Our school functions more like a campus rather than an individual school.

We have an elementary school,

intermediate school, and high school. There is a principal, two deputy principals, and six learning directors,
who oversee different departments. The elementary school also has a principal and a GIS (assistant
principal). My LD supervises the 7-12 English and AB History Department. To make things less confusing,
I may refer to 7th and 8th grade English and history as Academic Block (AB). In 7th grade, we primarily focus
on world history with an emphasis on ancient cultures, such as Roman, Islamic, African, Chinese, and
Japanese, to name a few. In 8th grade, they study the history of the United States. My 7th grade academic
block is a team consisting of eight teachers, each serving a different role. My role on our AB team is serving
on the curriculum and design team for social science. This involves me representing the team and making
decisions that impact our curriculum as well as relaying important changes back to our team.

I haven’t always been involved in this leadership role; however, I am glad I am. Early in this school year, I
was looking for opportunities to get involved in an academic leadership role that wouldn’t conflict with
my coaching schedule. I asked my learning director (LD) to let me know if any opportunities came up. The
LDs, whose duties are similar to those of assistant principals, tend to be very busy with the start of school,
so I wasn’t sure when an opportunity might come around. My LD called me one day in October to ask if I
would be interested in serving as the 7th grade AB member of our site’s World History Curriculum Design
Team (CDT). It was kind of funny in a way because I said I was interested but wanted to know more about
what the committee does and how much time I would need to commit. Before I really agreed to the
position, I got emails welcoming me to the team. My choice was made for me.

I have attended three Curriculum Design Team (CDT) meetings. In the first meeting, I had a hard time
following along because I did not have any prior experience with this type of meeting, whereas the rest
of the group seemed to have been there before and was at least aware of how these meetings ran. I was
trying to make sense of what I had gotten myself into. Our facilitator explained to us that we would be
analyzing our current standards and determining at each grade level what the most essential standards
would be. For example, standard 7.6 has 9 sub-standards:

7.6 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the civilizations of
Medieval Europe.
1. Study the geography of the Europe and the Eurasian land mass, including its location, topography,
waterways, vegetation, and climate and their relationship to ways of life in Medieval Europe.
2. Describe the spread of Christianity north of the Alps and the roles played by the early church and
monasteries in its diffusion after the fall of the western half of the roman empire.
3. Understand the development of feudalism, its role in the medieval European economy, the way in
which it was influenced by physical geography (the role of the manor and the growth of towns),
and how feudal relationships provided the foundation of political order.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of the conflict and cooperation between the Papacy and the
European monarchs. (e.g., Charlemagne, Gregory VII, Emperor Henry IV).
5. Know the significance of developments in medieval English legal and constitutional practices and
their importance in the rise of modern democratic thought and representative institutions (e.g.,
Magna Carta, Parliament, development of habeas corpus, an independent judiciary in England).
6. Discuss the causes and course of the religious Crusades and their effects on the Christian, Muslim,
and Jewish populations in Europe, with the emphasis on the increasing contact by Europeans with
cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean world.
7. Map the spread of the bubonic plague from Central Asia to China, the Middle East, and Europe and
describe its impact on global population.
 8. Understand the importance of the Catholic Church as a political, intellectual, and aesthetic
institution (e.g., founding of universities, political and spiritual roles of the clergy, creation of
monastic and mendicant religious orders, preservation of the Latin language and religious texts, St.
Thomas Aquinas’s synthesis of classical philosophy with Christian theology, and the concept of
“natural law”).
9. Know the history of the decline of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula that culminated in the
Reconquista and the rise of the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms

Attempting to unpack each of these, determine which ones overlap, and trying to figure out which of them
will have the most significant impact on student learning became a daunting task. I was the only 7th grade
world history teacher who participated in the district for this part of the process. That being said, it left to
question whether I was making the correct decisions with the standards I chose. I felt like I had a lot of
weight on my shoulders: Not only was I new to this group, but I was making decisions that would impact
all 7th grade teachers in the district. I wrote the initial draft with our textbook in mind as a main resource.
This was a challenge for me. I had no other experience with curriculum mapping in regard to preparing it
for a district. Curriculum mapping at the district level is different than doing it with my classes as I needed
to make sure I was very thorough.

By going to the first meeting, I was able to facilitate the flow of the second meeting for our group of 7 th
grade teachers. I was able to help the new members from other school sites answer questions and keep
the group focused on revising the draft. In this meeting, there were more teachers represented from each
site and included only world history teachers of grades 7-12. Our job at this meeting was to look at the
draft I created from the first meeting and make revisions. While it was tough having the document I
created picked apart piece by piece, there was some affirmation to being on the right track with the
standards I chose. However, there were some I had chosen that the team felt were already covered within
a more essential standard. I have attached both drafts to show how this document has evolved (see
attached).

In our third meeting, our agenda had changed from selecting applicable resources for each unit topic to
identifying demographic information for inclusion such as gender and ethnicity. (More will be added.)