Introduction
For the past fourteen years, I have taught English at the high school level. Within those years, I have taught not only ninth, tenth and twelfth grade literature based courses, but also courses in creative writing, broadcast/journalism, and speech to name a few—whatever the schedule read upon my return at the start of the school year. I have noticed at each level and in each course that though we, the students and I, work collaboratively to meet expected outcomes, often students simply lack the foundational skills to exceed expectations. Though many with a critical eye fixed on education adopt reaching set expectations/standards as meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)1, for me it seems that the terminology celebrates mediocrity. Is "adequate" really enough for our students?
One of the most challenging—and dare I report frustrating—tasks for me as a teacher is finding accurate ways of gauging students' background skill and knowledge when planning for a course. Certainly students should have made significant, documented progress relative to their grade level. As an Advanced Placement instructor, I enter the classroom each year with vim and vigor for sharpening my students' skills in literary analysis, Socratic thinking and dialogue, precision in writing and responsible work ethics that students should have already assimilated in previous English courses…should, the operative word and most frustrating deception. Realistically, students have not done so—or perhaps have poor retention; therefore, I begin each course rambling through what it means to have agreement between subjects and verbs or pronouns and their antecedents. I must introduce such common literary elements as irony and allusion. Realistically, many of the students entering twelfth grade classrooms have had neither adequate exposure to nor academic dialogue surrounding such concepts; hence, the vim and vigor of delving deeper into the aforementioned skills becomes exhausting.
I am certain that I echo the sentiments of every English teacher who maintains a reasonable expectation of his or her students' level of proficiency at any grade level. Within conversations in of my first National Initiative Seminar, I realized that my colleagues and I wrestle with the quandary of how to help students to retain and transfer information. We are keenly aware that even as early as kindergarten, students are introduced to poetic language and devices. Yet, somehow we subsist in a tedious cycle of remediation. As educators, nonetheless, we must meet each student where he or she is and ultimately journey to—and hopefully beyond—expectations by the end of the course. No matter the challenges, this remains our task; nonetheless it prompts an essential question: How does any educator impart years of background material and still meet current performance standards2? A practical answer: The implementation of an effective vertical teaming model.
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