SpringBoard is not the death of literature

The other day one of my clever speech and debate students won a mock debate about which was better: Heavenly or Mammoth. He did this by defining "Mammoth" as a noun depicting a large, hairy, extinct beast and "Heavenly" as an adjective describing a perfect place inhabited by angels. After I finally stopped laughing, I realized that I've seen this strategy before.

At the last school board meeting and in this newspaper, the debate about SpringBoard has been defined by the fallacy that the SpringBoard curriculum will be the death of literature and academic rigor in Douglas County schools. That's nothing but a cheap debate trick used to distract attention from the issue at hand. In reality, SpringBoard increases both rigor and consistency in English classes and sets no limits on the number of novels an individual teacher can assign.

The textbook we used prior to SpringBoard, the one some teachers would like to return to, has no novel units. None. Many teachers, myself included, supplemented our instruction with novels and designed our own units. Unfortunately, this led to some inconsistent practices.

One of the practices that fell into favor at my school was having students listen to entire audiobooks in class as they read along in their own copies and filled out study guides. It would take the majority of class time for about six to eight weeks to complete a novel. Students were all forced to read the same teacher-selected novel no matter what their ability or interest level. This is the kind of reading instruction that Kelly Gallagher refers to in his book "Readicide" when he argues that "American schools are actively (though unwittingly) furthering the decline of reading." Not only is sitting at a desk and listening to an audiobook not rigorous and not research-based, it's not really very engaging."

I'm not pointing fingers. I've been there, wiping the drool off of desktops from my own students who didn't seem as entranced by "To Kill a Mockingbird" as I was after 12 hours of audiotape. In our defense, until SpringBoard, English teachers in this district weren't given much guidance on how and what to teach. Some classes read many novels, some read none. Some did grammar instruction all year; some not at all. Many students watched multiple movies in their entirety with no purpose other than as a reward for reading the book. English classes had the competencies in common, but that was about it.

SpringBoard was brought to Douglas County by the Strategic Plan Committee, made up of school board members, parents, teachers, and administrators. They wanted more rigor and consistency in the English curriculum, and they found it in a program that not only models how to effectively teach a novel, but also incorporates college readiness and Advanced Placement strategies into every English class.

With SpringBoard, no matter who your child has for ninth grade English, that teacher will have the support and materials to teach "To Kill a Mockingbird" with active participation. Your child's education will include the 21st century critical thinking and collaboration skills that are emphasized in the forthcoming national standards. All ninth grade students will memorize and perform a scene from "Romeo and Juliet" and write literary analysis and synthesis essays similar to those on the Advanced Placement tests. They will also develop the financial and media literacy skills that many students (and adults) desperately need to prosper in today's world.

Don't believe the hype that SpringBoard is replacing or reducing quality literature. That is nothing but a large, hairy, extinct beast. My ninth-graders read 10 required works of literature this year, including Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Homer's "Odyssey," in addition to many more elective and self-selected novels. We just didn't read them all out loud in class.

So what is the debate about? Some teachers are angry that they didn't choose SpringBoard. (It may come as a surprise to people who work in the private sector that teachers don't like being told how to do their job.) Others don't want to change what they believe has been working just fine all along. (More than 30 percent of our high school students who require competency remediation in summer school probably disagree.)

Finally, some teachers fear the increased accountability that comes with having a common curriculum for all English classes. While SpringBoard is not a scripted program, it is structured, and teachers can't just teach whatever they want however they want anymore. Ultimately, that's the best thing for our children: they shouldn't have to roll the dice with each year's class schedule to find out what they will or won't learn. Like mortgage companies and offshore oil drilling, English teachers might have to start getting used to a little more regulation for the greater good.

Your child's school may not be a perfect place inhabited by angels, but we should all keep working to make it better.

Susan Van Doren is an English teacher at Carson Valley Middle School.