Usually, when people focus on changes to the school, they think about activities or staff, but this year, one big change for the English department was a new curriculum.

“The old curriculum really wasn’t a packaged, published curriculum. It was a grouping of literature, resources and pieces of writing that all of us English teachers had gathered over the years to meet the standards,” English teacher Ginger Eikmeier said. “The big difference is that this is a textbook with specific, picked writings for us to choose from.”

The English department took different steps before deciding on the curriculum, Into Literature, and had specific criteria in mind when evaluating options.

“We looked at several options and got different physical copies to try to use throughout the year,” English teacher Alyssa Hansen said. “However, we ultimately chose our curriculum so it would be consistent with the elementary and because it was very similar to what we were already doing.” 

One of the biggest benefits of the new curriculum is the number of literature options available.

“There are so many materials with this curriculum, more than you could ever use or access,” English teacher Nealy Freeman said. “There’s online resources as well as the consumable books that the students use.”

Since there are more materials with this new curriculum, there’s more for students to be exposed to.

“Another benefit is that they have a lot more multicultural materials through different types of literature and authors that offer a wider multicultural lens than some traditional books,” Freeman said. 

The availability of resources gives teachers freedom to choose what to address in class.

“With this curriculum in particular, there are a lot of different options to pick from, which can be overwhelming at times, but I think is good,” Eikmeier said. “This gives us the flexibility to choose what we think will work best for our students and fit with our teaching styles.”

Despite some of the benefits, all of the English teachers have had to overcome different challenges implementing the new materials, one of which Freeman noticed with her eighth-grade class. 

“Students sometimes find that the structure of their curriculum can be a little repetitive because it always starts the same,” Freeman said. 

One eighth grader who has noticed this is Colton Sake. 

“It can get boring if you are stuck reading the same book for an entire quarter,” Sake said.

Even though Sake has noticed some of the weaker points in the new curriculum, he still enjoys some of the materials he has access to. 

“My favorite book for English class was ‘Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry ’ because we were able to see what life was like for African Americans in a time when the majority of the South was racist,” Sake said.

Besides offering a lot of shorter textbook options, there are also a lot of long reads that the teachers can incorporate.

“One of my favorite things I read was ‘Just Mercy’ because it tells Walter’s story with good detail,” sophomore Mallory Wilson said. “It shows what justice should look like.”

Both the students and English teachers have noticed the ups and downs, but one aspect that only the teachers have noticed is the pacing.

“Teaching something new or lessons that you have never taught before is always challenging because you never know how it’s going to go or how long it’s going to take,” Freeman said.

It also takes more time to prepare to teach the new materials.

“Change is always hard,” Hansen said. “There are things that I’ve had to not teach that make me kind of sad, like moving ‘The Outsiders’ to the 8th grade. It also is a lot of planning time, which is always a struggle.”

The teachers have been working through the challenges and are already thinking ahead to what next year will look like with these materials.

“This year was a bit of trial and error trying to implement the new materials while also staying true to our teaching styles and being able to incorporate some of the good stuff we were already doing,” Eikmeier said. “I’m excited to be able to fine-tune next year to make this curriculum an even more effective part of my classroom.”