ELA Shifts in Curriculum


​Below is a summary of the key shifts in instruction for the 2011 MA ELA Frameworks.
Shift 1:  
​Increase Reading
​of Informational Text
​Classrooms are places where students access the world--science, social studies, the arts and literature--through informational and literary text.  In elementary, at least 50% of what students read is information; in middle school it is 55%; and by the end of high school, it is 70%.

Increasing the amount of informational text students read K-12 will prepare them to read college and career-ready texts.
Shift 2:  Text Complexity
In order to prepare students for the complexity of college and career-ready texts, each grade level requires growth in text complexity.  Students read the central, grade-appropriate text around which instruction is centered.  Teachers create more time in the curriculum for close and careful reading and provide appropriate and necessary supports to make the central text accessible to students reading below grade level.
Shift 3:  Academic Vocabulary
Students constantly build the vocabulary they need to be able to access grade-level complex texts.  By focusing strategically on comprehension of pivotal and common found words (such as "discourse," "generation," "theory," and "principled") teachers constantly build students' ability to access more complex texts across the content areas.
Shift 4:  Text-Based Answers
Students have rich and rigorous conversations which are dependent on students reading a central text.  Teachers ensure classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text and that students develop habits for making evidentiary arguments based on the text both in conversation as well as in writing, to assess their comprehension of a text.
Shift 5:  Increase Writing From Sources
Writing instruction emphasizes the use of evidence to inform or to make an argument; it includes short, focused research projects K-12.  Students K-12 develop college and career-ready skills through written arguments that respond to the ideas, events, facts, and arguments presented in the texts they listen to and read.
Shift 6:
 Literacy Instruction in all Content Areas
Content-area teachers emphasize reading and writing in their planning and instruction for teaching the content.   Students learn through reading domain-specific texts in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects and by writing informative/explanatory and argumentative pieces.