Haskdlinn a Akureyri Runar Sigbérsson. (2020). Developing an implemented curriculum of literacy. [A. Simpson, F. Pomerantz, D. Kaufman og S. Ellis (ritstjérar), Developing habits of noticing in literacy and language classrooms (bls. 116-133). New York: Routledge. Upplisingar um héfundarétt Lesendur eru éminntir ad um verk betta gilda reglur héfundalaga, Utan bess sem héfundalag og samningur leyfishafa vid Fjélis heimilar er ekki leyfilegt a6 fiélfalda pad frekar, vardvelta e6a dreifa an sambykkis rétthafa verksins. Ennfremur er dheimilt a6 breyta verkinu & nokkurn hat bessi rafrana gerd verksins er gerd samkvaemt samningi vid Fiélis og er ‘eingéngu til nota fyrir nemendur og kennara éfangans NPN1510 4 bessu misseri.7 DEVELOPING AN IMPLEMENTED CURRICULUM OF LITERACY Contrasting approaches to policy and practice Ruinar Sigbérsson Introduction ‘Over the las ewo decades or s0, certain commonalities regarding goals and emphases have been evident in the development of national curricula across many parts of the English-speaking world Sinnema & Aitken, 2013). Goals are future focused, seen as a lever for improvement in the service of equity targets. In ter ‘outcomes of education are defined 2s competences and key compe ‘on values, progressive pedagogies, student agency, partnerships and seduced prescrip ‘ion. Internationally there is aso heavy emphasis on inclusive education (UNESCO, ‘nd, Arguably, chese trends call for teachers to strengthen their position as agents of juraged or restricted ~ by contextual and socal policies Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2013). is to discuss how contextual and social factors and the agency of teachers to develop an inchasive lit professional noticing is prominent. Building on an Icelandic cae the chapter examines how policy-informed initiatives can shape what happens in classrooms by empowering te undermining such a seance by restricting ands for measurable learning outcomes on ‘The current Icelandic national curriculum follows a similar tend ro what is out lined here. Inline with international definitions (Deakin Crick, 2008; Sinnema & ‘An implemented curriculum of titeracy 197 lefines competence asthe ability and will 0 utilise knowledge and al aspects suchas esponsibili cespect and monliy;metacognition, critical thinking and reflection; sf-confidence and independence; and the silty ta communica: through channels (Ministry of Education Science and Culture, 2012). ‘The curriculum farther identifies five key competences relating to: | expresion and communication, 2 creative thinking, 3 working independently and cooperasvey, 4 responsible handing of lnowledge and information and5 responsibilty fr own edu- ‘ation and stipulates sc fundamental pillars of education to inform all teaching and learning in school. They are literacy, 2 education towards sustainabiiy, 3 health and welfie, 4 democracy and human rights, 5 equality, and 6 creativity. Another prominent fearure of Ielandic education policy ~ alo following an invernatonal ‘was highly prescriptive and char- acterived by an altogether different international trend of standardised outcomes of ‘education, high-stakes national testing and accountability as means of improvement the other hand, revolving around reading compre period 2000 eo 24 incceated gender difference in favour of girls in the same period. The concerns raised in wake of the 2012 PISA results culminated in a White Paper on Eaucational Reform published by the Ministry of Education, Science ‘ution, the Directorate of Education (DE; Directorate of Education, n.d). ‘There is an explicit tension between, ceptions of literacy in the national riculum for literacy that is esponsive to students’ needs, their cultural and social‘HES kunar Sighorsson capital and their personal and social identity (Elis & Smith, 2017). The latter has ‘more o less turned into setting yearly ssandards for reading proficiency, by writing standardised tests for schools and aggregating a statistical data bank from the test results to form a baseline for comparison for individual schools and students, ‘The chapter examines ths tension through the theoretical lens of asthe key co developing an implemented curriculum in which prof the chapter draws on findings from a study of an Icelandic development project called Beginning Literacy (BL) as an example of en ‘with the development of such an impleme: analysed through a discourse analysis of documents related tot ‘mentioned. This section borrows its heading from a paper by ‘educational reform, with an ‘international rankings and an economic and instrumentalist epproach to educa- sion”. The chapter closes with a discussion and conclading remarks ted curriculum, teachers’ agency of noticing ‘As early a5 1975 Lawrence Stenhouse identified ewo rather different curriculum per= spectives:on the one hand the cus fon the other hand the curriculum as reality in schools and recently Thijs and van den Aker (2009) have proposed a model sisting of three level: the intended, the implemented and the attained curriculum. ‘The three levels are farther split up into sx sub-levels Table 7.1. Intentions as specified in euricalum documents Implemented Perceived (Curriculum as interpreted by teachers Opentionst ‘Actual proces of teaching and learning = 2 collborative space of interaction Learning experiences as perceived by lessness Learned Learning outcomes and learner atinment $$$ earn ecormes end esratey atsimment_ Share Adaped Fem Thi & wan den Ak, 2008,» 10 Auained Experienil ‘An implemented curriculum of teracy 119 The intended curriculum refers to che ideals or visions underlying the cur- siculum and the formal or published curriculum documents, The implemented of teaching and learning ‘iculumn, thei profes and intentions, their content and pedagogical knowledge (Shulman, if intentions of the curriculum 9 bear in ‘What happens within the implemented learning experiences and ouscomes that ultimate goal of everything that hap- ‘pens within the implemented curriculum is to make a difference to the attained ‘carriculum of students. In his analysis of the imp: ing and learning in Yeaes 7—1 zndic national testing system on teach~ responses tothe teaching, to which the teacher has no di less constantly needs to notice, interpret and respond to wi and actions ‘The flexible nature of competence based curricula requires a shift inthe p sional orientation of teachers towards hi curriculum. Priestley et al. (2013) defi act and respond to problematic situations. They also highlight that agency is not something tat pope haw, nhere: i invidunl orhadd ve fo them bt ive and exert 35 a result of their engagems they work. An important element of that agency isthe outcome of an interplay of three dimensions: nal capacity of teachers that esuls fom thei life histories, expe- riences and identity, acquiced through their education and professional life; second, teachers’ future visions and intentions and the capability for short- and long-term ir determination to take actions in the present to shape The construct of teachers’ profesional noticing originates fom mathematics ‘education Shetin, Jacobs, & Philipp, 2011) bur has also been applied to liveracy domain-specific, entwined knowledge and conceptions of the subject matter and the pedagogical resoning and planning chat informs teaching. Most definitions highlight professional noticing as 2 braid of thee interwoven actvies 1 attending120. Rinar Sighérsson wudents learning and their immediate responses to teaching, 2 rea- loterpreting what was noticed and 3 deciding and implementing an appropriate sponse. The response can be seen in terms of what is responded to, howe the response is formed and who actively participate in the response (Ballock. lements by seeing reasoning and int ps. Nevertheles, they agree with me highly ineerreated as an integral pa planning, tsk design and anticipation of student’ 2017) 35 well a in lesion enacement in which teachers make in-the- processes of noticing ablity,3 adaptive teaching and 4 learning fom ice in which dialogue and participation support teacher and student learning fo make a difference co students’ attained curriculum. hat professional noticing is a complex skill ithout professional development and that xt noticing differ considerably (Ross & £47 pre-service teachers, Bllock eta. (2018) found, for example, that only 13 of the participants effciently noticed and responded with, appropriate teaching strategies to a narrative text from a second-grade student, This development schoo! is ‘knowledge is insufficient for effective practice” (p. 66) and needs to be extended ‘an implemented curriculum of eracy 12 ‘with pedagogical learning cat empowers teaches 10 nodce the deep fears of iting and respond to them with pedagogical strategies that address the 1 cognitive pital and personal-social identity. The on childzen’s literacy attainment. Jacobs et al. (2010) make similar claims based on their in all three domains of profesional not ‘ain professional noticing abies when the planned profesional development was ‘extended beyond two years and synchronised with leadership activities. Beginning Literacy Since 2006 around 80 Icelandic primary schools have implemented a development ment with texts to create meaning and understanding. Furthermore, BBL views literacy as based on past experience and background knowledge, sociocul- teaching to the children’s needs (igbOrison. isin acontance with the conceptions behind concepts not wed in the theoretical bae of the method.122 Rar Sigbsrsson A significant characteristic of BL is the integration of iss Heracy curriculum leader is appointed in each participating school to oversee the implementation in. ‘lose collaboration with a consultant from the CSD, During the implementation period, teachers and development leaders attend courses and workshops and are provided with a variety of mater participating schools. ‘An analysis of the implementation protocol of the BL and workshop materials sevealed chat overall it was responsive to definitions of professional development 4 2 job-embedded, planned learning (Gaytan & McEwen, 201 ‘They also network with colleagues from other ‘An analysis of implementation consultants, teachers, development leaders and head teachers corroborated is built Sigbérsson & Marinésson, 2017). Ia reflects the findings and conclusions of re (2018), Elis and Smith needed, for example, those proposed by Gaytan and McEwen and Guskey (2014), The study of BL to implement existing Icelandic education policy, 2 the lit- racy teaching and lecrning taking place in BL schools, the implementation ofthe clas and their parents. The stadents were the help of the class teacher to represent ties and, where possible, non-native speakers of Icelandic. Lesson plans were also An implemented cuticular of eracy 123 analysed. Two researchers observed literacy lesions in each class for one week, one attending to the actions of the teacher and the second observing the learning of the fous pupils. Farchermore individual interviews addressing professional develop ‘ment were conducted with the principal and development leader of each school as ‘wellas a focus group interview with teachers. Following the cae studies, question naire sarveys were sent to class teachers, principals, development leaders and parents in 68 BL schools. ‘The data were analysed in several stages. Fist, data fom each case study were analysed and findings reported to the school. Second, a preliminary analysis of the Questionnaire was made and presented in three sourcebooks, one for each main group of respondents: teachers and development leaders, principals and parents. AS final stage a cros-cae analysis ofthe qualitative data was compared and connected to the questionnaire data to generate findings, discussions and conclusions for the aspects of the four research strands Gigbérwson & Marinésson, 2017) Developing the implemented curriculum of beginning literacy “This section gives an insight into the implemented curriculum of BL as colaborative space of ineraction berween studens and teachers Gibson & Ros, 2016:SigSes0n, 2008b) trough «narrative based on the castoom observations ané interviews from. the cae studies, The spotlight ison three issues commonly asiociated with profes ‘ional noticing? adaptive teaching, scaffolding and cooperative learning ‘Adaptive teaching In BL the in moving pupil veacher new vocabulary and encourages stdens to discus, predict and deaw conclusions to deepen their understanding and establish a common experience. In the second phase scadens grapple with the technical aspecsofiteracysuch as phonetic aware nest, decoding, word recognition and spelling, The lering activites are derived from the text introduced in phase one. In phase thre the focus is on the recon struction of meaning Pupils are encouraged to use the vocabulary and reading sills they have learned to express their own ideas: compose thei own sores, plys or poems; draw coneept maps or interpret a vext by mean of érawing (Eggert, 2009; Guemmundsi6nir & Haralisd6eis, 2017). This azangerent enables ceachers to organise student’ lexning within a common famework of topics and asks, ‘where individal students can work on asignments and learning activites adapted in ways to thee leaning needs and interests and scaffolded by the teacher or peers jon and balance among the aspects of literacy are achieved by ming through a sequence of three phases. Inthe frst phase the thentic text to the students. He/she introduces and explains revealed that teachers did not commonly use pedagogical terms such as diversity124 Rinar Sighéesson teraction of noticing and responding (Elis & Smith, 2017: Gibson & Ross, 2016; Jacobs et a., 2010; Philipp etal, 2017}: [have been in this for so long that T usually have something of my head that I can resort toon the spur of the moment. uick to notice and respond if see that a task is too demanding... and ifyou hhave a good plan you are also quicker to find out haw to respond, ‘The observations and interviews gave a more detailed picture of how teachers ‘sed important features of noticing to adap their teaching of different aspects of literacy. A common arrangement during the second and third teaching phase was to move stadents between parallel tions’ where each station had a specific activity. This arangement opened a number of possibilities for adapting the level of difficulty and time spent on acti different needs of sudenss. Some activites cooperation, whereas others could be worked on individually or with informal collaboration, In an observation in 2 Year 2 class, the seudents got a pamphiee with a description of all the work station activities and could decide for thernselves where 20 proficiencies were accommodated by giving them the opportunity to com slfferent number of activities and spend a different amount of time on each task In an interview the teachers sai they discreedy controlled thatthe students chose interdependent cooperatio: teachers would normally , notice ‘where support was needed or respond to students" requests this required them to 1e needs of the children, adj longer necessary. This i In phase three, during which the focus was on writing and other ways of reconstructing meaning, the teachers were generally adept in supporting students’ activities, Students generally got clear instructions before starting writing astign- ‘ments, and while they were working the teachers walked around to give feedback attention to the deep structure of writing sand preparation before the writing started but tion during the writing process which seemed aspects such 2s spelling, This reflects che findings ‘An implemented custiculim of feracy 125 to lewers were allowed to draw a picture ‘of writing a composition, Similar strategies were ako seen when students worked in pairs on a composition built on pictures, which they had to rearrange to make a narrative. To accommodate differ- those students could have been given moze challenging tasks, ed t those teachers lack of sills For noticing and responding to the level of competence of those students. Scatfoiding Scaffolding is an important aspect of professional noticing in which teachers antic= pate students’ prior knowledge and experience, and their consequent needs for demonstration, and plan the nature of tasks and level of guidance according to their zone of proximal development. A number of examples of effective scaffolding ‘were mentioned in interviews and seen in observations when teachers gave instruc tions about how to work on assignments and were seen noticing and responding to seadents’ need for suppor: in the course of teaching. On a number of occasions 1" o desceibe teachers’ feedback oF In phase three, for instance, a number of examples of skilful scaffolding of sw dents’ writing were observed, based on the teachers’ anticipation of what kind of demonstration the children needed and noticing of their progress while moving around to monitor their work. On one occasion a Year | teacher demonstrated to a student how to write a word, chen asked her to wack the word with a pencil and finally w write it on hee own. Another Year 1 teacher demonstrated to hes class how a person could be described and simultaneously wrote prompts on the board, ‘To fallow this up the children could use the teachers’ prompts to guide their own descriptions. As the teacher did this forthe whole clas, the observer, however, noted126. RanarSigpérsson doubts as to whether the tracherS ‘level of scaffolding’ made the asignment too for the most confident students, whose ability, as a consequence, was not suf challenged, fi ‘A third example was when a Year 2 teacher read a story to the class about a boy who went on a camping holiday and simultaneously prompted a discussion among the children camping holiday and ‘explin features of a composition, such as beginning, characters, plot and concla- sion, While the children worked on the activity, she moved around, gave feedback ‘on what she noticed abous the children's compositions and suggested amendments ‘when needed. Cooperative learning ‘The classroom observations confirmed the flequent use of informal cooperation _groups but fewer examples than expected of students scaffolding each siting in groups and being encourage: for help before asking the eeacher aged cooperation, but nevertheless it was oprional; interdependence was not built the learning activities, and the teacher did not conteol the construction of the expectations wm the cass. amplified the teacher’ opportunities to move confirmed that they were conscious their learning, seeking and providing help clas less succesful cooperation was described where the ey always encouraged student cooperation they also made sure that every lesson plan contained a certain number of activities that required An implemented curieulum of ieracy 127 interdependent cooperation. In the observations cooperation could be seen sively in pairs or small groups drawing ‘story maps’ in ‘which the narrative thread of a story was presented figuratively with embedded text. Interdependent pair work could also be seen in an activity also described in an earlier section on adapted teaching during which pairs worked together ‘on arranging pictures from & ‘other and finally writing and Jength of the text could then ‘games, most often in pais, to practice vocabulary and comprehension. Pair read- ing was alo commonly observed, and many tea udents in a pair or group of dl take turns reading a story, summing up the gist of the text, sking questions, asking each other for explanations when needed and predicting the continuation text and adaptive teaching, th: ernational sends in inclusive three aspects of teaching reported Icelandic education policy an However, teachers’ practice in of the chapter was varied, Whilst some teachers needed implemen: {ation ofthe BL methods, the best practice bore witness to teachers ability to notice, analyse and respond to student’ needs and seems an obvious strategy to pave the ‘way to further development. ‘Seeing like PISA’ “To contrast BL with the different approach to literacy education apparent in the national literacy initiative the following documents were analysed: the White Paper smemorenda from the DE a draft 25,8,2015;an 5,26 and 27 August conscience and ulare and th are presented under the following headings: 1 meeting minimum standards, 2 the magic of numbers, and 3 clearing the ground.128 Ranar Sigbsesson Meeting minimum standards ‘The white paper ses one principal goal for literacy, chat “90 percent of compullory schoo pupils to meet minimum reading standards up from 79 percent currently” (p. 3) ‘By ‘minimum reading standards’ the paper refers o performance level two of the aper uses the term reading hteacy’ co ‘fer to literacy in general but aso applies the concepts of mathematical and scientific literacy as “seudens’ capacity to apply dheir knowledge and sls in key subject areas, and co analyse, reason about, solve and explain the problems posed in diverse subject” (©.7). The paper proposes 2 numberof “potential remedies” (p. 31) to improve reading skis such a to: {increase the time allocated to Icelandic in the national curriculum, 2 define tinimum standards at different stages ofthe compuluory school for “ceading speed, comprehension, vocabulary and writing kil, 3 coordinate regular measure- ‘meats of wading literacy through the use of analytic tests fom preschool to the end of ‘compulsory school, provide special support for students who are non-native speakers of Icelandic and immediate early intervention for studens showing signs of read ing difficulties, 5 encourage the setting of literacy policies at school and municipality level and 6 engage parents to support and spark interest and positive atcudes towards reading. The white puper also heavily emphasises linking education with economic prosperity and competitivenes of the nation’s work force in a globalised markerplace ‘This is done — with variations ~ 2 least 11 times in the paper white paper bypasses both the broad view of literacy apparent in imuin points of the national literacy ini tunderthe following headings 1 Decisions of sucess, outlining the requirements on every municipality to set its development, describing the recruitment of support and consultation for schools, in compulsory schools, presenting the role of the eening tests of Iteracy for compulsory schools, 4 Literay as parmerhip, highlighting the esponsibility of parents w be actively involved in their children’s ineracy learning, and the importance of support 19 pparens from local education authority advisory services, The magic of numbers ‘The DE was asigned che responsibility for implementing the national literacy ini sist. On the DES website all information about the initiative is placed under the heading Tests and Evaluation. In a shoxt general description (137 words) of the An implemented curriculum of Ieracy 129° ‘initiative, municipalities are encouraged to set their own literacy policies and we ice in their schools. The description fusther analysis oftheir resus and its use for making action ‘Another key document avilable on the DE website isthe recording ofa present mission statement explicidy aimed at convincing the audience of the importance of statistical test data, The pretentation describes the purpose of using yearly standards and statistical ext data to fll the goal of te national iitative and gives an overview ‘of forthcoming tests. Another presentation on the DE’ website further elaboraes con the following tests already standardised or in progress for the compulsory school: 1A sandardised screening test for year one on phonetic awareness, decoding and understanding, 2. Four standardised decoding tests for Years 1 to 10 (uency and accuracy, visual ‘Two comprehension test (Istening comprehension for Year 1 and reading comprehension for Yeas 1 10 10) A vocabulary test for Years 1 t9 10 A.wiiting west for Years 3 10 10 A screening test for phonetic awareness and language awareness of Bive-year~ olds (preschoo)) ‘The presentation furthermore describes a statistical data bank called Reading Pro- cess (1. Lefer), ic. which the test results are aggregated co embrace the results for teach student from the preschool age of three to the end of the compulsory schoo] at Year 10, The development of Reading Process commenced in 2015 and is to be ‘completed in 202. ‘The DE’ website retains two short documents encouraging patents to practice reading, talking, listening, writing and phonetic awareness with thie children at home sand three documents specifically aimed at encouraging reading during the suramer ‘oiday, One of thee documents is aio in English and Polish. No documenss, however, ‘regarding classtoom practice or the profesional development of teachers were found, ‘Clearing the ground (On 20 August 2015, four days before the launch of the national initiative, The Newspaper publ conclusions of a new memorandum by the DE in which the effectiveness of BL was evaluated with regard to students outcomes on the Year130 Renae Sigpérsson 4 national vst in Toelandie, The students from the 38 schools, which at that time had used BL for moze than four test and to reading comprehension asa test Measured on a normally distributed scale fiom 0-60, average grade and 0.8 for reading comprehension. In figure by only showing adum also presented the cilerence was statis Over the next week, The Newspaper continued its coverage in four issues (August 21, 25, 26 and 27) backing up the criticism of BL with quot from the sitector of the DE and the minister of education. Three themes were prominent in ‘method and had not been field tested prior to its implementation, Some of the statements by the minister where particulaly aggressive, On acceptable rs Discussion and concluding remarks ose oft caper wa fo prea the ct ofthe Teande dewopment ‘o examine the probable impact of contextual and social factors policy on the agency of literacy teachers. The BL project assumes teachers ‘ake an agentic stance to implement a Ieracy curriculum that gives prominence to profesional noticing and adapted teaching and is responsive to the socioculeural approach to literacy (Elis & Smith, 2017; Perry, 2012; Ros & Gibson, 2010), The endeavour of BL was contrasted with the reaction ic educational authori- ‘ies to disppointing PISA, resulting in a policy chat isthe legitimate offpring of the “focus on output measurements, national and incernatonal rankings and an economic and instrumentalist approach to education", deseribed by Gorur (2016,p. 598). ‘The findings presented implementa tion of BL was generally succesful, and in line with the international literature An implemented curcatum of Iteracy 131 2016). The insights into teaching in BL schools Sigbérsson & Marinésson, 2017) depicted generally enthusiastic teachers who were taking on the demanding task ‘of developing their implemented progress, whereas others Were in the midst of their development. For those veach. ers, continued professional development 1o cransform their content knowiedge into action Shulman, 1986, 2015), profesional networks and collaborative teamwork, ‘Along with the wash-back effects (Sigb6rsson, 20082} ofthe screening test regime introduced by the DE, this may well undermine the agentic stance of teachers and reduce the preferred outcomes of literacy education to testable skills and the vunlikely to happen unless teachers are empower develop their implemented curriculum 2s learning. learning, References 8), An exploration of profesional knowledge st writing. JourlofTearher Edaton, 51), 7), 311-318. Directorate of Education, (a). Retrieved from hap://mis.is/drecorate-educason132. Rana Sigbérsson agente R (2009), Begining tnecy: An nrc ap "The chong adaps fey: Bling be prac 15, pte esa pf lore tionary tale about the performativity of interma= ional Resech Jounal, 15(5), 598-616. doi10.1177/ ‘An implemented curiculur of eracy 133 Stun LS 015), PO in gunned A Bory in} Logan siege in iene eduation (pp. 3-13). London 4 gu mate Samad pif, kenauhugnytir da fr enchant, PRD che (bp 251-270) Ek wnion SOMO /TB ST