Tuesday

After digging my way out of all the snow in our driveway (well, more like barreling through it), I made it to school. Yesterday was to be a 'curriculum development day' where all the English teachers from the high school and middle school were to sit down with various reps from the textbook companies. We really like McDougal Littell; however, the middle school is really undecided about what texts they'll choose. Many here feel it's a good idea to go with the same textbook company as the middle school.

I was looking forward to finally settling on a text - hoping that we could convince the middle schoolers to buy into McDougal Littell with us. But, of course, due to the weekend's weather - only one rep (out of four or five) was able to make it up here from the cities.

The reps were from Holt, the same textbook series as we use now (and have used for maybe 12 years or so). While they've added some new bells and whistles, surprisingly their selections haven't changed much. After just glancing at their textbooks for American Lit - I'd say at least 60% is the same stuff they had in the edition we already use.

Now I'm not advocating choosing a new textbook series just for new stories, but it would be nice. Our conundrum seems to be if they middle schoolers choose a different text, how do we keep all of the stories and strategies that we are teaching straight. For example, if I want to teach "The Masque of the Red Death" in American Lit (using my McDougal Littell text) how do I know the middle schoolers didn't teach it in their Holt texts? That is a legit concern. But I'm not sure I'd be willing to go with a textbook that I'm dissatisfied with (and the Holt text didn't knock me out) just for that reason. I think there are other ways we can get around that.

So what did we do all day? Good question. The morning was entirely wasted. Since we not only attended the textbook expo in St. Paul (which as far as expos go, I’m told was pretty lame), but we also took a day off as a staff and hammered out our revised curriculum maps, so we really had no reason for missing school other than to meet with any other reps and then sit down with the middle school teachers and select a text.

Let’s say, that didn’t happen. The middle schoolers are no where close to being as set as we are.

Then our curriculum head decides to try and brainstorm some of our goals for a textbook (excellent resources - workbooks, overheads, test generators, blah blah), reading strategies incorporated into the text, a variety of genres (one thing I really liked about the McDougal Littell text is that many stories are supplemented by other genres. For instance, in the American Lit text they include “The Masque of the Red Death.” That is supplemented with a selection from Stephen King’s nonfiction book on the horror genre called “Danse Macabre.” And “The Fall of the House of Usher” is connected to a stanza from a Boudelaire poem that mimics the intro to Poe’s story), a variety of activities for the students, a page that isn’t all text, and so on.

Well, since we’ve done all that and already found a text we loved and pretty much designed our curriculum and standards with that text, it was pointless. However, she still made us do it. More time wasted.

My only fear is that the middle school teachers will be sold on this presentation without hearing what McDougal Littell has. Hopefully we can convince them to go with our guys. Stay tuned.