Middle school students in Indian Prairie District 204’s Project Arrow program are likely to see some changes next year, as the district is mulling some revisions to the program’s middle school English Language Arts curriculum.
Project Arrow is the district’s program for “academically talented students.” It’s offered at the elementary and middle school levels, and is meant to expand educational opportunities for students in the program through “differentiated instruction and learning experiences,” according to the district’s website.
The revisions to the program’s middle school English Language Arts, or ELA, classes were discussed at the district’s school board meeting on Monday, and are expected to come for a final vote in June. They would be implemented starting in the fall.
At the district’s school board meeting on Monday, Barbi Chisholm, the district’s director of middle school curriculum, said work on these revisions began a few school years back. The district initially piloted a different course resource, she said, but found it “wasn’t really meeting the needs of our courses of our teachers and our students.”
Then, this past school year, the district continued work on possible revisions, Chisholm said. It implemented a second pilot using an existing resource, CommonLit 360, and piloted some supplemental resources, as well as worked to finalize the scope and sequence of the course.
Now, for next school year, the district is seeking the board’s approval on new sequencing and scope for the curriculum and the purchase of some additional class texts and a new vocabulary resource.
The sixth-grade Project Arrow ELA course would feature a combination of sixth- and seventh-grade-level CommonLit 360 units, according to a district presentation. The curriculum would also feature a new text, Lois Lowry’s “The Giver.”
The seventh-grade course would include four eighth-grade-level CommonLit 360 units. Students would continue to read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” but the new curriculum would add “Twelve Angry Men” by Reginald Rose.
The district is also looking to have a whole class novel, according to Christine Webber, a district teacher who was part of the seventh-grade pilot, but options are still being discussed. It may be piloted next year, she said, with plans to implement that part of the curriculum during the 2027-28 school year.
The last unit for the year features “research and debate,” Webber said, and the district is planning to use existing book club titles that have been used in past years.
As for the eighth-grade Project Arrow curriculum for ELA, Kristen O’Toole, a district teacher who was part of the eighth-grade pilot, said the eighth-grade curriculum was more of a “refresh” than a revision.
The proposed curriculum change switches the order in which “Animal Farm” by George Orwell and “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare are read, and introduces some more recent nonfiction articles for the portion devoted to “Animal Farm,” to “show that these struggles … are still going on today,” O’Toole said.
The district is also looking to add “Antigone” by Sophocles to the unit on “Hamlet,” O’Toole noted, to help students “see the development of archetypes through classical literature.”
Eighth-graders in the Project Arrow program will continue to read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the district presentation noted.
As part of the changes, the district is seeking the board’s approval to use CommonLit 360, an existing ELA resource the district has, and to implement the three new class texts and a new vocabulary resource, as the district’s existing resources are out of print and include “dated language,” per the district presentation.
That would come at a total cost of $115,000, per the district presentation.
The district is also working on some changes to the standard ELA course for seventh-graders. Chisholm, at the meeting, noted that curriculum work is not just done via the revision process undertaken every few years, but is ongoing.
At the meeting, district teacher Jessica Walsh described how, this past year, some members of the seventh- grade curriculum team piloted a new book club and made some changes to the grade’s other book club.
The way book clubs at D204 work is students choose from a varied list of books related to a unit’s theme, the district presentation noted. Students reading the same text form a “book club” within the classroom, while the class’ teacher provides structure and support.
“The shared reading experience and reading in community is one of the most valuable tools that we have,” Walsh said, adding that the book club format is one way students can “really build a lifelong love of reading.”
Walsh explained that the district — because students’ interests and attention spans are “changing rapidly” — opted to pilot some new titles for the existing seventh-grade book club, and are piloting a new book club for the seventh-grade course’s “Influential Voices” unit, which was added to the curriculum this past school year. The new unit looks at speeches and contains nonfiction texts, Walsh said.
The district initially included 11 texts in the pilot, according to the presentation on Monday, but has narrowed it down to nine texts students can choose from as part of the book club — including things like “I Am Malala” by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb and “Life in Motion” by Misty Copeland.
That means seventh-graders in the standard ELA course will read one whole class novel and participate in two book clubs, the district presentation noted.
The district is looking to purchase five copies of each book per section for the seventh-grade book club, for a total cost of $18,000.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
