admin Modules and Minis

What Teachers Want to Know about the New ERWC Grant

By Anne Portferfield

As you may have heard, there’s a new ERWC grant opportunity! Through the Education Innovation and Research grant, California State University is developing yearlong ERWC courses for grades 9 and 10, and high school English teachers will pilot them beginning in the 2025–26 school year.

I have begun meeting with teachers to discuss the grant opportunity, and some teachers are overjoyed that the new curriculum is on the way! One teacher noted that implementing the ERWC will ensure that grade 9 and 10 English courses are rigorous–which is essential in this post-pandemic era. Several teachers noted that the ERWC will prepare students for the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Course.

Teachers also have questions. I’ll start with an easy one. Almost every teacher I’ve spoken with has the same question: What will the curriculum include?

Each grade will have two thematic pathways for teachers in the grant to choose from. The grade 9 pathways will be identity and civic engagement, and the grade 10 pathways will be community and communication. The pathways will include all of the same types of modules as are available at the upper grades (i.e., portfolio, mini, issue, book, and drama). All modules will have integrated and designated ELD embedded. After the grant, grade 9 and 10 ERWC teachers will have the same flexibility to create their own DIY course design as grade 11 and 12 ERWC teachers.

Sample pathways for Grade 9 (actual course design may vary)

Yes, there will be a Romeo and Juliet module. No, you don’t have to teach it if you don’t want to! Some of the other texts being considered for the new curriculum include Born a Crime, Klara and the Sun, We Are Not Free, The Hate U Give, Funny in Farsi, Braiding Sweetgrass, Home is Not a Country, and Night. What the curriculum developers can guarantee is that texts will be highly engaging for students, which is a cornerstone of the ERWC.

Jennifer Fletcher, the Chair of the ERWC Steering Committee, shared, “The curriculum will be really good. We are going to be proud of it when we put it in front of teachers.” 

Teachers also want to know what the professional learning entails. ERWC teachers will engage in 20-25 hours of professional learning every year they participate in the grant. Below are descriptions of the professional learning components of the grant:

  • Summer workshops: ERWC teachers will attend a two-day summer workshop every summer they are participating in the grant. As a former teacher, I know that summers are coveted! If your school signs up for the grant, the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools will work with you to schedule the summer institute at a time that works well. The goal is for the workshops to be in-person, but there may be some virtual options.
  • Coaching: ERWC teachers will be assigned a coach to be a thought partner. The coaches will be professors, literacy specialists, experienced ERWC trainers, etc. Teachers will engage in five coaching sessions, which will include a pre-conversation, a classroom observation, and a reflection conversation. The coaching sessions will not be evaluative, and no information will be reported back to your district.
  • Community of practice meetings: ERWC teachers will attend five 1-hour community of practice meetings. These can take place at the school site during already-scheduled meeting time.

Teachers also have questions about stipends. As a former teacher, I remember spending countless hours doing work that I was not compensated for. We want teachers who are part of this grant to feel valued! Here’s more information about the stipends:

  • Each ERWC teacher will receive $4,000 total–$2,000 for the pilot year and $2,000 for the evaluation year. If a teacher teaches the ERWC in both grades 9 and 10, they will receive $8,000 total ($4,000 per grade).
  • Each traditional English teacher will receive $1,000 total during the evaluation year.
  • Each school will identify a site lead, who will be responsible for communicating information about the grant. They will receive $3,000 total–$1,000 for each year of the study.
  • The $20,000 school stipend is intended to be used to support ERWC teachers. In the past ERWC grants, schools have used this stipend to purchase copies of books for every student, pay teachers their hourly/daily rates for attending professional learning, provide subs for professional learning days, etc.
  • Districts usually keep the $5,000 stipend to offset the cost of providing WestEd with student-level data.

The ERWC and traditional teacher stipends will be paid directly to teachers by WestEd. The site lead stipend will be paid directly to site leads by the California State University. The school stipend will be paid to the district, and the district will make the money available to the schools.

In addition to these stipends, schools and teachers also receive all the materials they need to implement the new curriculum, including class sets of books for book modules.

There have also been some questions about scheduling throughout the grant. Schools need the following teachers in place each year of the grant:

 2025–262026–272027–28
Grade 9Pilot Year At least two teachers pilot the ERWC   At least one teacher continues to use the regular curriculumEvaluation Year The same two teachers as the previous year teach the ERWC   At least one teacher continues to use the regular curriculum 
Grade 10 Pilot Year At least two teachers pilot the ERWC   At least one teacher continues to use the regular curriculumEvaluation Year The same two teachers as the previous year teach the ERWC   At least one teacher continues to use the regular curriculum

And lastly, teachers want to know how they can sign their schools up for the grant. The first step is to meet with me! Please feel free to email me to set up a meeting (anne.porterfield@wested.org). We would discuss the details of the grant, and I would address any lingering questions. If it seems like the grant may work at your school, we would then share information about the grant with other teachers at your school, school administrators, and district administrators. If all parties agree to participate, then WestEd would set up a memorandum of understanding with your district.

You may also learn more about the grant in an upcoming webinar on Monday, October 21st at 4pm PT. You may register for the information session here.

Anne Porterfield is a Senior Program Associate with Research-Practice Partnerships. She serves as both a project manager and qualitative researcher for projects and evaluations.

admin Evaluation of ERWC

ERWC Awarded $15 Million Grant!

The Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC) steering committee is thrilled to announce a 15 million dollar Education, Innovation and Research (EIR) grant awarded to the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools (FCSS). The grant, Reading and Writing for College and Career Success: Expanding the Reach of the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum, was awarded to expand and enhance ERWC with a primary focus on Integrated and Designated ELD for 9th and 10th grades. The CSU is pleased to partner with WestEd and Fresno CSS on this exciting opportunity to provide new curriculum for the 9th and 10th grade with an emphasis on helping students develop excellent literacy and language skills.

The proposed project will establish leadership teams at state levels, develop high-quality curriculum to expand ERWC, refine course pedagogy, and scale and implement robust professional learning. Additionally, the project will validate the success of the ERWC through rigorous research and understand the cost effectiveness of implementing ERWC throughout high school. The expected outcomes are for students assigned to an ERWC course to score higher on a standardized assessment and to score at least 10% higher on measures of academic motivation than students enrolled in comparison English courses.

To improve the literacy and language skills of high school students, particularly high-need students, the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC) was developed 20 years ago through an important collaboration between college professors and high school teachers and administrators. 

The curriculum, which aligns with the California Standards for English Language Arts and English Language Development, is currently being taught in about 1000 high schools across the state, is available for free, and comes with free online, in-person and hybrid professional development opportunities for teachers. Teachers who complete a required professional development workshop get certified to teach the curriculum, which grants them lifetime access to the curriculum through the ERWC Community website. 

In recent years, ERWC has also spread to several other states, including Hawaii, Washington, New Mexico, and West Virginia. Hawaii, New Mexico, and Washington State will partner with the CSU, WestEd, and Fresno CSS for the new 5-year EIR grant.

The spread of the ERWC has been aided by an Investing in Innovation (i3) Development grant awarded in 2010. Rigorous research over the past decade has found that the ERWC improves students’ English language arts (ELA)/literacy achievement. In 2015, a quasi-experimental study found that the ERWC improved grade 12 students’ performance on the English Placement Test (EPT), which was the standardized placement exam used by the California State University (CSU) system to place incoming first year college students into either a credit-bearing English course or a remedial English course. Moreover, the ERWC program has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) as effective in meeting its highest evidence-based standards in its review of the 2022 report, “Expanding the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum: An Evaluation of an Investing in Innovation Validation Grant.”

The third edition of the curriculum, funded in 2016 by an i3 Validation grant, comprises full-year college preparatory English courses for grades 11 and 12 students. Teachers and schools build and personalize the yearlong courses by selecting from approximately 30 modules per grade level to meet rigorous, college-preparatory learning goals in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, while promoting student interest and motivation. 

The core structure of all of the modules—the Assignment Template progresses along an “arc” from reading rhetorically (preparing to read, reading purposefully, and questioning the text) to preparing to respond (discovering what you think) to writing rhetorically (composing a draft, revising rhetorically, and editing). The Assignment Template embodies the ERWC’s core ideas and practices: reading and writing rhetorically, the transfer of learning, the cultivation of expert learners, and language exploration and awareness. The repeated turns that students take through the Assignment Template over the course of a year afford them frequent opportunities to internalize the rhetorical literacy skills, language resources, and academic habits of mind that are essential to postsecondary success.

We, the members of the ERWC community, are extremely excited by this opportunity. If you are interested in being part of the pilot at the 9th and 10th grades, please contact Lisa Benham at Fresno County Office of Education lbenham@fcoe.org.

Upcoming Webinar with Troy Hicks!

Interested in using technology more effectively in the classroom? In this ERWC webinar, Troy Hicks–an ISTE Certified Educator–will introduce “‘digital diligence’–an alert, intentional stance that helps both teachers and students use technology productively, ethically, and responsibly.” Hear his strategies for minimizing digital distraction, fostering civil conversations, evaluating information on the internet, creating meaningful digital writing, and deeply engaging with multimedia texts.

Registration is free.

Save the Date!

The 2024 ERWC Literacy Conferences will be held June 17 in Sacramento and June 25 in Pomona. Registration opens in March.

ERWC at CATE 2024 in Los Angeles

ERWC is hosting a reception for ERWC and ERWC-curious teachers on Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 5:30 pm in the Jetway room at the Hyatt Regency LAX. Light refreshments will be served. Meet with colleagues and enter for a chance to win door prizes, including books and ERWC swag.