Odell Education
Texas High School Literacy Program

Welcome

Odell Education is working closely with the Texas Education Agency to develop an innovative and free TEKS-aligned High School Literacy Program created specifically for Texas students and educators. The TEKS-aligned program features web-based platforms for both students and educators and is designed to support seamless learning in a variety of contexts, for the 2020-2021 school year and beyond.

The Odell Education Texas High School Literacy Program inspires creativity, builds knowledge, and enhances skills students possess through student-centered and student-led analyses of robust texts and topics. Our high-quality instructional units empower students to pose questions, inquire deeply, reflect, and evolve as independent thinkers and engaged participants in a learning community. We firmly root literacy in texts and ideas: students explore texts worth reading and ideas worth considering.

TEKS and ELPS Aligned

Instruction and assessment in the Odell Education Texas High School Literacy Program supports student success in the unique context of Texas. Students participate in dynamic activities centered on rich texts and topics as they develop TEKS-aligned literacy skills, habits, and knowledge that will allow them to succeed wherever their life path may lead. Educators are provided with the tools they need to support and monitor student development on their journeys. All units in the curriculum include integrated formative and summative assessments.

Remote Learning

The program provides detailed guidance and tools to support educators as they adapt lessons to remote- or virtual-learning contexts. The guidance and tools provided support Texas educators and families in fostering and enhancing classroom community and collaboration in both virtual and in-person environments.

REMOTE LEARNING OVERVIEW

Customizable Supports for All Learners

The program is intentionally designed to help Texas educators adapt to the unique needs and interests of their students and classrooms.

A suite of integrated and optional activities and supports provides flexibility for students who have demonstrated varying levels of mastery so that students are primed to succeed in the rigorous curriculum. Student-support materials, such as graphic organizers, question sets, and vocabulary lists, are designed specifically for educators and students to use in flexible ways.

SUPPORTING ALL STUDENTS OVERVIEW

Sample Materials

ACADEMIC DISCUSSION REFERENCE GUIDE

FORMING EVIDENCE-BASED CLAIMS TOOL

TEXT-THEME NOTE-TAKING TOOL

Key Features

A Learning Community

Students who use the program establish and expand their learning community—a group of students sharing a common learning experience, learning new perspectives, and contributing their own experiences. Working in their learning community, students analyze and discuss complex ideas. Each student builds and expresses their own knowledge of texts and topics while acknowledging and considering the perspectives of their peers. Throughout the year, students work in research teams and participate in group and class discussions, establishing a culture of collaboration and discovery.

Knowledge

Throughout the program, students explore a wide variety of classic and contemporary authors and texts in order to build knowledge about literacy skills and content that is important for high school students, preparing them to thrive in a world of ideas and expression.

Students build knowledge by investigating a topic or anchor text through organized text sets in each unit. Text sets guide and focus student learning and knowledge development by examining a diverse body of authors, perspectives, and genres. While students develop strands of knowledge within units, they also extend their understanding across units—within a single year and across all four years of high school.

Inquiry & Agency

The program emphasizes active learning through inquiry and the vital role inquiry plays in preparing students for college, workforce training, civic participation in a democratic society, and their self-actualized lives. Students investigate topics and texts through recursive and iterative cycles of inquiry, in which they work in learning communities to explore significant issues, refine research questions, find and assess sources for relevance and credibility, and present their research in various forms.

Individual and collective agency is integral to the program. Students frequently choose not only their research interests but also how they will express their learning. In the Foundation Units, for example, students work in teams on specific subtopics and decide how to best present their research findings. Students might present their research to their classmates TED Talk–style or through an interactive webpage that organizes findings both as text and as graphic displays.

PROGRAM SHORT GUIDE

ODELL EDUCATION