On February 2nd, Jennifer hosted a webinar about the ARC Core curriculum featuring users of the curriculum.
Speakers included:
- Jennifer Jordan, Director of Literacy, Lauderdale County (TN)
- Cedric Stewart, Principal, Aldine ISD (TX)
- Shiryl McAdams, Intervention Coach, Daviess County (KY)
- Valencia Smith, Teacher, Sumner County (TN)
Each of the speakers shared a ‘hot take’ about the materials, and we’ve collected them below. We hope you will watch the recording, and enjoy our companion webinar, Understanding the Curriculum Landscape in 2021.
Our Hot Take on Wit & Wisdom:
“Wit & Wisdom has such a strong writing component that has really helped our teachers become better “teachers of writing.” Our teachers often comment on their lack of preparation for writing instruction in teacher prep programs. The backward design of the materials help teachers really understand the writing process in general. Student writing tasks are authentic and relevant to knowledge they are building. There is a very strong vertical alignment between K-8 for deep knowledge building across multiple content domains. Amazing texts that cover a range of genres including multimedia. Also, the repetitive and predictable content and craft stages provide entry levels and scaffolds for all students regardless of reading ability.” – Jennifer Jordan
“Wit and Wisdom has these red threads that connect learning in a masterful way. One builds knowledge around meaningful questions. A second sets strategies and routines that build readers and writers. The third develops learning around complex text. Tie in the potential for decodable readers that align phonics practice and you have a braided rope that supports and accelerates student learning.” – Shiryl McAdams
“What is especially unique about this curriculum to me, is the way is builds upon itself. Last year was our first year of using Wit and Wisdom and I must admit I wasn’t completely sold on it initially. However, as we continued to work through the arcs and entire modules, I was able to see the connection as well the enthusiasm, interest, and success in my students. Through the Socratic Seminars they were able to express their thoughts on the content with each other. The conversations they were having, and the information they were providing made me very proud as a teacher to know they truly understood the content and were mastering standards being taught. All of my students at all ability levels were contributing meaningful information to the conversation as well as asking clarifying questions.” – Valencia Smith
“The extraordinary concept of the curriculum is connectedness between all the novels, the relevance , cross curricular connections, and world connections with real life connection (relatable).” – Cedric Stewart
