Resist the Script: Five Critical Questions for Teachers to Adapt, Adopt, or Develop a Literacy Curriculum That Works for All Readers and Writers

The literacy curriculum in a school is not what is taught, but what is learned.

Leaders can purchase resources they believe will guide students to become successful readers, writers, communicators, and critical thinkers. Teachers can plan challenging and engaging literacy experiences that incorporate promising instructional practices. Coaches and specialists can prepare the faculty to effectively use the resources and support their work with affirmation and feedback.

But at the end of the day, what matters is what students know, understand, and are able to do.

In Resist the Script, educators are presented with five questions they can use to critically examine their literacy curriculum in order to improve it so all students become successful and engaged readers and writers.

This toolkit can be used for:

1. Considering a literacy curriculum program for adoption,
2. Adapting a current literacy curriculum program to better meet students’ need,
3. Writing an original literacy curriculum,
4. Examining a smaller professional literacy teaching resource, or
5. Analyzing a single lesson plan, individually or as a team.

Our students don’t have control over the literacy curriculum.

Teachers and leaders are the arbiter of what gets taught and learned in the classroom. Resist the Script can empower educators to make the literacy curriculum truly belong to the students.