Planned Design and Curricular Messiness in a Seventh-Grade English Classroom

Justin, seventh-grade teacher As English language arts (ELA) teachers, we are often called upon to create curriculum maps, unit plans, lesson plans, and formative and summative assessments-often in advance of meeting our students at the start of the academic year. [...]teaching is a creative process that requires teachers to shape curriculum, select learning objectives, and make pedagogical moves designed to engage students in learning. [...]students engaged in a whole-class study of Brian Selznick's (2015) The Marvels. The teacher sets the frame for learning, but students interact (or, from our perspective, transact) with the teacher's learning designs, taking ownership of their knowledge construction. [...]student enactment of curriculum plans does not always match the design intent of the teacher.