read.

The Wit & Wisdom Implementation Guide offers two powerful instructional routines to build students' morphemic awareness.

In Module 1, my Grade 7 students used the Outside-In strategy to unlock the meaning of the word perspective. To find "outside" clues about its meaning, students studied sentences containing the word perspective, such as, "The perspective from the airplane made everything below look tiny." Next students looked "inside" the word to identify the morphemes per-, spect, and - ive. Then students listed in their Vocabulary Journals words that contain these morphemes. Through discussion, the class landed on a shared definition for the word perspective. After considering the sentences and the root spect, students arrived at the idea that perspective might mean "how we view things."

I luckily observed a Grade 3 colleague showing her students this Morpheme Matrix as a strategy in Module 1:

Students worked in small groups to list words containing the morphemes re-, vis, and - ion. To determine the definition of revision, students discussed the words they listed under each morpheme to deduce what each morpheme means. Students were able to define the target word, and they strengthened their morphemic awareness by considering other words that contained the targeted morphemes.

Wit & Wisdom lessons in Grades K through 8 use the Outside-In and Morpheme Matrix routines, which means students constantly hone tools like morphemic awareness that can unlock word meanings. When my students encountered unknown words that were not explicitly taught in the module or in their Volume of Reading, I prompted them to use these strategies we had learned to determine the meaning. My seventh graders practiced these strategies and could quickly employ them when needed. I took pride in seeing students engage various strategies unprompted on their assessments, in their independent reading, and even in their other classes.

Summary

Building vocabulary knowledge, like mining, can feel like arduous work. The right tools, such as morphemic awareness, can help students quickly access beautiful gems-new vocabulary and knowledge-that lie within the text.

We would love to hear about the knowledge parties your students have every day in Wit & Wisdom ! Connect with us in our Facebook groups for each grade band ( K-2, 3-5, and 6-8) or on Twitter @WitWisdomELA.

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Building Vocabulary: Wit & Wisdom's Approach to Morphemic Awareness

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Meg Wexler shares how Wit & Wisdom uses explicit instruction in morphemic awareness to help students build vocabulary knowledge.

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The Science of Reading: Supporting Scarborough's Rope | Great Minds®

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Learn how instructional materials from Great Minds® align with The Science of Reading and help students become strategic and skilled readers.

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The Science of Reading and Wit & Wisdom®

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Hannah Dieter and Tanisha Washington share a brief description and history of the science of reading.

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Wit & Wisdom Multilingual Learner Supports

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Wit & Wisdom Multilingual Learner Supports

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4. Content in multiple forms
Students explore print, visuals (art, photographs, maps, videos, and more), and audio to access module concepts and information.

5. Ongoing, sequential, explicit writing instruction
Students learn to write and write to learn every day in Wit & Wisdom.

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Wit & Wisdom Multilingual Learner Supports

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Equitable instruction means equipping every learner, especially diverse learners, with the tools they need for academic success.

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The Implementation Guide is one of the Key Resources to address questions and offer implementation guidance and support

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The Implementation Guide is one of the Key Resources to address questions and offer implementation guidance and support

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Teachers can host an engaging and informative Family Literacy Night to help families and caregivers understand how to help their students with Wit & Wisdom. These resources include the following:

An invitation template for print or email invitations

Art Study Activity Guide

Fluency Activity Guide, including a family letter, a practice guide, and example videos

For additional family resources to distribute at Family Literacy Night, add the Wit & Wisdom Family Resources << https://greatminds.org/resources/products/wit-wisdom-family-resources>> to your dashboard.

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Family Literacy Night Resources - Great Minds

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Teachers can host an engaging and informative Family Literacy Night to help families and caregivers understand how to help their students with Wit &...

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Activities to Engage Families Year Round with Wit & Wisdom

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Activities to Engage Families Year Round with Wit & Wisdom

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Engaging families and caregivers in can have a positive impact on student learning. Consider some of the ideas below for engaging families in Wit & Wisdom, hosting an annual literacy night, and increasing communication between school and home.

Share the Family Resources

Educators have access to a variety of free resources on the Great Minds® dashboard to share with families and caregivers through their routine communications at home. All of these resources can be found in the Wit & Wisdom Family Resources. These resources include:

Family Welcome Letter: This letter introduces families to Wit & Wisdom and is available in 14 languages; send this home at the beginning of the school year.

Family Tip Sheets: Module tip sheets help families support their student's knowledge building at home and are available in 14 languages; send each tip sheet home at the beginning of a module.

Wit & Wisdom Overview for Families: These videos provide a general overview to Wit & Wisdom and are available in English and Spanish; they are best shared at the beginning of the school year.

Building Knowledge and Skills in the English Language Arts Classroom: This e-book provides information to families about the role of knowledge building in English language arts; it can be shared at any point in the school year.

The resources found in the Family Literacy Night Activities also provide teachers with activities to engage families and caregivers in the work of Wit & Wisdom. Although designed for the beginning of the school year, these activities could take place at any time in the school year.

Conduct a Book Tasting

Invite families to a book tasting to learn about Wit & Wisdom and the core texts. Have fun with the set up by decorating the classroom or cafeteria with tablecloths, battery-operated candles, and menus with a short description of each module. Have students serve each table with a selection of core texts, either from an upcoming or current module or from the entire grade level. Caregivers will appreciate sampling a few pages of each text, looking at the beautiful illustrations, and perhaps even creating a Notice and Wonder chart of their own!

Create a Family Library

Create a section for families and caregivers in the classroom or school library. Allow caregivers to check out copies of the core and supplemental texts to read at home. Consider also providing copies of the Volume of Reading texts to encourage caregivers to read these selections with their students.

Practice Fluency Homework

Use a recent fluency homework passage to teach caregivers how to provide support to their students. The following steps can make this practice session a success, even when families and caregivers may be uncomfortable with reading the fluency passages themselves:

1. Share that the purpose of fluency homework is to read accurately and automatically with appropriate expression and phrasing. Students should read the passages in a way that helps the audience understand the passage.

2. Encourage caregivers to provide positive feedback to their students with sentence stems like, "I understood..." or "It was clear when...."

3. Show caregivers how to complete each day's chart with their student.

Wit & Wisdom educators can access a lesson plan for a Fluency Practice Family Literacy Night Task for Grades 1-8 in the Wit & Wisdom Family Literacy Night Resources.

Notice and Wonder about Art

Invite family members to notice and wonder about a work of art from one of the modules. If it's far enough into the school year, students may also feel confident enough with noticing and wondering to lead the activity! Consider one of these options:

Option 1: Lead families in noticing and wondering about a piece of art from Module 0 or the current module.

Option 2: Display several pieces of art that students will study throughout the year with an anchor chart that includes columns labeled "I notice" and "I wonder." Facilitate families moving through a Chalk Talk with the works of art used in Wit & Wisdom throughout the year.

Wit & Wisdom educators can access a lesson plan for a Module 0 Art Study Family Literacy Night Task for Grades K-8 in the Wit & Wisdom Family Literacy Night Resources.

Hold a Fluency Recitation

Invite students to select a favorite fluency passage from a current or previous module to perform live for their families and school community. Consider whether some passages may allow for a Reader's Theater performance where several students could participate and read a selected section. Some students could also demonstrate a choral reading of a passage. Provide time for students to practice their passage prior to the event. Then have everyone dress in their finest to perform! Provide light refreshments after the event.

Host an End of Module Celebration

Invite families and caregivers to an event that celebrates all the knowledge students have developed throughout the module. Consider some of these ideas for celebrating student learning during the event:

Share final copies of the End of Module task, either orally or in a display.

Display examples of student work from the module in a Gallery Walk.

Include a few student performances of fluency passages from the module.

Project or display the visual art from the module and encourage caregivers to share what they Notice and Wonder about the art.

Facilitate Student-Led Conferences

Provide time for students to select several pieces of work from the module or year that demonstrate their best learning. Ask students to reflect on the goals they set or on the Learning Goals from a module. Students annotate their previous work to show how they have met those goals or identify areas of growth for the future. In the conference, students share their successes and areas of growth with their families and caregivers. Everyone leaves with next steps on how they can work together to help their student achieve their goals.

Summary

Like you, families and caregivers want the best for their students. Building their understanding of the curriculum strengthens the connection between home and school, creating opportunities for richer conversations about students' learning.

We'd love to know more about how your family engagement with Wit & Wisdom. Connect with us in our Facebook groups for each grade band ( K-2, 3-5, and 6-8) or on Twitter @WitWisdomELA.

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Activities to Engage Families Year-Round with Wit & Wisdom®

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Explore ideas for engaging families and caregivers in Wit & Wisdom, from hosting an annual literacy night to creating a family library and more.

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This month, we asked educators across the country to reflect on their preparation for Wit & Wisdom® instruction. Krystle Gleason, a Grade 8 teacher at Mad River Local Schools in Ohio and a professional development facilitator for Great Minds ® , shares her steps to prepare for Wit & Wisdom instruction-and how that preparation has changed over the last six years of implementation.

The Grade 8 department at my school piloted Wit & Wisdom ® five years ago, and our district began a Kindergarten through Grade 8 implementation the following year. I learned early on that preparation is a key element in successfully implementing this unique and exciting curriculum. Preparation for teaching Wit & Wisdom requires both internalizing the lessons and planning the practical logistics. In doing this work collaboratively, each teacher brings their experiences, strengths, and ideas for the benefit of everyone-teachers and students alike.
Module-Level Preparation
Each year our team engages in some aspects of the Module Study Protocol. For teachers who have completed the Module Study Protocol multiple times, there is an added benefit of referring to previous notes while hearing the fresh perspectives of new teachers. For instance, I remember being inspired by a new teacher's comments about Module 2, The Great War . She stated that some of the most gruesome scenes in All Quiet on the Western Front -one of the core texts in the module-also included beautiful descriptive language and, in her opinion, the ending of was so exceptional. The first time I read the book, the conclusion dashed my hopes for Paul, but I gained a deeper appreciation for the ending through my colleague's perspective. Her joy made me view the story with new eyes.
Focusing Question Arc Preparation
Throughout a module, our department meets weekly during shared planning time. We structure our conversations by collaborating on the Focusing Question Arc Study Protocol. We review the Focusing Question Task before beginning our study of the arc of lessons. The Focusing Question Arc protocol helps us understand the task and how we will assess it. The protocol also helps us elevate the most essential instructional tasks that students complete throughout the arc of lessons.

We also examine all the Checks for Understanding (CFU) within an arc and the accompanying Success Criteria found in the Analyze section of the lesson. We keep the Content Stage in mind as we decide how to assess student understanding. At the Wonder stage, we formatively consider the work students produce and use the Analyze box to help us make decisions about adjustments or feedback students may need. As students progress further through the Content Stages, we pay close attention to the Know and Distill stages to understand where students were successful in a summative manner. Studying CFUs across the arc helps our team know what to look for and how to respond to our students' learning.
Lesson-Level Preparation
My lesson preparation begins with reviewing the entire lesson in my Teacher Edition (TE). Then I examine more closely the lesson agenda and Checks for Understanding. I note the Content and Craft Stage for the lesson, and I read the Prepare summary paragraph. I dive more fully into the lesson by reviewing the following:

Welcome activity,

Launch section,

Activities that comprise the Learn section,

Land and Wrap sections, and

My annotations from previous years (sticky notes).

After familiarizing myself with the lesson, I think through the action steps students will take and the purpose of each task. I jot these thoughts on sticky notes. I make connections between the current and upcoming lessons based on my team's work during the Module Study Protocol and the Focusing Question Arc protocol preparation. I also connect the current lesson and upcoming assessments, including the Focusing Question Task and End-of-Module Task.

After teaching a lesson, I create a Reflection sticky note to record successes and challenges. I also note any component that may benefit from a minor revision when I teach the lesson the following year.
Creating Supporting Materials
During the first year of implementation, I wanted to include a slide presentation to provide students with a visual, elevate important parts of the lesson, and improve my pacing. After teaching Wit & Wisdom for several years, I was invited by Great Minds to serve as one of the creators of Projected , the slide decks included in Wit & Wisdom in Sync ™. I learned that less text on each slide is more impactful for students. As a result, I set out to simplify the original slide presentations from year one. Using speaker notes also helps with pacing without overwhelming students with the minutiae of the lesson.

Last year, like so many teachers, I taught remotely. Canvas became a vital digital learning management tool for my students to access the information needed for each class. As I prepare to teach in person this year, I will continue to use Canvas, since it provides students with organized information, access to lesson materials, a digital location for submitting completed assignments, and a platform to receive timely feedback, whether at home or at school.
Technology Changes Collaboration
Technology is also influencing how I collaborate with other teachers. Recently on the Wit & Wisdom Facebook group, a Grade 8 teacher reached out for some assistance as she prepared to implement Wit & Wisdom for the first time. I, along with many other experienced Wit & Wisdom teachers, offered to connect with her.

Effective preparation is an investment of time each year, but even in year six, it's still worth it. Preparation does get easier every year, but there is also more to learn and new ideas worth investigating with new colleagues, both in my own school and online.

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Grade 8 language arts teacher Krystle Gleason shares her experience preparing to teach Wit & Wisdom .

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Leaders: Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom is an excellent resource to plan supports and professional learning for teachers

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Leaders: Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom is an excellent resource to plan supports and professional learning for teachers

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In addition to Preparation Protocols and Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom...

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In addition to Preparation Protocols and Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom...

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The resources below offer leadership guidance in supporting teachers ⬇️⬇️⬇️

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For Leaders: Meeting Year One Challenges

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For Leaders: Meeting Year One Challenges

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Our focus this month is on maximizing instructional time. In this leadership blog post, Andrea Baldwin shares a process that Wit & Wisdom implementation leaders use to support school and district leaders in coaching classroom educators.

Time: A Critical Resource

My role as an implementation leader is to collaborate with leaders and coaches who use Wit & Wisdom. We dive deep into the curriculum together, think through implementation challenges, and celebrate the accomplishments of both teachers and students. Educators find pacing lessons to be one of their biggest challenges when implementing Wit & Wisdom -I receive more questions about pacing than almost any other topic! Time is precious, and we all want to make the most of the limited time we have with our students. While pacing problems all have the same result-impeding progress-they have many different root causes. In this blog post, I'll guide you through a process to uncover some of the most likely contributors to pacing problems.

Step 1: Set a Goal

It takes time to improve pacing, but coaching practices that include goal setting and preparation, analysis, and reflection can help educators identify the root causes of pacing challenges and potential solutions to keeping pace. Begin by identifying the pacing goal. Some examples of goals are, "Complete all four modules in the year," or "Teach at least 4 full lessons a week."

Step 2: Plan for Preparation

Wit & Wisdom lessons are rich and filled with opportunities to build knowledge. It takes time to learn the Wit & Wisdom curriculum. If teachers don't prioritize internalizing the lessons, arcs, and modules, lessons are likely to last longer than the allotted 90 minutes. When pacing questions arise, I spend time with school leaders reflecting on and answering these questions:

Do teachers' schedules allow for adequate preparation time?

How often is preparation time interrupted?

Do teachers plan with one another to receive maximum support?

Is a coach available to lead the preparation efforts?

Have opportunities to learn how to use the preparation protocols been provided to teachers?

Allocating time for preparation and determining structures for collaborative planning are decisions within the leader's realm of influence. Supporting teachers as learners by prioritizing their preparation has a positive effect on how efficiently they use instructional time.

Preparation time enables teachers to understand the curriculum more deeply. Yet even with thoughtful preparation, teachers must often make on-the-spot decisions about pacing when teaching each lesson. This year, several coaches I work with have used the instructional videos in Wit & Wisdom in Sync ™ to support teachers with pacing and instructional decision-making. Before teaching the lesson, some teachers watch the videos to better understand the pace, transitions between tasks, and student work. Other teachers find that coteaching with the Great Minds teacher in the videos significantly improves pacing.

Step 3: Observe Instruction

Cycles of observation and feedback are critical tools to strengthen teachers' real-time decision-making about pacing. Teachers can markedly improve their skills in handling implementation challenges, such as pacing, when they have a trusted coach in their corner. ¹

When leaders observe a lesson through the lens of maximizing instructional time, it's important to ask, "How is time spent in lessons now?" Observing classroom instruction and collecting evidence can answer this question. When observing lessons alongside leaders and coaches, aim to collect concrete and specific evidence. When pacing challenges arise, time stamp lessons by noting how long each section takes. In addition, consider the questions teachers ask, the answers students provide, the directions the teachers give, and the kinds of tasks students complete in the classroom.

Step 4: Reflect and Analyze

After an observation, reflection and analysis take place. Because reflection is inquiry driven, this step can be messy! Keep an open stance here, asking questions to better understand the evidence collected during an observation. Here are three questions to use to reflect on pacing.

1. How did the pacing align with the Teacher Edition lesson timing guidance?

In the Teacher Edition, each lesson's At a Glance section provides pacing guidance for each lesson component. Review the example below.

In the above Kindergarten lesson, the Learn section comprises 62 of the 90 minutes planned for instruction. Students work toward two of the three lesson learning goals in this section, and the Check for Understanding occurs during this time. Students meet the third learning goal during the Deep Dive.

Teachers should aim to spend most of their time in the Learn section-the heart of the lesson. The Welcome and Launch sections prepare students for the deep learning in the Learn section. Review observational evidence when the Welcome and Launch sections go beyond allocated time, and then strategize how to proceed to the Learn section more efficiently.

2. How did the pace of the lesson support student learning and success with the lesson's Check(s) for Understanding?

Every lesson includes opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning. These daily assessments, known as Checks for Understanding, provide critical opportunities for students to productively struggle with complex texts. Checks for Understanding are also opportunities for teachers to observe what students can do independently or with minimal support. Here is an example of a Check for Understanding in Kindergarten's Module 2 Lesson 10.

Teachers must make many decisions to set students up for success with this task. When observing this lesson for pacing, consider collecting evidence of how the teacher reviews the Evidence Organizer, how the teacher uses a process for calling on volunteers, and how the teacher executes guidance from the Teacher Note. While students are working, observe how the teacher monitors students and uses the provided supports, and note any choices that either help or hinder students in staying on task. These decisions affect pacing and how well students reach the learning goal of collecting illustrations and words as evidence for the Focusing Question Task.

3. How did the pace of the lesson support student engagement?

Nothing is more joyful than watching a classroom of eager students share their evidence in response to a text-dependent question; they all feel they need to say something! But there is simply not enough time to hear from every student. Teachers who allow every student to respond run the risk of losing the thread of the lesson. At the same time, teachers must balance efficiency with inviting various student voices and responses. Reflect on how the teacher navigates the lesson, allowing for diverse input and keeping students energized and engaged in the learning.

Within the lesson guidance, teachers have frequent opportunities to call on volunteers or strategically select students to share responses with the class. Again-preparation is so necessary! We want teachers to think about how they will communicate appropriate participation in the lesson to students.

It is also worth noting the execution of instructional routines. When students know exactly what to do during a Think-Pair-Share, for example, teachers maximize instructional time by focusing students on the conversation instead of on finding a partner or starting the conversation. During an observation for pacing, note any instructional routines used in the lesson, and collect evidence of students' engagement.

The three reflection questions above can help coaches and leaders focus on the conversation they want to have with a teacher about the pacing choices made during a lesson. Through reflection and analysis, it is possible to uncover the root causes of pacing challenges, discover possible solutions, and take action to improve lesson implementation.

Summary

Engaging in this process of goal setting, preparation, observation, reflection, and analysis can help educators focus their growth on implementation challenges, such as pacing. Keep an open mind about the root causes of pacing challenges, and then take the steps necessary to make changes that benefit student learning.

If your school or district would benefit from Wit & Wisdom coaching, you can learn more about the new professional learning coaching series here.

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Coaching Classroom Educators: Maximizing Instructional Time with Wit & Wisdom®

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Our focus this month is on maximizing instructional time. In this leadership blog post, Andrea Baldwin shares a process that Wit & Wisdom implementation leaders use to support school and district leaders in coaching classroom educators. My role as an implementation leader is to collaborate with leaders and coaches who use Wit & Wisdom.

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Anna Bradshaw details how she successfully implemented Wit & Wisdom and mastered pacing to maximize time with her students.

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Structural Design Features for Effective Wit & Wisdom® Preparation

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Structural Design Features for Effective Wit & Wisdom® Preparation

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Most educators graduate from teacher preparation programs ready to plan their lessons but not to internalize curriculum. When a school or district adopts high quality instructional materials, the work for teachers fundamentally shifts from designers to implementers. If implementation sounds like easy work, it is not! ® , like other high-quality curriculum products, is not a script. Effectively delivering a lesson requires thoughtful preparation, internalization of the learning goals, and working backward through materials to understand the knowledge and skills students build and demonstrate over their course of study.

Educational leaders are responsible for building effective structures to support internalization. In their 2020 challenge paper, Jim Short and Stephanie Hirsh emphasize the importance of structural design for professional learning with high-quality instructional materials, which should include "collective participation structures that enable teachers to work together to achieve common goals; models of effective professional learning that evolve as teachers' needs change; and time, the most basic precondition for growth" (36). Especially as educators respond to unfinished instruction from the previous two school years, leaders must create the structures for teachers to prepare for students' variety of needs effectively. This blog post will share some key considerations for participation structures, time, and tools to design effective professional learning structures for teachers implementing .

Take a moment to reflect on the current structural design of professional learning in your school or district. How have you prioritized these structures for teachers' growth with ? Even if the school year has begun, consider how preparation needs to shift to sustain implementation throughout the year.
Who needs to be in the room?
Focus on your school structure first. In schools with larger teaching teams, it makes sense to gather a grade level regularly for collaborative preparation. But who else might need to be there? Include special education and English language teachers, or others in supportive roles who may push into instruction or offer extended learning outside the core instructional block. If there is only one teacher per grade level, consider how you might work with other teachers across the district or connect with teacher groups on Facebook.

Another important consideration is identifying the facilitator for collaborative planning time. For some schools, an instructional coach, school administrator, or curriculum specialist may be available to lead this work. If these roles don't exist, identifying and training a teacher-leader is essential to focusing the work time. Great Minds provides three preparation protocols and offers a foundational professional development session, Module and Lesson Study, for all teachers to understand how to use them. However, designating a strong leader who is responsible for maintaining the focus on instruction during collaborative planning time is critical.
Where do we find the time?
Time is a precious resource-there is never enough of it in teaching! District and school-based leaders should work collaboratively to build preparation time into annual, monthly, and daily schedules. Create a pacing calendar for instruction and preparation. A good goal is to plan all module, arc, and lesson studies one to two weeks ahead of the instruction to give teachers enough time to internalize instruction without falling behind.

If time for designated collaborative preparation is not a part of your master schedule, then use the reflective questions below to reconsider how collaborative preparation can become a priority.

What time has been set aside for staff meetings? How can this time be reallocated, especially in the first year of implementation, to preparation-even a couple of times a month?

How can staff meetings prioritize time for preparation? Can announcements, information sharing, or other noncritical work shift to another forum, like email or a newsletter?

Is coverage available for teachers during lunch or recess duty so they can have additional time for preparation?

Does your school or district provide an early release day to students regularly? If so, how is this time used for staff development? Using this time for collective preparation is a powerful lever for improving instruction.

In what ways can the school reorganize enrichment or elective schedules to provide a longer block of time to teachers for effective preparation at least once a week?

How might students follow an alternate schedule, once or twice a month, to provide teachers with extended preparation time?

How might English language arts (ELA) teachers receive a preparation day once or twice a semester? Consider extending math, science, and social studies blocks on those days. Then return the same amount of time to other teachers by extending the ELA block on occasion.

Are stipends available for preparation time after school? Historically, if your school or district has made stipends available for curriculum creation, can this allocation shift to support extended time for preparation?

What do we do with shared planning time?
Identify the right protocols for collaboration based on where your team is in implementation. In Year 1, teachers need to focus on the big picture of each module collaboratively. As teachers deepen their understanding of the curriculum, their focus can narrow. A clear focus on teacher learning goals is critical to maximizing the time available.

For a teaching team in Year 1 of implementation, start with the Module Study Protocol to understand the full scope of the module and inform arc and lesson planning. Leverage the Focusing Question Arc protocols next to make the most of your collaborative time.

In the first two years of implementation, use common preparation time to focus on the most challenging lessons to teach-often Reveal and Distill lessons.

In Years 2 and 3, teachers shift their collective focus from studying lessons to analyzing student work produced in lessons with the support of the Analyze box at the end of each lesson.

In Year 3 and beyond, it's helpful for teachers to engage in deliberate practice and observation of lessons. With a stronger understanding of each lesson, teachers can deliver the lessons for one another, reflecting on effective instructional moves and the opportunities available for maximizing student learning. Consider the use of video to observe lessons, as well.

Providing the necessary structural supports to teachers leads to implementation success . As leaders, providing this level of preparation is our responsibility to the hard-working teachers in our schools and the students in our care.

Works Cited

Developing a Professional Learning System for Adults in Service of Student Learning. The Aspen Institute Education and Society Program, 21 February 2018. https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Developing-a-Professional-Learning-System-for-Adults-in-Service-of-Student-Learning-6.pdf .

Short, Jim, and Stephanie Hirsh.   The Elements: Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning. Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2020. https://media.carnegie.org/filer_public/47/94/47947a81-4fdf-421b-a5e8-fbb211898ee0/elements_report_november_2020.pdf .

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Structural Design Features for Effective Wit & Wisdom® Preparation

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Most educators graduate from teacher preparation programs ready to plan their lessons but not to internalize curriculum. When a school or district adopts high quality instructional materials, the work for teachers fundamentally shifts from designers to implementers. If implementation sounds like easy work, it is not!

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The Art of  Wit & Wisdom (Slide Show), Visual Art Lessons, Visual Art Glossary, and English Language Arts/Literacy Standards Connections

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The Art of  Wit & Wisdom (Slide Show), Visual Art Lessons, Visual Art Glossary, and English Language Arts/Literacy Standards Connections

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Explore the Art of Wit & Wisdom with these free resources.

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Supporting Multilingual Learners with Wit & Wisdom

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Supporting Multilingual Learners with Wit & Wisdom

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4. Content in multiple forms
Students explore print, visuals (art, photographs, maps, videos, and more), and audio to access module concepts and information.

5. Ongoing, sequential, explicit writing instruction
Students learn to write and write to learn every day in Wit & Wisdom.

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Wit & Wisdom Multilingual Learner Supports

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Equitable instruction means equipping every learner, especially diverse learners, with the tools they need for academic success.

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How To Support English Language Arts Students With The Universal Design For Learning Principles

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How To Support English Language Arts Students With The Universal Design For Learning Principles

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How do You Provide Multiple Means of Representation in ELA?

The following annotations show some examples of how the Wit & Wisdom TE helps educators provide multiple options to students with varying needs related to representation of the content. The three UDL guidelines for Representation are Perception, Language and Symbols, and Comprehension. The goal of this principle is to develop learners who are both resourceful and knowledgeable. Educators can learn more about each of these UDL guidelines .

In the following Grade 5 Deep Dive lesson, the Teacher Edition asks students to think of words that begin with the prefix -. Students can start by orally sharing what they already know while the teacher adds to the student-generated list on the board, or the teacher can provide students with some options to respond orally or in writing. Either way, teachers maximize opportunities for students to both see and hear the words, so they start this lesson by noticing patterns of meaning across all the words they know that include this prefix.

Teachers might encounter other options for supporting students' perception of content in their Teacher Edition, including suggestions to use American Sign Language for learning new concepts, creating anchor charts, or annotating with a variety of symbols. The inclusion of film clips, the study of visual art, and opportunities to listen to songs or speeches also provide a variety of ways for students to perceive content in the classroom.

In this Grade 2 example, students learn the academic vocabulary word . They then read a passage in their text that includes dialogue to better understand how the language in the dialogue reveals something about each of the characters. By clarifying how authors use quotation marks and naming this frequently used convention, students develop another tool they can use to analyze texts.

In the Grade 7 Socratic Seminar lesson, a sentence frame supports the transfer of new information between contexts. Sentence frames are useful scaffolds for students who need language supports, but frames can also help all students transfer and synthesize ideas into new contexts. In middle school, students are expected to cite sources in both writing and speaking as they bring evidence into their arguments-a critical skill for civil discourse. All students are capable of meeting this goal with the additional support for transferring the skills of both communicating the source of their information and their understanding of the text.

Other ways the curriculum supports students' transfer of knowledge between contexts include the regular use of graphic organizers, annotations, and writing models that help students structure their thinking. Several instructional routines also support students with the transfer of ideas from texts; for example, creating a tableau from an important scene in a novel helps students understand characters, settings, and conflict.

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Great Minds | ELA Universal Design for Learning

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The following annotations show some examples of how the Wit & Wisdom TE helps educators provide multiple options to students with varying needs related to representation of the content. The three UDL guidelines for Representation are Perception, Language and Symbols, and Comprehension. The goal of this principle is to develop learners who are both resourceful and knowledgeable.

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Addressing Students' Needs: Access and Equity for Students with Learning Disabilities

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Addressing Students' Needs: Access and Equity for Students with Learning Disabilities

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Equitable instruction includes careful consideration of and planning for access by all students, including students with learning disabilities. UnboundEd, an organization focused on educational equity, describes three foundational moves in their paper " Equitable ELA Instruction ":

1. Adopt aligned curriculum.

2. Provide instructional support that fosters all students' persistence with grade-level reading and thinking.

3. Provide targeted intervention in addition to and in service of grade-level learning.

Wit & Wisdom® implementers are well on their way with a curriculum that aligns closely to high standards. But what about the next two elements? How can we truly foster all students' persistence with grade-level reading and thinking? What if a student has a specific learning disability that you are not sure how to support with the grade-level work? Perhaps you have students who read far below grade level or who missed out on much of the previous school year. Read on for concrete ideas and inspiration from Virginia Day and Stacy Fitzwater, veteran Wit & Wisdom educators and current implementation leaders who are passionate about ensuring equity and access for every student.

What kinds of instructional supports exist within Wit & Wisdom to ensure ALL students persist with grade-level reading and thinking?

Virginia Day: I have been a special educator and certified reading specialist for 15 years. In my school-based role, I helped students, parents and caregivers, classroom teachers, interventionists, and administrators determine appropriate accommodations for instruction. I wrote Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and designed tiered intervention plans to best meet student needs.

Supports I typically used in classrooms to meet student needs included preteaching, reteaching, close reading, repeated reading, auditory supports (audiobooks, text to speech), graphic organizers, and writing scaffolds (sentence frames, sentence stems, model writing, speech to text). When I began to explore Wit & Wisdom, it was such a joy to see how the thoughtful design seamlessly built these supports directly into lessons for teachers to help students access learning and complete grade-level tasks. See below for an example of supports embedded in the Teacher Edition for one lesson in Grade 5. All lessons in each grade level include similar information for teachers. I highlighted specific recommended supports.

G5 M1 L15:

Support students with sentence frames:

The Nez Perce homeland was important to the Nez Perce/U.S. government and settlers because _________.

This shows that they believed in/valued ________.

Read aloud chapter 3, as students follow along in their copies, flagging events that contribute to the developing conflict between the Nez Perce and General Howard and his soldiers.

Volunteers share responses with the whole group; model how you fill in the Elaboration column, rephrasing students' responses as needed to clarify ideas. Students may add the class's ideas to their own Elaboration columns.

Encourage students to reread the passage containing this quotation on page 17 to help them provide context.

Teacher Note: Students will revisit these questions at the end of this lesson.

Scaffold: Provide students with several key events and ask them to order the events and then explain how each event deepens the conflict.

Scaffold: Support struggling readers by having them echo-read this quotation to imitate how you read with expression to capture the character's emotions before they practice reading it independently.

Scaffold: Work with a small group of struggling readers and writers to paraphrase and elaborate on Too-hul-hul-sote's and/or Sound of Running Feet's quotation.

In addition to the embedded supports, every lesson provides additional suggestions for meeting student needs in the Next Steps section of the Wrap. Here is an example from the same Grade 5 lesson:

If students struggle with analysis of characters' quotations and are unable to elaborate in any depth on their significance, collaboratively complete the Elaboration column for Too-hul-hul-sote's quotation, using questioning and sentence frames to elicit elaboration from students on how the quotation reveals Nez Perce cultural beliefs and values. Students may work in pairs or small groups to elaborate on Sound of Running Feet's quotation on page 17. Group students with similar needs and plan small group support for elaboration work in the next lesson, to set students up for support on Focusing Question Task 4.

Using these supports, when needed, helps foster student persistence with grade-level reading and thinking. Furthermore, since the supports are embedded in each lesson, collaboration and communication between educators is more efficient, and the suggestions and tools are easily accessed and integrated into the classroom experience.

What guidance do you have to support the collaboration and communication needed between educators to support students with learning disabilities in their Wit & Wisdom work alongside their IEP goals? What can this mean for intervention time?

Stacy Fitzwater: As an interventionist, classroom teacher, and administrator, I have worked with students in Grades K-8 for over 14 years. I collaborated with teachers to plan their intervention time and communicated with our special education team to coordinate schedules and support.

Again and again, my experience supports the idea that what we do for students with disabilities is good for all students. Literacy expert Sue Pimentel rightfully calls on us to " let all kids read the good stuff." To ensure students can access and engage with the "good stuff," I found a few key considerations for collaboration in addition to noting and using the helpful supports included in every lesson:

Do all core ELA and special subjects/support teachers have access to the Wit & Wisdom Teacher Edition? Do they need any support navigating resources and identifying built-in scaffolds?

Do special subjects/support teachers have time to collaborate with the primary ELA teacher to prepare for instruction? Completing the Module, Focusing Question Arc, and Lesson Study Preparation Protocols collaboratively can ensure that all teachers share the same vision for supporting students. These preparation protocols are free for all registered users, as part of the Wit & Wisdom Teacher Resource Pack.

How can classroom seating assist push-in support for students? Can you arrange for a place in the classroom where the student can sit with the special education teacher and still attend to and actively participate in regular instruction?

Let's dig deeper into what this could look like in practice, with the specific Grade 5 lesson cited above.

What elements of the lesson could teachers elevate to support students with learning disabilities? Could the special education teacher and/or support staff prepare the sentence frames and provide the small group support?

Consider pre- and/or reteaching language and vocabulary elements by using the Deep Dive in a small group.

If students struggle to write in response to their learning, consider the lesson's learning goals and adapt their response method accordingly. One of the Learn sections from the lesson cited above guides students to elaborate on evidence. If needed, could a special education teacher or support staff member take oral dictation for the student? Can the student have access to a recording or speech-to-text device, if appropriate?

These types of considerations can guide educators toward maintaining grade-level rigor and access for all students, as opposed to the common practice of modifying texts or tasks, or taking students out of class, which removes some of the access to grade-level learning.

In addition, Wit & Wisdom's fluency passages can be a key part of additional targeted intervention that is in service of grade-level learning and aligned to the classroom work. The fluency passages in each module build fluency skills, which are widely considered low-hanging fruit for students not yet reading at grade level, and they also scaffold understanding of specific module texts. Wit & Wisdom teacher-writers carefully chose excerpts that, through repeated oral readings, help students understand grade-level texts and communicate more effectively about them.

While this guidance is just a start, hopefully it takes you further on your path toward ensuring equity through careful planning, collaboration, and access for students with learning disabilities. Make sure to check out our other blog posts this month to hear more on this important topic from current Wit & Wisdom educators. Also, take some time to read UnboundEd's concept paper, " Equitable ELA Instruction," and tune in to an interview with two of the paper's authors, Alice Wiggins and Brandon White, on Melissa & Lori Love Literacy, episode 79.

For further information about supporting English language arts students based on the Universal Design for Learning principles, read here.
Sources:
Pimentel, Susan. "Why Doesn't Every Teacher Know the Research on Reading Instruction? (Opinion)." Education Week, 26 Oct. 2018, www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-why-doesnt-every-teacher-know-the-research-on-reading-instruction/2018/10?cmp=soc-tw-shr.

Wiggins, Alice, et al. "Equitable ELA Instruction." UnboundEd, 2020, www.unbounded.org/thought-leadership/concept-papers/equitable-ela-instruction.

Virginia Day is a Great Minds Implementation Leader for Humanities, supporting districts in New England. An advocate for student success, Virginia spent over 12 years as a reading specialist/special educator in New Hampshire. Before she joined Great Minds, her belief that all students deserve access to high-quality curriculum led to part-time work as a reviewer for EdReports. Virginia is passionate about sharing the Great Minds belief that all students are capable of greatness.

Stacy Fitzwater is a Great Minds Implementation Leader for Humanities, primarily supporting the southwestern region of the United States. Stacy began working with  Wit & Wisdom as a coach and administrator in a public charter school in Arizona as they implemented their new ELA curriculum, which included Wit & Wisdom and Geodes. Prior to that, she served various roles with K-5 students-from an interventionist and music teacher to a lead mentor teacher. Stacy began her career in education on the East Coast of the US, where she worked with diverse student populations in grades PK-8 in Maryland, New York, and Washington, DC.

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Addressing Students' Needs: Access and Equity for Students with Learning Disabilities

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Equitable instruction includes careful consideration of and planning for access by all students, including students with learning disabilities. UnboundEd, an organization focused on educational equity, describes three foundational moves in their paper " Equitable ELA Instruction ": Adopt aligned curriculum. Provide instructional support that fosters all students' persistence with grade-level reading and thinking.

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Engaging an Inclusive Community of Learners

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Engaging an Inclusive Community of Learners

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This month, we encouraged educators across the country to reflect on access and equity, specifically for students with learning disabilities. Anna Bradshaw, a multi-classroom leader in Crossett School District in Arkansas and professional development facilitator for Great Minds®, describes how she uses Wit & Wisdom ® to create a classroom community that is supportive of and engaging for all learners.

"Label jars, not people." - Eli Clare

This simple yet powerful quote, which an advocate for people with learning disabilities shared with me during my senior year of high school, underpins my experience working with Wit & Wisdom.

Creating a Rigorous and Inclusive Learning Community

Teaching students with learning disabilities is part of any educational career. We can enrich, advocate, and grow with all kinds of exceptional people. Since Wit & Wisdom is written for teachers by teachers, all learning needs are kept at the forefront daily. Wit & Wisdom discards the "labels" and opens the door for equity and inclusion through access to grade-level content. This has a powerful impact academically, of course, but also social-emotionally.

As teachers, we have a responsibility to bring learning materials to students in a safe and supportive environment. We are expected to address the various social-emotional needs, in addition to the academic needs, that emerge among our students. Fortunately, with Wit & Wisdom, inclusivity and relationship-building occur naturally because of built-in classroom routines like Think-Pair-Share and Partner Reading. These structures lay the foundation for social-emotional learning within regular instruction. Students learn alongside each other; they learn from each other and across their differences. Additionally, there is no more punting the dreaded question, "When may I have a chapter book?" Students can feel the leveling of the playing field with their peers, due to the readily available support and resources. This equitable access to materials builds confidence while bridging learning gaps.

Students with learning disabilities need, crave, and deserve the same opportunities as general education students. With the right support and scaffolding, all students can achieve their full potential and their greatness. To do this, the general education teacher and special education teacher must have a relationship based on open communication and constant support. In my district, special education teachers truly go the extra mile to ensure that all students are working with Wit & Wisdom materials, engaging in classroom discussions, and accessing supports that fit their individual needs.

Embedded Supports

In terms of daily instruction, classroom teachers can take varied approaches to bridging gaps that may exist between the rigor of Wit & Wisdom and the needs of students with learning disabilities. Importantly, texts and writing requirements do not need to be changed. In fact, modifying the texts or assignments, though tempting and usually well-intentioned, often takes away opportunities for students to practice with grade-level material that, with proper supports, could accelerate learning. While this support invariably depends on Individualized Education Plan (IEP) goals, some examples include reading texts aloud with the use of audiobooks, answering Focusing Questions verbally, and practicing Socratic Seminar responses ahead of time for students to actively engage with their peers. Graphic organizers with sentence stems and speech-to-text writing can provide valuable temporary scaffolds to learners, while maintaining access to grade-level material and tasks. Such tools ensure that learners don't get watered-down versions of content and maintain equitable access to the thoughtfully designed Wit & Wisdom lessons.

Success Through a Supportive Classroom Culture

Due to my use of the built-in supports in the Teacher Edition, my purposeful scaffolding, and my constant communication with service providers at my school, all my Grade 4 students, regardless of ability, were able to craft their individualized survival story in Module 2 and identify their perspective on the American Revolution in Module 3. Engaging novels like Hatchet and Out of the Dust allowed students of all backgrounds to relate to the hardships faced by riveting characters. These connections allowed all students-including striving readers-the opportunity to find solace in the world of books while reading.

Instructional routines like Chalk Talks and Socratic Seminars allow students to express their ideas in safety. Students are assessed on their knowledge rather than on the limitations of their struggles with decoding and/or encoding. This helps students, like mine, actively participate and become part of a more inclusive classroom community. Students see themselves as learners, rather than labels and deficits.

When I reflect on my students over the years, I often think of one who received special education services for dyslexia. He usually took assessments outside of the classroom, but after working with Wit & Wisdom for a while, he wanted to stay with me to finish a Focusing Question Task. He was so deeply engaged with his work that he did not want to leave the task at hand. He was able to work with the grade-level material for this task and finish with the class by typing on the computer rather than writing by hand. He thanked me for this opportunity. This specific experience proves just how accessible Wit & Wisdom is to all students.

Engagement Builds Knowledge; Knowledge Builds Engagement

Students may not yet independently read grade-level texts, but they can engage at a high level because of the interesting and integrated topics in Wit & Wisdom. This builds confidence, knowledge, and a love of reading. Gone are the days of students "sitting and getting" instruction. Students continually synthesize their learning and build on their knowledge base. Striving readers and writers find success because this knowledge base enhances their comprehension.

With Wit & Wisdom, students are seen and see themselves as learners, thinkers, speakers, and writers. Students know they are capable of greatness. The high expectations, accessible materials, and built-in scaffolds help remove labels, take down barriers, and work toward equity. Wit & Wisdom acts as gasoline fueling the learning fire in the classroom of the most well-intentioned individuals-teachers. When students see glimpses of their greatness in an inclusive and supportive environment, they build stamina, perseverance, and moments of success as they work toward their goals. Wit & Wisdom allows for the cultivation of meaningful life lessons through literacy for ALL students, while building engagement in learning and connections with teachers and peers.

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Engaging an Inclusive Community of Learners

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This month, we encouraged educators across the country to reflect on access and equity, specifically for students with learning disabilities. Anna Bradshaw, a multi-classroom leader in Crossett School District in Arkansas and professional development facilitator for Great Minds®, describes how she uses Wit & Wisdom ® to create a classroom community that is supportive of and engaging for all learners.

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Rebecca Burgess discusses how she uses Wit & Wisdom to address access and equity, specifically for students with learning disabilities.

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Implementation Support | A blog dedicated to moments of knowledge building and enlightenment in K-12 English language arts (ELA) education. Includes instructional support, pacing strategies, case studies, and more.

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Geodes feature a library of beautiful, content-rich books with phonics practice for emerging readers, developed in collaboration with Wilson Language Training.

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Data Stories | A blog dedicated to moments of knowledge building and enlightenment in K-12 English language arts (ELA) education. Includes instructional support, pacing strategies, case studies, and more.

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A blog dedicated to moments of knowledge building and enlightenment in K–12 English language arts (ELA) education. Includes instructional support, pacing strategies, case studies, and more.

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Wit & Wisdom | A blog that explores articles written by thought leaders in education. Topics filtered by subject, English, Math and Science - ranging from pacing, intervention, implementation support to the latest trends in K-12 learning.

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The Great Minds Humanities Video Library

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The Great Minds Humanities Video Library

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Great Minds has made every effort to obtain permission for the reprinting of all copyrighted material. If any owner of copyrighted material is not acknowledged herein, please contact Great Minds for proper acknowledgment in all future editions.
Welcome to Wit & Wisdom®
Text Cover Images:

© 2003 by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

What to Expect from Coaching
EDUimages by All4Ed. Two male middle school math teachers. Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages, https://images.all4ed.org/two-male- middle-school-math-teachers .

Flag by Oksana Latysheva from NounProject.com

Aguilar, Elena. The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation, 2013, https://www.edutopia.org/blog/coaching-impact- teachers-principals-students-elena-Aguilar .
What to Expect in Focus on Fluency
Book Cover- The Legend of the Bluebonnet: © 1983 Tomie dePaola

Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.

Rasinski, Timothy. "Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot!" The Reading Teacher, vol. 65, no. 8, 2012, pp. 516-522.
Knowledge and Skills in Wit & Wisdom®
Willingham, Daniel T. "How Knowledge Helps: It Speeds and Strengthens Reading Comprehension, Learning-and Thinking." American Educator, vol. 30, no. 1, 2006. http://witeng.link/0869 .

Text Cover Images:

Cervetti, Gina N., Carolyn A. Jaynes, and Elfrieda H. Hiebert. "Increasing Opportunities to Acquire Knowledge Through Reading" Reading More, Reading Better: Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy, edited by Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Guilford, 2009.

EDUimages by All4Ed. Female history teacher. Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .
What to Expect in Launch Wit & Wisdom®
Text Cover Images:

Art as Text in Wit & Wisdom slide,

(top row, left) Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA (top row, right) Emmanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, public domain courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
(second row, left) Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (second row, right) Ansel Adams, School Children, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-ds-04491] (third row, left) Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (bottom row, left) Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY (bottom row, second from left) Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, [LC-DIG-fsa-8b29516] (bottom row, third from left) Ansel Adams, Roy Takeno, outside Free Press Office, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-ds-04491] (bottom row, fourth from left) Chief Joseph, Nez Percé chief, head-and-shoulders portrait facing front, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, [LC-USZC4-5785] (bottom row, fifth from left) George Catlin, The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas, 1844/1845, Paul Mellon Collection. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (bottom row, sixth from left) Gilbert Stuart, Portrait of George Washington, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (bottom row, seventh from left) Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434 (bottom row, right) Albrecht Dürer, Young Hare, 1502, The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria What to Expect in Lead Wit & Wisdom®
Text Cover Images:

: The Digestive System © 2012 Teacher Created Materials Inc.
What to Expect in Module and Lesson Study
EDUimages by All4Ed. Four elementary students. Photo by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages, ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) .

Short, Jim, and Stephanie Hirsh. The Elements: Transforming Teaching Through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning. Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2020, http://witeng.link/0977 .

Text Cover Images:

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau : © 2009 Dan Yaccarino

Shark Attack! (DK Readers Level 3) : © 1998, 2009, 2015, Dorling Kindersley Limited
What to Expect in Professional Learning
Images not credited are the property of Great Minds.
What to Expect in Testing and Wit & Wisdom®
EDUimages by All4Ed. Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages/ https://images.all4ed.org/license/
What to Expect in Writing
EDUimages by All4Ed. Two male middle schoolers and two female middle schoolers workin. Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages, https://images.all4ed.org/two-male-middle-schoolers-and-two-female-middle- schoolers-workin .

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995.

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Support understanding and implementation of Wit & Wisdom and Geodes with these free on-demand professional development videos.

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Guidance

Deep understanding of each module and the Wit & Wisdom approach will empower you to fully leverage the curriculum to foster students' knowledge and skill building.

As you begin to teach with Wit & Wisdom, you will want to do the following:

1. Recognize the shifts in teaching that Wit & Wisdom may require.

Many of our new teachers have reported that Wit & Wisdom required shifts to

Knowledge-building as a central focus,

Complex texts (in place of leveled texts) for all students,

Rereading to deepen comprehension,

Student-centered discussion and inquiry, and

Integrated skill instruction.

As a After you provide direct instruction, students practice the skill and receive feedback from you and their peers. Wit & Wisdom teacher, you will facilitate students' learning through their collaboration with classmates and independent work. Students learn and retain more when they productively struggle with the curriculum, doing the heavy lifting themselves. Your role is to facilitate. As they read (and reread) complex texts, you pose important questions for them to ponder, write about, and discuss.

2. Internalize the module.

You must internalize the curriculum to teach it effectively. The Implementation Guide and Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom deepen your understanding of the curriculum. Our preparation protocols at the module, Focusing Question Arc, and lesson level deepen this internalization, building understanding of the what and why of each module. Completing the protocols helps you understand how students develop knowledge and skills over the course of the module, arcs of lessons, and individual lessons; this understanding of how learning unfolds and what comes next help you guide student learning effectively and maintain appropriate pacing. After year 1, preparation time lightens. In subsequent years you can refer to year 1 completed protocols, updating and supplementing them as needed.

3. Prepare your classroom (or virtual space).

Consult the Wit & Wisdom Implementation Guide, pages 43-44 for guidance on setting up your classroom and preparing materials. Use the following checklist to plan and document progress:

CLASSROOM DISPLAYS

Review the module and consider your students' needs. Depending on your context for learning (in-person, online, or hybrid) determine which charts to post where and when for continued student reference.

Module questions (Essential Question, Focusing Question, Content Framing Question, Craft Question)

Content Stages and corresponding questions

Writing models (for the module's writing type, e.g., ToSEEC for informative)

Anchor Charts (charts used throughout the module for student reference)

Socratic Seminar guidelines and sentence frames

Content-area and academic vocabulary

MATERIALS

Core texts
If in-person, core texts can be kept in the classroom and distributed as needed for homework. If teaching at a distance or hybrid, students will need 1:1 copies of core texts to bring home.

Student Response, Vocabulary, and Knowledge Journals

If in-person or hybrid, students maintain separate composition books, notebooks, or 3-ring binders. Identify where these will be kept in the classroom. If online, students maintain a virtual journal, ideally in an online space where they can easily share responses with you.

Lesson materials

See the Materials list in each lesson and communicate in advance to families/caregivers during distance learning.
CLASSROOM CONFIGURATION: IN PERSON

Configure desks to support collaboration.

For younger students, mark off spaces in a separate whole-group floor area.

CLASSROOM CONFIGURATION: ONLINE

Identify the mode of delivery of asynchronous instruction.

Identify digital communication platforms, such as Zoom, Google Hangout, or Microsoft® Team for synchronous instruction.

Identify digital platforms for providing and exchanging assignments and feedback, such as Google Classroom, Schoology®, or Microsoft® Teams.

4. Build a supportive learning community.

As you know, students learn best when they feel safe enough to take academic risks. Think through how to establish your English Language Arts classroom community so that students know the routines and expectations and feel safe to engage in thinking, reading, discussing, and writing about module texts and topics. Consider teaching Module 0, a brief opening module that introduces the curriculum, establishes instructional routines, and fosters students' connections to each other and their learning:

Grades K-2

Grades 3-5

Grades 6-8

Engaging families and caregivers will also help build a strong learning community-particularly if your school will be engaged in distance or hybrid learning in the 2020-2021 school year. Share Family Tip Sheets to extend learning at home:

In English

In Spanish

Implementation Tips

Be forgiving! Students and educators are experiencing an unprecedented situation-and Wit & Wisdom is a multi-year implementation curriculum with a lot of learning in year 1.

Collaborate with colleagues in your district. Consider completing the preparation protocols collaboratively, as your work with colleagues will deepen your understanding of the curriculum. Share ideas for in-person or online setup.

Collaborate with colleagues nationwide through Wit & Wisdom online communities.

Maintain your focus on prioritizing key skills and knowledge and engaging students in the gold of the Wit & Wisdom texts. Explore this resource from Student Achievement Partners for additional information: 2020-21 Priority Instructional Content in English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics. In daily instruction, focus time and attention on the Learn sections of the lesson. Maintain a quick pace for Welcome/Launch activities and informal checks, like Whip Arounds or Quick Writes.

Continue to use the Teacher Edition as your guide and work with your team to adjust pacing as needed. Students will benefit from deep engagement and a thoughtful pace. This may mean that teachers do not complete a full lesson each day or all four modules in the academic year.

Check out additional tips within the preparation protocols.

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Deep understanding of each module and the Wit & Wisdom approach will empower you to fully leverage the curriculum to foster students' knowledge and skill building. As you begin to teach with Wit & Wisdom, you will want to do the following: 1. Recognize the shifts in teaching that Wit & Wisdom may require.

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Activities to Engage Families Year-Round with Wit & Wisdom 

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Activities to Engage Families Year-Round with Wit & Wisdom 

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Engaging families and caregivers in can have a positive impact on student learning. Consider some of the ideas below for engaging families in Wit & Wisdom, hosting an annual literacy night, and increasing communication between school and home.

Share the Family Resources

Educators have access to a variety of free resources on the Great Minds® dashboard to share with families and caregivers through their routine communications at home. All of these resources can be found in the Wit & Wisdom Family Resources. These resources include:

Family Welcome Letter: This letter introduces families to Wit & Wisdom and is available in 14 languages; send this home at the beginning of the school year.

Family Tip Sheets: Module tip sheets help families support their student's knowledge building at home and are available in 14 languages; send each tip sheet home at the beginning of a module.

Wit & Wisdom Overview for Families: These videos provide a general overview to Wit & Wisdom and are available in English and Spanish; they are best shared at the beginning of the school year.

Building Knowledge and Skills in the English Language Arts Classroom: This e-book provides information to families about the role of knowledge building in English language arts; it can be shared at any point in the school year.

The resources found in the Family Literacy Night Activities also provide teachers with activities to engage families and caregivers in the work of Wit & Wisdom. Although designed for the beginning of the school year, these activities could take place at any time in the school year.

Conduct a Book Tasting

Invite families to a book tasting to learn about Wit & Wisdom and the core texts. Have fun with the set up by decorating the classroom or cafeteria with tablecloths, battery-operated candles, and menus with a short description of each module. Have students serve each table with a selection of core texts, either from an upcoming or current module or from the entire grade level. Caregivers will appreciate sampling a few pages of each text, looking at the beautiful illustrations, and perhaps even creating a Notice and Wonder chart of their own!

Create a Family Library

Create a section for families and caregivers in the classroom or school library. Allow caregivers to check out copies of the core and supplemental texts to read at home. Consider also providing copies of the Volume of Reading texts to encourage caregivers to read these selections with their students.

Practice Fluency Homework

Use a recent fluency homework passage to teach caregivers how to provide support to their students. The following steps can make this practice session a success, even when families and caregivers may be uncomfortable with reading the fluency passages themselves:

1. Share that the purpose of fluency homework is to read accurately and automatically with appropriate expression and phrasing. Students should read the passages in a way that helps the audience understand the passage.

2. Encourage caregivers to provide positive feedback to their students with sentence stems like, "I understood..." or "It was clear when...."

3. Show caregivers how to complete each day's chart with their student.

Wit & Wisdom educators can access a lesson plan for a Fluency Practice Family Literacy Night Task for Grades 1-8 in the Wit & Wisdom Family Literacy Night Resources.

Notice and Wonder about Art

Invite family members to notice and wonder about a work of art from one of the modules. If it's far enough into the school year, students may also feel confident enough with noticing and wondering to lead the activity! Consider one of these options:

Option 1: Lead families in noticing and wondering about a piece of art from Module 0 or the current module.

Option 2: Display several pieces of art that students will study throughout the year with an anchor chart that includes columns labeled "I notice" and "I wonder." Facilitate families moving through a Chalk Talk with the works of art used in Wit & Wisdom throughout the year.

Wit & Wisdom educators can access a lesson plan for a Module 0 Art Study Family Literacy Night Task for Grades K-8 in the Wit & Wisdom Family Literacy Night Resources.

Hold a Fluency Recitation

Invite students to select a favorite fluency passage from a current or previous module to perform live for their families and school community. Consider whether some passages may allow for a Reader's Theater performance where several students could participate and read a selected section. Some students could also demonstrate a choral reading of a passage. Provide time for students to practice their passage prior to the event. Then have everyone dress in their finest to perform! Provide light refreshments after the event.

Host an End of Module Celebration

Invite families and caregivers to an event that celebrates all the knowledge students have developed throughout the module. Consider some of these ideas for celebrating student learning during the event:

Share final copies of the End of Module task, either orally or in a display.

Display examples of student work from the module in a Gallery Walk.

Include a few student performances of fluency passages from the module.

Project or display the visual art from the module and encourage caregivers to share what they Notice and Wonder about the art.

Facilitate Student-Led Conferences

Provide time for students to select several pieces of work from the module or year that demonstrate their best learning. Ask students to reflect on the goals they set or on the Learning Goals from a module. Students annotate their previous work to show how they have met those goals or identify areas of growth for the future. In the conference, students share their successes and areas of growth with their families and caregivers. Everyone leaves with next steps on how they can work together to help their student achieve their goals.

Summary

Like you, families and caregivers want the best for their students. Building their understanding of the curriculum strengthens the connection between home and school, creating opportunities for richer conversations about students' learning.

We'd love to know more about how your family engagement with Wit & Wisdom. Connect with us in our Facebook groups for each grade band ( K-2, 3-5, and 6-8) or on Twitter @WitWisdomELA.

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Activities to Engage Families Year-Round with Wit & Wisdom®

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Explore ideas for engaging families and caregivers in Wit & Wisdom, from hosting an annual literacy night to creating a family library and more.

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Be patient and trust the process. Give yourself and your students some grace, especially during the pandemic. And know that your students will ultimately rise to Wit & Wisdom's high expectations.

Those are among the key takeaways from recent conversations with four Wit & Wisdom ® Fellows about how to navigate the first year of implementing our rigorous English language arts curriculum. Edited excerpts from the conversations follow.

Our Wit & Wisdom Fellows

Using since 2017-2018 school year
Gwynns Falls Elementary School
Grade 2 Teacher
Baltimore, Maryland
Teaching for 15 years
Wit & Wisdom

Grade 7 Teacher Using
Robert J. Elkington Middle School
Grand Rapids, Minnesota
Teaching for 26 years

Wit & Wisdom since 2019

Grade 1 and Grade 3 Teacher Using
Dorothy I. Height Elementary School
Baltimore, Maryland
Teaching for six years
Wit & Wisdom since 2017-2018 school year

Grade 8 Teacher Using
Vine Middle School
Knoxville, Tennessee
Teaching for 19 years

Wit & Wisdom since 2018

The curriculum will make your teaching easier, but you need to plan.
The fellows appreciate how rigorous, comprehensive, and thoughtfully designed the curriculum is. With Wit & Wisdom, teachers don't have to cobble together standards-based lessons on their own, so they have more time to spend strengthening their instructional craft.

Copp: Teachers are freed up to be teachers. You don't have to spend your evenings on teacherspayteachers or writing a test when it's been done for you. And Wit & Wisdom is research based, it's tied to the standards, and everything is centered on a text.

She also appreciates how the curriculum opens doors for her students, most of whom are from rural areas.

Copp: When we get to do some analysis of art in class, it's a door opening for my students. They can see something that they wouldn't have seen before. They read books in the volume of reading list that they never would have picked up off the shelf.

Johnson appreciates how his students see themselves in the lessons. Chinn appreciates how all the instruction centers on the study of core texts, not disparate materials.

Johnson: They were very interested in Ellis Island, in knowing how people navigated their way. But they were also interested in the California Gold Rush that was featured in one of the texts.

Chinn: Everything is based on the text. I don't have to go plan a writing lesson to teach nouns. I don't have to plan a speaking and listening lesson. Everything is a perfect marriage of all of that in one place, and we can do it by looking at one book. It's not disconnected.

Yes, the pacing is challenging, but give yourself grace.
Even successful teachers find covering all the content in Wit & Wisdom a challenge, especially in year one. Be patient with yourself, and focus on quality over quantity.

Copp: It would take me two to two and a half class periods to get through a lesson, and that's okay because my philosophy is that some Wit & Wisdom is better than no Wit & Wisdom.

Lyle: What I know now that I wish I knew in year one is that nothing is in the curriculum by accident. Nothing is in there that hasn't been very carefully and thoughtfully placed there. So if you get to something and you feel like it's disposable, it really isn't.

I would much rather teach the lessons really well and only get through two or three modules than rush through, cut things out, chop it all up, and get through four modules but not have taught them well. So just be at peace with the pacing. You still will [address all the standards]. You won't get to all the core texts, but you'll get through the standards. Be at peace with teaching two modules in year one, and then maybe you'll get through three of them in year two.

When you're implementing Wit & Wisdom, you have to be really patient with yourself. I was a veteran teacher with 15 or 16 years of teaching under my belt. In a lot of ways, I felt like a new teacher again. Because I was.

Johnson: If I had to give any advice to teachers, I would say to exercise grace both with their students and with themselves. Study the curriculum as a whole. Use the Implementation Guide. Experiment and ask for help.

Become a learner yourself.
To get the most out of the curriculum, teachers need to be willing to be learners themselves. Careful planning is essential. Chinn says teachers need to "take the seat of the learner."

Chinn: Breathe and take it all in and study it and learn it. That's the biggest piece. Being comfortable with it. So, you're going to have to go through the Implementation Guide. You're going to have to go through the Moving Forward with Wit & Wisdom User Guide. You're going to have to go through and read the lessons and become familiar with the Teacher Edition. Read through your assessments. Read through the module tasks. Read through the Focusing Question Task.

Copp: My advice to new teachers using Wit & Wisdom is do the Preparation Protocols, whether that's through professional development, training through Great Minds®, or in your professional learning communities, but definitely use those because you're able to dig into the meat of the work.

Use the Implementation Guide.

Copp: Every teacher should have a copy of the Implementation Guide handy.

Lyle: Your Teacher Edition has your lessons in it, but the Implementation Guide has everything you need to know about all of the different instructional resources, the rubrics, how to set up your classroom. I can't stress enough how much useful information is in the Implementation Guide.

Take advantage of support.
Teachers don't have to do the work by themselves. The fellows advise getting as much support as possible-from administrators, from Great Minds, and from colleagues inside their buildings and around the country.

Copp: Rely on your team and the resources that you have and reach out on social media platforms or to other Wit & Wisdom teachers or the fellows or implementation specialists.

Lyle: One of the best things that I did was to start following Wit & Wisdom on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I really got involved in the Facebook group, and through that I was able to connect with teachers from all over the country. One of them is now a real mentor to me.

Empower students-they'll rise to the high expectations. Embrace the productive struggle.
The fellows advise letting go. Give students more responsibility for their own learning.

Johnson: Let the students drive. If they're about to get into an accident, you know you're like that driving instructor. Push that brake and you'll be fine. A lot of teachers are scared to let go. Remember that as the teacher you are the MapQuest, and the students are the drivers of their learning. That's the real major shift!

The fellows pointed out the benefits of productive struggle for students.

Copp: They're seeing how they can rise to the occasion and that they can do difficult work. That makes me proud. Now, it has not been easy. It has not been without its challenges or without parents who are upset that it's too difficult and their children are stressed out at home. I get that. I'm a parent, but we have to just recognize that all of that stuff is good stuff, and that's okay. It's okay to struggle.

They also spoke eloquently about their students rising to the challenge of a content-rich curriculum such as Wit & Wisdom. Copp taught Wit & Wisdo m for the first time during the pandemic-shortened 2019-2020 school year.

Copp: You know when you have high expectations for students and the curriculum has high expectations for them, what they can actually achieve. Even in that short amount of time and not a complete school year, what they were able to achieve was amazing.

Lyle recalled an insight from her students after they read three very different books during Grade 8: The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, the World War 1 novel All Quiet on the Western Front, and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Lyle: They said, "I bet if someone from Shakespearean days were to show up in our classroom and we gave them The Crossover, they wouldn't be able to read it. They wouldn't understand that language because it's just from a different time, and it's different from the way they used to speak. This is just another type of language that we just need to get used to. It's not harder, it's just different." That was such a great connection.

Students will be much more engaged and excited to write.

Copp: I do have disengaged students, but most students are excited about writing. I have students who are able to sit down and take everything that they've learned from this semester and put it into a piece of writing. When a seventh grader is excited about learning at all, I think that's a win.

Lyle: I definitely see more of a willingness to engage in academic discussions and in writing tasks. I have fewer students asking me things like "How many sentences does this have to be?" That's an English teacher's least favorite question. The reason is because students have the knowledge they need to respond to the prompt. And they have the confidence that they need to answer the question. Their writing may not be technically perfect or even proficient. But if I can get them to put the words on the paper because they have the knowledge, then I can give them the feedback that I need to improve their technique.

Bottom line: Trust the process, be patient, and persevere.

Chinn: It is definitely not going to look like the classroom of old, but just be able to settle yourself enough to allow the students to go through the process. And know that on the back end, you are really going to have some aha moments. There will still be days when you're just like "That was an epic fail." But know that those days are going to be far fewer if you just trust the process.

Copp: You're going to have days where you feel like you've made no headway and everything that you've done isn't working. But you need to continue and persevere because your students will be writing amazing things. Your students will be conducting a Socratic Seminar by themselves and will be analyzing text. What they can do in seventh grade is amazing. I have a 17-year-old, and she says my seventh graders are doing what she's doing in 11th grade.
Additional Resources

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Navigating Year One of Wit & Wisdom® Implementation

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Be patient and trust the process. Give yourself and your students some grace, especially during the pandemic. And know that your students will ultimately rise to Wit & Wisdom's high expectations. Those are among the key takeaways from recent conversations with four Wit & Wisdom ® Fellows about how to navigate the first year of implementing our rigorous English language arts curriculum.

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This Month's Focus

The importance of high-quality curriculum is no secret. A 2015 study conducted by the Center for American Progress found that improving the quality of curriculum is 40 times more cost effective than reducing class size. A 2017 study from Johns Hopkins concurs that "Curriculum is a critical factor in student academic success." Organizations such as EdReports and Curriculum Matters are dedicated to promoting educators' use of and access to high-quality curricula. Even knowing the benefits, however, the transition to high-quality curriculum can be a challenge for educators and can require shifts in practice. In our guest blog posts this month, Wit & Wisdom ® educators Anna Barnoski and Tanniece Chinn share their personal stories of their shifts to high-quality curriculum. In this post, we build on two key ideas that Barnoski and Chinn make in their posts: to expand on the research-based benefits of high-quality curriculum and to offer reminders and inspiration to educators making this powerful, challenging shift to high-quality, knowledge-building curriculum.

High-Quality Curriculum Keeps the Focus on Joyful Learning

Anna Barnoski's "pigeon unit" is a great reminder to teachers, coaches, and leaders: A classroom full of happy activity can-but does not necessarily-mean a room full of learning students. This is not to say the opposite-if students are not smiling and laughing, they are learning-is true! Rather, the key idea is that the starting point for instructional preparation in the classroom should be the goals for learning. After we determine what students will learn, then we can plan how to engage them in this learning.

Clare Sealy does a fascinating deep dive into these ideas in her article " The Best Way to Help Children Remember Things? Not 'Memorable Experiences. '" She explains some of the basic science behind our episodic memories-those contextual, emotional, sensory memories of moments in our lives-and our semantic memories-our context-free, stored understandings of facts, words, concepts, and numbers. We easily remember our personal experiences (e.g., do you remember the fun experiment you did dropping the egg from the top of the playground structure?). Forming semantic memories that will help us build a base of knowledge to help us learn more requires a more purposeful approach (e.g., what did you learn when you dropped that egg?).

As caring teachers, it can be hard not to start planning by thinking about what students will feel or do in the classroom-just as Anna Barnoski planned a myriad of fun pigeon tasks and projects that she knew would leave her students feeling happily energized. That kind of careful planning and attention to students' emotional experiences in the classroom is great-if it comes after a careful consideration of what students will think and learn in the classroom. Teachers such as Tanniece Chinn and Anna Barnoski can bring a high-quality curriculum such as Wit & Wisdom to life-knowing that every lesson has been written with a focus on students' learning.

High-Quality Curriculum Gives Teachers Time for Their Top Priority: Student Learning

In her post, Tanniece Chinn laments the hours she lost to searching for worksheets or resources that might better help her students master key skills. So many teachers share this experience-of the "needle in a haystack" searches for the perfect resource that might make a transformative difference for their next lesson.

In " The Unexamined Cost of Teachers' Time Spent Choosing Instructional Materials," Robert Pondiscio reports on findings from a recent RAND study and describes how many teachers enter the profession with a vision of themselves as curators or creators of their materials. The vision of a teacher as one who implements an existing curriculum may require a shift. But, as Tanniece Chinn points out, this shift can offer great benefits to both teachers and students.

Because others have done the laborious and time-consuming work of creating a coherent set of texts, tasks, and resources that purposefully sequence learning to build knowledge of key topics, teachers can focus their attention on their students' needs. Instead of spending out-of-class time looking for additional sources or ideas for alternate activities, teachers can spend their time internalizing the curriculum to prepare to deliver more effective, personalized instruction and feedback to their students. (The authors of the RAND study also found that teachers seeking supplemental materials might also lower the rigor of instruction. Well-meaning teachers who seek materials for their students that will be fun and with which students will have success might miss opportunities for deeper learning. So by starting with high-quality curriculum, teachers can also know that they are providing grade-level-appropriate rigorous instruction to their students.)

In Summary

Trusting in the process and having faith in curriculum can be a day-to-day challenge. But research on productive struggle shows us that true and deep learning requires us to dive into challenging tasks-and sometimes to struggle to find solutions. Just as a high-quality curriculum can require productive struggle for students, so too can it require the same struggle for teachers. But for both teachers and students, the opportunities are great.

For More

This month's posts from our guest teacher-authors touch on many exciting and relevant topics related to Wit & Wisdom. For more on some of these topics, see these other posts from greatminds.org.

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Trusting in the Process: The Transition to High-Quality Curriculum

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The importance of high-quality curriculum is no secret. A 2015 study conducted by the Center for American Progress found that improving the quality of curriculum is 40 times more cost effective than reducing class size. A 2017 study from Johns Hopkins concurs that "Curriculum is a critical factor in student academic success."

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is a comprehensive K-8 English language arts curriculum crafted to help students build the knowledge and skills they need to be successful readers, exceptional writers, and effective communicators.

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Wit & Wisdom® - Elementary and Middle School ELA Curriculum

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is a comprehensive K-8 English language arts curriculum crafted to help students build the knowledge and skills they need to be successful readers, exceptional writers, and effective communicators.

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Wit & Wisdom Walkthrough and Digital Resources Overview

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Wit & Wisdom Walkthrough and Digital Resources Overview

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Wit and Wisdom Resource Overview Sessions

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Join a Resource Overview Sessions and learn more about the resources available within the Wit & Wisdom ELA curriculum from Great Minds.

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Wit & Wisdom | Curriculum Overview for Families

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Curriculum Overview for Families that previews Wit & Wisdom and the resources they can access to engage with their child's learning.

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Professional Learning
On-Demand

Explore the Great Minds Humanities Video Library to view introductory content about the curriculum and our professional learning offerings. Learn how Wit & Wisdom and Geodes educators can access additional free instructional videos to guide implementation.

VIEW ON-DEMAND OPTIONS

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Wit & Wisdom® and Geodes® Professional Learning | Great Minds®

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Explore Great Minds® research-based professional learning offerings, including Wit & Wisdom® in-person or virtual professional development and coaching sessions.

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Massachusetts ELA Standards Alignment Study

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Massachusetts ELA Standards Alignment Study

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Massachusetts ELA Standards Alignment Study - Great Minds

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A detailed analysis to demonstrate how grades K–8 of Wit & Wisdom align with the Massachusetts state standards.

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New Hampshire ELA Standards Alignment Study 

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New Hampshire ELA Standards Alignment Study 

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"To make the most of Wit & Wisdom, teachers must internalize the curriculum before they implement it." 

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"To make the most of Wit & Wisdom, teachers must internalize the curriculum before they implement it." 

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Wit & Wisdom’s preparation protocols support this internalization, building a deep understanding of the curriculum’s what and why. This understanding helps teachers think through lesson materials and logistics, as well as pace and scaffold instruction.

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Find free on-demand and live learning sessions.

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When and How Do Teachers Use the Protocols?

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When and How Do Teachers Use the Protocols?

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Teachers use these protocols when they are new to the curriculum or the grade level. After Year 1, teachers can refer to the completed protocols, updating as needed. Teachers can complete the protocols individually or collaboratively.