ELA Curriculum Map 2020

This document provides an overview of the English Language Arts skills expected at each grade level over the academic year for Pre-Kindergarten through Grade
6. We follow the Massachusetts Curriculum Standards and this document vertically aligns the standards and will communicate a detailed summary of what is
expected at each grade level, as well as emphasize the critical areas of instruction.
Our primary instructional tools to deliver instruction on the standards is Wit and Wisdom, Fundations, and Lucy Calkins Units of Writing K-6. Teachers are
expected to inform their planning of instruction through assessments and make instructional decisions of lesson materials they will use to meet the expectation of
standards.
We follow the ten ​Guiding Principles for English Language Arts and Literacy Programs in Massachusetts​ as well as the ​NCTE/IRA Standards for English
Language Arts​.
Guiding Principles for English Language Arts and Literacy Programs in Massachusetts:
Guiding Principle 1: An effective English language arts and literacy curriculum develops thinking and language together through interactive learning.
Guiding Principle 2: An effective English language arts and literacy curriculum draws on literature in order to develop students’ understanding of their literary
heritage.
Guiding Principle 3: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum draws on informational texts and multimedia in order to build academic vocabulary and
strong content knowledge.
Guiding Principle 4: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum develops students’ oral language and literacy through appropriately challenging learning.
Guiding Principle 5: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum emphasizes writing arguments, explanatory/informative texts, and narratives.
Guiding Principle 6: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum holds high expectations for all students.
Guiding Principle 7: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum provides explicit skill instruction in reading and writing.
Guiding Principle 8: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum builds on the language, experiences, knowledge, and interests that students bring to school.
Guiding Principle 9: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum nurtures students’ sense of their common ground as present or future American citizens and
prepares them to participate responsibly in our schools and in civic life.
Guiding Principle 10: An effective language arts and literacy curriculum reaches out to families and communities in order to sustain a literate society.
NCTE/IRA Standards for English Language Arts:
Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to
acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and
nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical,
aesthetic) of human experience.
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with
other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g.,
sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and
for different purposes.