Personal Portfolio
With over 15 years’ experience in curriculum development for Social Studies and literacy education, I’ve worked in every aspect of curriculum. I have extensive experience aligning to both Common Core and local standards across all fifty states, U.S. territories, and even abroad, and have worked with clients, educators, and administrators in the local, state, and corporate environments.
Course Guides
I developed Course Guides for every grade level. The format of tabbed navigation I developed for these guides served as a model for all content areas.
Course guides are”all-in-one” documents that contained scope-and-sequence, pacing, and weekly learning plans aligned to standards (see below). Introductory material also provided context for understanding the inquiry model on which the course materials were based.
Learning Plans
Learning Plans are full-service lesson plan documents that contain assessment, standards alignment, and suggested instructional activities.
Literacy Integration Assessments (LIAs)
I created an LIA for every unit in middle school (Grades 6-8) for a large school district with 18 middle schools. Schools where the the LIAs were consistently used saw an increase in reading scores of five percentage points on average.
sixth Grade
I solved the challenge of finding grade-level appropriate texts for ancient history by providing various linguistic scaffolds while retaining rigour.
Seventh Grade
For seventh grade, I expanded text complexity and wrote more cognitively demanding prompts. Here students compare points of view.
Eighth Grade
By eighth grade, I asked students to assess point of view for accuracy and reliability.
Digital Lessons
I created a number of digital activities for the IXL platform. These activities expanded both the number and coverage of Social Studies skills from grades 3-5 to K-12. I also innovated through the use of narrative to promote engagement and the development of techniques for analyzying images and political cartoons.
- Use maps of the community (K-1)
- World War I: Ending the war (7-8)
- World War II: The war begins (7-8)
- Political Participation (HS Civics)
Statewide Adoption Proposals
Texas Civic Education
Texas is in the midst of a major revision of Social Studies standards. I developed materials for a small curriculum development company building Civic Education materials under Texas Education Code (TEC) ยง 28.002 (h-2). These materials were aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in both Enlgish Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) and Social Studies. The Social Studies TEKS were in development as I was writing, requiring close coordination with state education officials.
Florida: History of Communism
Florida has added course-independent standards for student knowledge of the History of Communism. I wrote an instructional outline with standards alignment and sample content in support of an RFP for stand-alone History of Communism lessons to be implemented by the Department of Education.
