Structures for Success
All students in Des Moines Public Schools English/language arts classes have access to rigorous curricular content and standards as part of their core instruction. Sometimes, students need additional scaffolds and supports in order to reach those grade-level standards. To aid teachers in helping students to reach their learning goals, the following resources provide additional learning targets and variant assessment materials to better suit the needs of our students.
The Vertical Articulation Guide
The document linked below provides a sweeping vertical look at the 19 reading standards taught in DMPS secondary ELA classrooms.
English Language Proficiency Text Complexity Scales
For students at various levels of English-language acquisition in our sheltered ELL English I or ELL English II courses, a variant scale for the Comprehending Text topic is used. That text is located below.
Level 4 Planning Templates
All students should receive the cognitively complex instruction and experience we collectively refer to as Level 4 in SRG. The planning tools at the link below can be helpful in planning and executing learning that reaches beyond analysis and towards knowledge utilization.
Lexile-Adjusted Tiered Assessments
Inside the assessment folder for each course (ELA6, ELA7, ELA8, English I, English II, and English III) is a folder called "Lexile-Adjusted Assessments" that contains variations on the common tiered assessments administered in those courses. These assessments vary the complexity of the text passages on the assessment to better enable teachers to diagnose whether breakdowns in performance are related to text complexity or to mastery of the skills being measured.
You can ALSO get to these assessments by clicking the button below and then typing the phrase "Lexile-Adjusted" in the search bar that appears under the big, bold SECONDARY LITERACY header (as seen in this picture)