Amplify ELA Curriculum for Coronado Middle School

A textbook selection committee, comprised of teachers from Coronado Middle School, reviewed several English Language Arts textbooks at the SD County Office of Education in May 2017.   The committee did an in depth review of Amplify ELA and Study Sync by McGraw Hill.  The committee found that the California Standards based program, Amplify, best aligns with the rigorous instructional program at CMS. The last ELA adoption at CMS was in 2003.

Kathy Cotten, English Department Leader, the CMS English Department and the CMS Special Education Department attended a training in August 2017 to prepare for the pilot which began in January 2018.

The team has found Amplify to be an excellent curriculum choice for CMS because of its rigor, text complexity, standards alignment, engaging activities for writing, vocabulary and grammar, the shared platform that allows teachers to provide real time feedback, and the strong writing skills that students develop. Students have access to a wide variety content which aligns with California English Language Arts Framework and Standards.  

Amplify overview:

Amplify provides rigorous literature and informational text complexity that aligns with California Standards.  Every unit is organized around one or more core texts. The curriculum uses rich media to bring these diverse literary and nonfiction sections to life for all readers, inspiring close reading and evidence-based writing, plus routine opportunities for vocabulary, grammar, and research skill development. Immersive projects called Quests extend students’ understanding and analysis of each unit. Content is available for English Language Learners, scaffolds are embedded throughout to provide differentiation, and enrichment opportunities are available for extension learning.

Students and teachers work on devices connected through a shared platform. Students do all of their   reading, writing, and skills practice assignments essential to the lessons via device, and teachers can see their progress and provide ongoing feedback in real time. Assessments, including embedded progress monitoring, and formative and summative are integrated throughout the units.

The Amplify digital library offers more than 600 classic and contemporary books. The expansive collection includes fiction and nonfiction texts suited to a wide range of reading abilities and interests. The available books represent a diversity of voices, perspectives and subjects from throughout history, offering far-ranging opportunities to learn, explore, imagine and share.

Amplify provides students with multiple writing opportunities throughout each unit. The writing content is scaffolded and supported and incorporates varied writing genres.  Each unit has several writing activities, and the end of unit essay incorporates all of the skills learned throughout the unit.  Amplify also provides writing rubrics, and the automated scoring component tracks data to see growth.

 For more information, please visit  https://www.amplify.com/curriculum/amplifyela

CMS teachers were surveyed in March 2018. Survey feedback is below:

Describe the features of the program that you found to increase growth or support student learning?

• “I feel that Amplify's integrated supports help to foster growth for not only struggling readers but for gifted students as well. Students in need of supports are given appropriate scaffolds to complete their task, while higher performing students are given a more challenging prompt with the same materials.”

• “Repeated practice of skills leading to mastery”

• “Support levels for writing, breaking up tasks resulted in higher level of completion/effort, high quality texts and activities”

• “There is differentiation (advanced and struggling students), chunked writing, frequent writing practice, auto-grading (allows for more teacher time to conference), challenging content with supports”

• “Features of Amplify that supported student learning include the following: written expression, reading comprehension (literature), vocabulary building, student interaction, and the ability to differentiate when necessary.”

• “WRITING: There are many opportunities for writing, and I am have seen much growth in my students' writing this year. Most lessons contain a WRITE card, and students strive to write at least 100 words in 10 minutes. READING COMPREHENSION - The questions that go along with the SOLO are comprehensive and require students to find answers (or make inferences) directly from the text. Students have also been required to annotate text which has helped them to be closer readers. LESSON ORGANIZATION : Lessons are well-organized and curriculum is delivered in small and manageable chunks that make sense to my students; READING SELECTIONS (UNITS): Curriculum and reading passages are interesting to my students and engaging; VOCABULARY APP- students love working on the Vocabulary APP, and it allows them to work at their own pace; RUBRICS and GRADING - Fabulous rubrics that score on conventions, focus, and use of evidence. I have found the gradebook easy to navigate and feel more on top of my students' writing than ever. On AMPLIFY, I am able to score writing with rubrics, give students specific feedback with highlights and annotation notes, and compare my scoring with the automatic score given by AMPLIFY on the WRITE cards.”

• “I strongly agree. Amplify provides the students with rigorous texts that they have been able to understand with class, partner and group activities. In my practice, I have found ways to incorporate engaging discussion based activities when it was not originally provided in the curriculum.”

Additional Feedback

• “Amplify provides a comprehensive and rigorous ELA curriculum in reading comprehension, writing, and grammar. I have supplemented the curriculum with plays and mini art activities to get students off of their computers.”

• “Definitely one of the better curriculum programs I have seen, and we haven't even gotten to do any of the Quests yet; I bet those will be especially fun and engaging. Writing in lessons is great; final essay for the Red Scarf Girl unit wasn't my favorite, but I think we can take the principles and materials from Amplify and tweak them a little bit to meet our needs when it comes to longer form writing”

• “Part of our ELA time has been supplemented with student activities off the computer. Amplify has a strong writing curriculum - the students love it!”

• “This is the writing curriculum that I have been seeking since I began teaching. I have seen much growth in my students' writing with this curriculum. Additionally, the reading selections in the units that I have used have been interesting and engaging for students. Use of the Amplify Anthology book has been a great way for students to be off the screens when we read and to annotate text. Many opportunities for partner and group collaboration have been wonderful as well.”

• “The differentiated instruction features have allowed me to personalize learning in a way that has helped my struggling students tremendously. In addition, my advanced students have been pushed to deepen their understanding of the text by exploring additional resources and answering challenging writing prompts.”

• “Affords students with opportunities for individual, pair and collaborative work”

Total cost for an eight-year adoption of ELA Amplify curriculum digital platform, printed text, grade level novel sets, teacher resources, professional development training and in-class coaching is $99,359.

Amplify is a digital platform, but in order to provide equity we are also requesting class set copies of grade level anthologies and solo workbooks. 

Digital platform

1 digital ELA subscription per student = $105.00 per student X 750 students (250 per grade level)  = $78,750

1 digital ELA and ELD subscription per student = $110.00 per student X 30 students (10 per grade level) = $3300.00

Anthology Texts

$201.40 for set of 25 X 30 (10 per grade level) = $6042.00

 (These are consumables that we will use as class sets and for students to take home, if needed.  Students will not consume this book since this will be a one time purchase.)

Solo Workbook

$89.00 for set of 25 X 30 (10 per grade level) = $2670.00

 (These are consumables that we will use as class sets and for students to take home if needed.  Students will not consume this book since this will be a one-time purchase.)

Novel Sets

Sets of 5 X 28 (Grade 6 classroom set) = $ 907.00 M.C. Higgins the Great

Two novel Sets of 5 X 28 (Grade 7 classroom set) = $ 1694.00 Summer of the Mariposas and Raisin in the Sun 

Sets of 5 X 28 (Grade 8 classroom set) = $ 1058.00 Gris Grimley’s Frankenstein

Teacher Kits and Professional Development:

Cost = $4938.00

 Total cost is $99,359.00