Today we have a unique blog post to share – a peek into some of the inner workings of our program! SLO Classical Academy is known for its exceptional and family-friendly approach to history and literature, studying the same time period across all levels so that families can interact and learn together. But who figures all this out and carefully lays out the reading plan for each year at each level?
We will tell you who, and how: primarily it’s Edie Overduin, SLOCA mom to Rose (LMS) and Sarah (SLOCA/sloCAHS alumni). In fact, this is Edie’s 7th year of organizing our history and literature grids, and her 8th year of being involved in the process of choosing our curriculum (it’s her 10th year as a SLOCA parent). Down Home sat down with Edie after school one day to ask her about the fastidious process she goes through to coordinate and pull together this huge job!
First, a little background: when Edie was in her third year as a parent at SLOCA, she volunteered to preview books for the following school year. Being an avid reader, she thought this would be a fun and interesting job! (She was right.) Edie was then invited to be on the curriculum committee, and she loved being a part of the process of choosing our books. In her fourth year at the school, she was asked to coordinate the levels so that the readings lined up, and she’s been continuing, expanding, and refining this process for us ever since. Here’s a look at what she does:
It all begins with a curriculum meeting, which is held in the fall a year before the school year being planned. The curriculum team is made up of Edie, Susie Theule, Kateri Rein, Emily Ferrarini, and the lead teachers for each level. They look at all the books from the same year in the last history cycle, the surveys that the parents have filled out, and review any additional feedback they’ve received about the books. The team also takes into account many other factors when choosing our books: what's in print, how easy they are to find and purchase, cost to families, ability of the books to be used well at multiple levels, and what they actually cover. For history books, they look for narratives (history told in story format), and books that are historically accurate (although none are ever perfectly accurate!). For literature, they are also looking at the engagement level of the story, the educational value of literary and historical elements, and for the younger levels, beauty – which means plenty of illustrations. Together they come up with a master list of history and literature books for the Primary through Upper Middle School levels. The process of finding this workable list that all team members are excited about takes several months before Edie starts on the next phase. Lots of time, and hands, and eyes are involved in this part – often other parents are asked to preview the books too.
Edie then reads all the selected books (yes, ALL of them), takes detailed notes (see photo, right – you’ll see why she does this later!), and figures out how to break down the readings into manageable weekly chunks. All levels are combined onto one master outline at this stage in her process. After figuring out the main topics covered in each resource, Edie lines up the readings between levels so that they coordinate as closely as possible:
Next, the readings are broken out into separate outlines for each level, so that each teacher has their own overview to use when planning their grids (see photo, left).
Edie sends these to each lead teacher around May of the school year before, and they fine-tune the document to make sure the schedule will work in class. Each teacher then has their own history/literature outline with weekly readings that coordinate with the other levels.
On to the Detailed History Overview – this is the document written for teachers and parents, with detailed notes covering every week of the history we are studying in a given year. This amazing resource, as well as the weekly outlines, can be found on our website’s password-protected parent page, and we strongly encourage you to use it! It looks like this:
To create the detailed overview, Edie uses the notes she took back when she read through all the resources for each level. (see photo, right – we were not kidding about taking notes!) She also does additional research using other books, internet articles, and lecture series, and combines all the fascinating things she's learned into a narrative for teachers and parents to read and refer to. She breaks this out by week, so it’s easy to follow.
Edie says she takes way more notes than she needs to, but that everything is so interesting! And she realizes that she's gaining an incredible education while having the perfect excuse to do one of her favorite things: read!
Below you'll see just a portion of Edie’s many bookshelves at home, filled with additional history and literature books:
There you have it – thank you, Edie, for giving us this little window into what you do for our school! We are all so thankful for the time and attention you put into this process, to make our jobs at home easier, and our time learning alongside our kids so rich and layered.
These resources that Edie so painstakingly creates for us each trimester can be found on our password-protected parent page for you to download and use on your home days. Just click “History and Literature” in the left column when you go to that page. There you will find the weekly outlines for each trimester, as well as the detailed history overview.
We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow evening at our History Day Renaissance Tableau! Let's celebrate this amazing trimester together!
