CURRICULUM ACTION PLAN 1

Curriculum Action Plan

Joshua D. Winn

College of Education, Grand Canyon University

EAD-520-O501

Dr. Delores Johnson

November 16, 2022

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Curriculum maps are essential to a well-executed academic strategy. They help a school

align student learning outcomes to curriculum activities (F et al., 2016). Many school

districts, like the one I work for, provide curriculum maps for grade level departments to

follow throughout the school year. I had the opportunity to look at the Language Arts

curriculum map for the 2021-2022 school year and analyze it. This essay will be a

reflection of my analysis of my district’s curriculum map.

To begin the curriculum map is very well organized and easy to navigate through.

It has hyperlinks to different tools, materials, and other resources to help the teacher be

able to effectively teacher the standard. The curriculum map has lesson assessments

ranging from level two to level five where it helps the teacher know when students at

different academic levels have successfully answered the lesson assessment prompt. It

then breaks down activities into three groups: Emerging/Approaching, Proficient,

Mastery. This section guides the teacher to implementing activities that will help students

at different grade levels understand the standard being taught.

A strength of the curriculum map is that it is very thorough. There is no shortage

of information, resources, and tools to help a teacher fill a class period and break apart

the standard. As a former Language Arts teacher, I appreciated having an abundance of

material and being able to pick and choose activities based on the needs I perceived in the

classroom. Another strength of the curriculum map is that it breaks apart the standard for

different levels. I work mostly with students who are below grade level. The curriculum

map shows me how to use the materials to best teach my students while my colleagues

who teach advance classes are guided on how to teach students who are scoring above

grade level. This allows us to be able to meet together as a team and talk about the
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standard and materials while being able to differentiate our approaches to reach our

respective classes that are at different levels.

A weakness of the curriculum map is that it does not address the cultural needs of

our students. My school district has a large number of Latino/Hispanic students and

African American students. Yet, our reading materials do not provide any material that

relates to our student’s cultures. We read stories from 19th century England, tales by

Edgar Alan Poe, and poems from Emily Dickenson, but nothing from cultures and writers

who relate to one of our largest demographics. I believe incorporating more culturally-

relevant texts would lead to higher engagement from our students and allow for our texts

to be more inclusive. I hope to see more advocacy from staff and administration in the

future to address this issue as it is often discussed in PLC and common planning as we

look over different texts and stories in the curriculum map. I believe incorporating more

culturally-relevant texts would allow our leaders to fulfill Standard 3 of the Professional

Standards for Educational Leaders which states that leaders should “ensure that each

student is treated fairly, respectfully, and with an understanding of each student’s culture

and context” (Professional Standards for Educational Leaders, 2015).

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Reference

F, R., Bowen, T., Murck, B., & Junghwa Hong, R. (2016). Curriculum Mapping Across the

Disciplines: Differences, Approaches, and Strategies. Collected Essays on Learning and

Teaching. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1147192.pdf

Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. (2015). National Policy Board for Educational

Administration. http://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Professional-

Standards-for-Educational-Leaders_2015.pdf.