When Jennifer Fuller joined the Lakewood Middle School team in September 2023, there was excitement in the air.
The previous fall, Lakewood Middle School adopted CommonLit 360 and students demonstrated significant student growth on the ensuing state assessment. The number of students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations climbed by 10.5 percentage points. This was a massive improvement for a school that had traditionally lagged behind state averages.
Despite this success, Jennifer had her reservations.
A staunch advocate for her students’ needs, Jennifer had spent the last 22 years designing high-quality educational experiences for her students. Experienced and exceptionally skilled at her craft, Jennifer had seen many programs come and go throughout her time in the classroom. Without a doubt, Jennifer wanted what was best for her students. She just wasn’t convinced that CommonLit 360 was the best.
“My reluctance in the beginning was about giving up a lot of control,” Jennifer admits.
In her former role, Jennifer supplemented her district-provided curriculum by purchasing additional materials online or diligently creating her own resources. Deeply committed to her students’ learning, Jennifer prioritized teaching students the full range of skills needed to be successful. Prior to joining Lakewood’s team, investing time finding supplemental resources was a necessary part of her work. By being asked to rely on CommonLit’s materials, Jennifer worried students wouldn’t receive comprehensive instruction across standards.
When Jennifer first began using CommonLit 360, she taught her students a lesson on theme. She recalls thinking, “My kids aren’t getting this.” Jennifer spoke with her supervisor and shared her plan to reteach theme to her students. Her supervisor advised against this, urging her to trust CommonLit’s method of teaching standards over time. “At first, that did not make sense to me,” Jennifer says.
Despite her reservations, Jennifer listened to her supervisor’s guidance. She made a decision moving forward. “I surrendered and trusted the process.”
Over time, Jennifer’s opinion of the curriculum slowly began to shift. “The aha moment came for me in Unit 2,” Jennifer recalls. In writing, seventh graders are expected to not only cite text evidence, but also explain it. According to Jennifer, “It’s one of the hardest skills for students to do.” So when Jennifer taught CommonLit’s lesson on adding reasoning to writing and “saw it start to click,” she wasn’t the only one pleasantly surprised. Her students were, too.
A rigorous and expertly-crafted curriculum
As Jennifer continued to teach CommonLit 360, she continued to be impressed with the curriculum’s intentional design. She saw that skill practice was thoughtfully spiraled within and across units.
A self-identified “patterns person,” Jennifer observed the consistent, standards-aligned language used for student questions. This reliable language, paired with repeated opportunities to practice challenging skills, was critical for Jennifer. “You have to remember that kids aren’t going to get it right the first time,” she explains. Instead of teaching skills just once in isolation, Jennifer says, “CommonLit puts everything in there, and then it keeps coming through. This allowed me to trust you more.”
CommonLit 360’s engaging texts, targeted questions, and skills assessments provided Jennifer’s students with a key element of impactful learning: rigor. “We want to make sure we’re providing things our students can step up and challenge themselves to,” Jennifer explains. This has been especially true for students in a post-pandemic era. “They lost that time,” she says, “so we’re still trying to push them and make up for the gaps that they lost.”
After using CommonLit 360 for a year, Jennifer is seeing some of these gaps begin to close for her seventh graders. “I have seen tremendous growth in their writing abilities,” she reflects. “It’s incredible growth that I’ve seen.”
An engaging and student-centered curriculum
Jennifer also loves how CommonLit 360 places students at the center of their learning. “It’s a very culturally diverse curriculum. It gives students a lot of opportunities to have classroom discussions and opens their minds to critical thinking.”
Each CommonLit 360 unit revolves around an engaging essential question. Over the course of several weeks, students explore this question in depth through integrated reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion lessons. These lessons build toward a Culminating Task, an opportunity for students to synthesize their learning and demonstrate their understanding.
CommonLit 360 explicitly breaks down concepts students may not have learned previously, like the essential listening and speaking skills needed for fruitful conversation with peers. Collaborative discussions amplify student voice and for Jennifer, play a key role in meaningful learning. “This is their learning,” she states. “They have to feel like they are driving the classroom.”
The curriculum lets students take the wheel. Students participate in interactive Related Media Explorations, opportunities to explore videos, photos, and other authentic multimedia sources. These explorations pique student interest, build knowledge, and deepen understanding. “With this generation, we want to make sure they’re getting those critical thinking skills,” Jennifer says, “that ability to think, analyze, and then explain. Those are skills these students are going to take with them for the rest of their lives.”
Flexible, streamlined materials that save teachers’ time
Over time, Jennifer observed how CommonLit 360 blends together a clearly-defined structure with the flexibility needed to meet diverse student needs. Describing well-managed classrooms conducive to learning, Jennifer says, “Students have to understand the expectation. CommonLit lessons set the expectation.”
Expectations are also set for teachers. From research units to novel studies, CommonLit’s user-friendly lessons include thoughtfully-designed student materials, comprehensive teacher lesson plans, and editable slide decks. “I didn’t have to buy or make any resources,” Jennifer says. “It really is all there.”
These resources have also simplified the way Jennifer differentiates her instruction. Each unit houses additional materials, including supplemental unit-aligned texts, alternative writing tasks, and resources to facilitate book clubs and independent reading. Educators can trust that the materials provided are high-quality: CommonLit 360 received a top rating from EdReports.
“CommonLit does a really good job of providing supplemental material,” Jennifer says. “My kids have all that they could possibly need.”
Jennifer’s trust in CommonLit has come a long way since the day she first set foot in Lakewood Middle School. “A shift happened, but not until I surrendered control,” Jennifer explains. “Once I surrendered and trusted the process, that’s when it all started to click.”
So where does her trust in CommonLit 360 stand now?
“I would absolutely recommend it,” Jennifer says. “I know that my students are getting the best possible education while I’m using this program.”
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