Reimagining Secondary Literacy: The Humanities Accelerator Course
Reimagining Secondary Literacy: The Humanities Accelerator Course
The Humanities Accelerator Course (HAC) is an approach to secondary literacy instruction that seeks to respond to the following problem statement:
“How might we provide a “hard reset” that radically overhauls the 6th- and 9th-grade experience for students so they themselves are centered in their learning? How can we best incorporate culturally responsive pedagogies and research based literacy practices to accelerate the capacities of all students—particularly those who find themselves behind (and far behind) in literacy?”
We propose a new way to do 6th and 9th grades with the development of a one-year humanities course aimed at radically overhauling how students experience their entry into middle and high school. It is not a remedial model. It is an acceleration model that offers students a high-quality course anchored in student identity and in developing community, accelerating literacy, and honing criticality. The model is centered on improving the experience and outcomes for students who haven’t yet had the opportunity to be literate at grade level. This centering of those students most marginalized is because we know if their experience and outcomes improve, so will everyone else’s.
There are three stark differences from traditional approaches to ELA instruction offered by the Humanities Accelerator Course (HAC) model:
HAC’s intentional, equity-focused structure. As a course for everybody, not just a subset of the school population, HAC classes cannot be segregated by any form of tracking.
HAC’s focus on four tenets: identity, community, literacy, and criticality. The HAC model is designed around a robust set of literacy accelerators that center on honoring student identity and extending it to include being critical members of society. This work is embedded in humanities coursework matched to local and state standards for social studies and English coursework, and is chosen to maximize engagement, reflect cultural relevance, and allow elements of student choice and individualization. Foundational skills support, when needed, will be embedded into these elements rather than pulling students out.
HAC’s 3 period class structure: HAC takes advantage of three periods in order to address the 4 tenets adequately and allow students the time and support they need in order to achieve grade-level work.
As part of this introduction to HAC, we’ve included our proposal for making a shift to your secondary literacy model, the tenets that serve as a foundation for course design along with a unit analysis tool to plan for them, a framework to support a key part of the model called Third Period, and notes on implementation. Additionally, we have designed instructional resources that are excerpted from the Launch Module. Explore these resources and read more about HAC below.
Anchor Resources
The Humanities Accelerator Course Model Proposal
Overview of the HAC model including structure, design, instructional content, enabling conditions, and research base.
The Humanities Accelerator Course (HAC) Launch Module is designed to introduce students to the course goals, structure, and the four core tenets — identity, community, literacy, and criticality — to build a strong learning community with their peers.
This resource includes a reading passage, “Proposal: The Humanities Accelerator Course, Addressing the Needs of Secondary Students, around which students will engage in analysis and discussion about the text. Suggestions for instructional moves are offered throughout the text and task sequence.
This task is intended to support the tenets of identity, literacy, and community by creating an opportunity for both the teacher(s) and students to explore, research, and ultimately present to the class a short autobiography about themselves.
The task consists of three main phases:
Explore: Students engage in Facing History’s Identity & Storytelling text set. Their work during this portion can and should contribute to the creation of their autobiography.
Research: Students learn and use research practices and strategies to highlight and deepen their understanding of themselves in relation to specific focus areas: Place, Family & Culture, News & Events, Learner Self/Reader Self, All About You, and Interest & Hobbies. This part of the autobiography task is meant to be driven by student choice within those focus areas.
Present: Students present their autobiographies to the class. It is expected that all students participate, though the format of their presentation will vary depending on how they decide to express their work. Students may choose from a menu of options for presenting or come up with their own idea.
This culturally relevant text set focuses on building student understanding of the limbic system in the brain and how it’s connected to learning in service of students developing new ideas about themselves as learners. While designed for grades 6-9, you may choose to adapt it for different grade levels.
Details about this text set:
Grade Level Recommendation: Grades 6-9
Key Focus Areas for Design: Identity
Topic: Expanding students’ understanding of the limbic system in the brain and how it’s connected to learning
Curriculum Connection: This text set can be done as is, but is also a part of the Launch Module in the Humanities Accelerator Course
Context/rationale/reflections: This multimodal text set first supports students’ knowledge building about the limbic brain and learning from a scientific perspective. Through art, music and poetry, students are encouraged to extend their thinking about the brain. An additional goal is for students to self-reflect on their own brains and identities as learners.
Close reading is a method of reading and analyzing text that allows students to deeply engage with text to better understand its meaning and significance. This resource is designed to guide students through understanding the process of identifying the parts of the brain and the functions that support effective reading. Included is a suggested daily structure which offers:
Flexibility to meet customized needs of your classroom
Sequenced Close-Reading questions to build knowledge and understanding
Opportunities for students to examine their own development as readers
Strategies to support shared learning in a classroom community
