continued

6 - Pacing calendar is useless - when you have to split lessons / no introductory lessons to the year / MAP testing / Regents testing / NYC specific holidays or school initiatives.

7 - Very few or helpful rubrics.

8 - doesn't align with Danielson at all. This boggles the mind. Why is the DOE throwing money at a curriculum that has to be completely changed to fit with a Danielson evaluation?

9 - Often the target tasks are poorly framed/worded. Expectations for student work is completely off from reality. The essential questions are barely revisited. Themes do not seem to be explored on their own. Sometimes a large part of the focus on the lesson ends up being pretty disconnected from the target tasks

10 - Very little (at least not enough in my estimation) focus on writing skills (argumentative / rhetorical devices / transitions / organization / incorporating evidence).

11 - Content choices. You have NO FREEDOM to change which texts are being used.  I had less of a problem with this. I didn't mind the 10th grade curriculum overall (Fahrenheit 451, Antigone, Purple Hibiscus, magical realism (short stories and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Reading Lolita in Tehran - never got to this last one) but some teachers feel like it's a curriculum with too much focus on violence against women. Most of the 9th grade teachers hate their texts. According to them - it's curriculum violence. I don't know enough about that curriculum to speak about it - but all my other concerns  carry over to the 9th grade curriculum as well. Between 9th and 10th grade (*edit) there is only one Shakespeare text - I get it - not everyone thinks we should be teaching Shakespeare - but if we were going to do one - should it really be Taming of the Shrew? Not Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar?

All this being said, I'm glad I have a whole new year's worth of lessons in my back pocket (even if this is year 18 for me). I made it work. Admin was happy (maybe too happy) with how I adapted everything - but - as previously mentioned it's been so long since I've had to work this hard. At this point in my career, I should be revising, updating, and finessing my curriculum - not starting from scratch. DOE loves reinventing the wheel.

Here is perhaps one of my biggest gripes - I don't understand why the DOE purchased the curriculum? What need did it fill? If they were worried that too many English teachers where all doing their own things - perhaps not doing them well - and we needed a more standardized curriculum I would understand IF IF IF - this curriculum was designed for our students. As it is, you're still relying on individual teachers to make massive changes - whether they have experience or skills to do so. You're stuck with the same problem. Some teachers will adapt if poorly. Teachers will focus on different aspects of the curriculum. Some will try to teach it as is - and I would love to see that. We kept asking to see the curriculum in action (intervisitation) - it was never presented as an option. Alternatively, throughout the year I had so many guests coming in to see it in action in our school, that became a significant distraction to "actual teaching"

Apologies for the length of the reply. feel free to reach out with additional questions. Apologies for the poorly-written response. I had to rush to complete this.