Timeframe:        Sep 2019 – Jan 2020
Goal:                   An Introduction to Equity
Who:                   English Department Equity Team ↔ Whole Department
Status:                Complete

To begin the process of exploring equity in our instruction and the curriculum, we first wanted to explore issues of equity in our society and discuss our own experiences with equity work as professionals.  The first year were devoted to the following questions we explored:

• Why is equity work a necessity in our area of instruction?
• How do students see themselves in our curriculum and through our instruction?
• How do we feel professionally about taking on this work?  What areas of the work make us nervous or uncomfortable?
• How do we address issues of pejorative language that emerge from texts?

We used activities from SEED, Beyond Diversity, and other programs to first ground us in some experiences before we would move into the curriculum.  The process included individual reflection about each department member’s feelings of preparedness to address issues of equity in the classroom. 

From this point forward, the equity goal would take two tracks: individual professional development and curricular revision.

Meeting 1:         Institute Day 1 -  08/22/19                  “Defining Equity”

Objectives:

• to share a definition of “educational equity” developed by the all-school Equity Strategic Planning Committee
• to reflect on individual department members’ understanding of equity work
• to differentiate between “diversity” and “equity”
• to reflect on what makes equity work challenging
• to differentiate between personal and curricular equity work

Meeting 2:         Department Meeting -  09/04/19      “Introduction to Equity”

Objectives:

• to explore why equity work is necessary in (A) our school community, (B) our professional/personal development as educators and (C) our areas of instruction
• to provide a list of equity professional development opportunities
• to reflect on how we teach texts with pejorative language, racial epithets, and the N-word

Meeting 3:         Department Retreat - 09/06/19         “Introducing the “Race and” Approach”

Objectives

• to present norms and agreements that will allow department members to engage in conversations focused on racial equity based on the Courageous Conversations model
• to present materials that help the group to explore and respond to the question: “Why is racial equity work necessary in our school community?”
• to experiment with how we create a safe environment for students in how we handle text with pejorative language

Meeting 4:         Department Meeting - 10/25/19       “Developing Racial Consciousness”

Objectives:

• to explore how race impacts us in our everyday lives
• to establish an understanding of “racial consciousness”

Meeting 5:         Department Meeting – 11/06/19       “Language and Its Impact”

Objectives:

• to explore how the language of race impacts students of color
• to establish best practices for dealing with racially charged language in print and the classroom

Timeframe:        Jan 2020 – Jun 2020
Goal:                   Language and Text Selection
Who:                   English Department Equity Team
Status:                Complete

One area that needed immediate attention was to develop a professional standard for texts that used pejorative language.  Our minimal audit of those texts in the curriculum focused on our standards for the classroom experience and the units of instruction, including texts, we expect students to encounter.

Objectives:

• to identify books with N-word, racial epithets and pejorative language
• to develop a departmental protocol/approach to teaching these texts
• to audit the current book syllabus in course committees using “Questions to Consider” and “Text Evaluation Rubric” in Re-Teaching How We Choose Books in School
• to consider the emotional demands of each text in the curriculum

In collaboration with the social work department, we created a statement, read at the beginning of each semester of every English class, about the emotional impact of literature, and the expectations for students regarding the serious and sometimes emotionally powerful nature of what we read.

Timeframe:        Aug 2020 – Dec 2020
Goal:                   Develop an Equity Audit
Who:                   English Department Equity Team
Status:                Complete

The English Department Equity Team engaged in discussion and research in the first semester to develop an equity audit instrument that could be used to evaluate where and how to begin the work of revising the curriculum.  We consulted seven different sources, listed at the end of our audit instrument, that shaped our questions and approach, but in the end we developed our own unique instrument for our curriculum and purposes.

Timeframe:        Jan 2021 - Jun 2021
Goal:                   Determine a Plan for Equity Changes
Who:                   Whole Department       
Status:                Complete

In the second semester, we used the audit instrument to gather information  on the current state of the curriculum across years and levels.  Once the data was available from the audit, the department convened as a whole and analyzed the findings to determine a plan moving forward.  From the data the department decided to follow a developmental approach, assigning the same standards for equity development by year group.  We also found initial areas we would want to focus our equity revisions, but decided that the standards would need to come first as the foundation for all future equity work.

Timeframe:        Aug 2021 – May 2022
Goal(s):               Develop Equity Standards for Application to the Curriculum
Who:                   Whole Department; English Department Steering & Equity Teams
Status:                Complete

To offer a grounding for curricular revision, the department engaged in the development of equity standards and used those to then guide our work with the texts, writing assignments, and projects that make up the curriculum of the department:

Quarter 1: We engaged in professional development to delve into the differences between the development of standards, habits of mind, and essential questions.  The goal was to arrive at standards that would be developmental by year group.  The process used included:

• Brainstorming standards by the entire department
• Research into published equity standards
• Reading and discussion by the whole department to compare department standards with published standards
• Draft of final department standards by year group

Quarter 2: Once the standards were developed, they were revised, voted on by the department for inclusion into the Course of Study, and approved by the office of C&I.  In addition, the department proposed a new senior electives structure which would both enhance equity through the elimination of level 2/3/9 in senior year in favor of an all 9-level curriculum, would simplify course offerings, and produce a plan to transform senior electives into a world literature curriculum.

Quarter 3: Steering and Equity teams met to produce a plan for how to best implement the new equity standards and representation data along with the new senior electives plan.

Quarter 4: The Steering and Equity teams presented the next phase of the Equity Plan in more detail to the department for how the standards would lead to a curricular map, and a successful revision of the senior electives.

Timeframe:        Sep 2022 – March 2024
Goals:                 Complete a Vertical Articulation of Standards – Level 3
Who:                   Whole Department
                            Course Committees (levels 3 & 9)
                            Vertical Articulation Groups
                             ]Librarians
Status:                Complete          

 In this year, we engaged in professional development as a whole department, by course committee, and in vertical teams, where we compare the new equity standards to the curriculum and our own instructional practices.  We used the equity audit data to suggest gaps and used the standards to guide areas for development and improvement.  As part of this phase, we also had department members complete an individual, self-reflective instructional audit to consider their own practices in the classroom.

The department engaged professional development organized in small and large groups, where teachers developed curriculum together to meet an equity standard.  These groups chose an area of focus, including:

• • Discussing how a text can help meet a standard;
  • Discussing how written assignments can meet a standard;
  • Develop essential questions for the curriculum;
  • Discuss instructional practices that can enhance inclusion and equity.

 We focused on the level 3 and 9 curricula to parallel and complement the work on the senior electives plan.  As such, additional topics that also needed to be covered included:

• Differentiating class materials, assessments, and texts;
• Adopting an operative definition of a world literature curriculum;
• Researching world literature for inclusion into the senior curriculum.

 The 3/9 level committees used a combination of course committee and vertical articulation work to 

 brainstorm better resources for use in presenting issues of equity in the new format of the Course Syllabus;

1. discuss approaches for developing students’ equity understanding through curriculum (essential questions, research projects, writing assignments, experiential learning projects, etc.) in the new format of the Course Syllabus;
2. discuss the language and bias issues present in resources and the best practices in presenting students with a critical understanding of how to confront those issues;
3. produce a revised Course Syllabus to replace the Book Syllabus.

 The two-year timeframe was an acknowledgment of

 How long it can take to research, read, and vet materials for inclusion in the curriculum.  Changing a single core text can take at least one school year of a careful process from beginning to end. 

1. How long it can take for professional development in these areas to be meaningful and impact practice.
2. The added burden of accounting for all that has changed in the curriculum due to the new block schedule.

 The process moved according to plan, with final instructional and professional growth grants being proposed for the summer of 2024 to complete the revisions to the level 3 curriculum.  In addition, data from the senior electives first year of level 9 was shared with committees and will guide curricular changes in 2024-2025.

 Finally, after many years of work in this area, we’ve come to a series of “lessons learned” that serves as a set of best practices that we have recorded for the department to help guide our future work.

Timeframe:        Sep 2024 – March 2026
Goals:                 Complete a Vertical Articulation of Standards – Levels 2e / 2 / 4
Who:                   Whole Department
                            Course Committees (levels 2e, 2, & 4)
                            Vertical Articulation Groups
                             Librarians
Status:                In Process         

S1:         We will complete a repeat of the equity audit for level 3, and an update to the curricular map to determine if there is any work left for committees to do in the level 3 curriculum.  We will use this information to set course committee goals.

In addition, we will continue to look at feedback data from the senior electives program to determine what further differentiation is needed for those courses, and we will determine a process by which courses are taken off the rolls and new courses are proposed.

S2:         Once the level 3 & 9 committees are done with their work, we will repeat the process with levels 2e, 2, & 4 following the same process as outlined above in the 2022-2024 timeframe.  We will use this data to set curricular goals for revision to levels 2 and 4.

Timeframe:        Mar 2026 – Jun 2027
Goals:                 Repeat Equity Audit and Curriculum Maps
Who:                   Whole Department
                            Course Committees
                             Vertical Articulation Groups
Status:                Future

Once the curricular revisions have been made, we will revisit, as a department, the full scope of our equity plan, and once again audit and map the progress we have made. 

This will become an ongoing process that the department can engage in at intervals in the years to come, and will be prepared and ready for new teams to revise and reimplement in the future.

In addition, we will create a before and after image to give a picture of how English instruction and materials have changed over the seven years of our plan, and how it has changed us as educators in the field.