A Recipe
for Producing the Reading and Writing
Content Standards and Benchmarks
for Texas
by Nancy C. Jordan
Take eight adult education professionals from various Texas programs,
three years of intense meetings, two rounds of field testing plus careful
fine-tuning. What do you get? The Texas Adult Education
Content Standards and Benchmarks for reading and writing. Working on the standards project
was one of the most stressful and rewarding opportunities that I have
participated in during my thirty years in adult education.
How often does an educator have the opportunity to affect the skills
that will be taught in programs throughout the whole state? In a state
as large as Texas, where the student needs vary greatly from program
to program, trying to blend the factors that each writing team member
felt was important based on their programs, educational background, and
personal feelings was a challenge. Each of the three teams was provided
a knowledgeable consultant (in our case two different ones over the life
of the project) and other resources by the state. Texas LEARNS provided
clarification at every step of the way. We studied examples from many
different states that had tackled a similar task as ours. It was to be
expected that each of us would find an example that seemed to best fit
our personal expectations -- but not necessarily those of other members
The longer we read, compared and debated, the clearer it became that
the Equipped for the Future (EFF) content standards met the criteria
of research-based components that would enable us to develop benchmarks
which would benefit our students in all areas of their lives. One major
hurdle down, but we still needed to choose the appropriate components,
benchmarks, examples and the proficient performance examples. We spent
so much time making initial decisions that we felt additional pressure
to accomplish our assigned task in both reading and writing. We did pick
up speed as we moved along.
Initially, we were asked to try to incorporate our reading and writing
benchmarks with the ESL Read
with Understanding and the ESL Convey Ideas
in Writing standards. This seemed to be a monumental task in the time
provided for the two teams to coordinate their philosophies after having
worked independently through most of the process. This is the reason,
we went from five standards to seven (three for ABE/ASE and four for
ESL). These were some of the stresses we experienced, but oh the pride
we feel in producing documents that will assist Texas adult education
teachers in providing well-balanced skill instruction to our students!
The reading/writing team members varied greatly in educational backgrounds,
positions, geographic locations and program organization. Very few of
us knew each other before our team was formed. One bonus was the chance
to work with new people with different ideas, but this led to some spirited
discussions. We spent what seemed like hours debating which skills to
include, how to word each benchmark, what examples to use and where to
place them. We resolved these issues by extensive discussion, checking
resources and relying on our advisors. Some of our initial problems seemed
to stem from a difference in our understanding of what standards and
benchmarks were and were not. We also lacked a common understanding of
various terms. Here again, the advisors and reference materials provided
by the project helped us come to consensus. I feel we often struggled
with what we were to do and had to pull back from writing curriculum.
Curriculum deals with materials and teaching strategies to deliver the
instruction necessary to reach the standards and benchmarks. The benchmarks
help teachers make sure that there are no skill gaps in the instruction
they provide. Curriculum writing is a task for another time and group.
Looking back on this journey, would I begin it again? Yes, the rewards
far outweigh the challenges.
About the Author
Nancy Jordan spent 39 years as a classroom teacher and reading specialist
for Northside ISD in San Antonio. She had the opportunity to become
a New Jersey Writing Project trainer. She has worked as an adult education
teacher and supervisor since the early seventies.
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