Reading the World Around Us: CTD’s New Accelerated ELA Option for 7th Graders

By Mishal Qureshi 

From Warriors Don’t Cry, the powerful memoirs of students who braved racist threats and attacks when they integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to Phineas Gage: A Gruesome But True Story about Brain Science, a story that will challenge students on everything they thought they knew about personality development, our new Accelerated English & Language Arts offering for 7th graders will ask students to examine what it means to be human. Students will engage with diverse texts and develop the necessary skills to follow an accelerated course path in high school, all while exploring and reflecting on themes of identity, heroism, sacrifice, and conviction.

Our aim at the Center for Talent Development is to develop culturally responsive curricula that speaks to the lived experiences of a diverse population students, allows them to reflect on themselves and their potential, and broadens their understanding of the world with a myriad of perspectives. In line with this aim, we are pleased to offer our Accelerated English & Language Arts curriculum to gifted students in grade 7 during the 2021 – 2022 school year, with scholarship positions held for students with financial need. This curriculum was designed with the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William & Mary and has been successfully piloted with Columbus City Schools. We recognize the need to support gifted learners for whom access to accelerated programming is limited. With generous support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, full scholarships are available for this course to eligible students. Students with diverse backgrounds are highly encouraged to apply.

This course is the first of a two-year sequence that covers grade 7, 8 and 9 Common Core standards at an accelerated pace. Students will earn one high school credit upon completion of the two-year sequence, which opens possibilities for them to engage in dual-credit or Honors- and Advanced Placement®-level English & Language Arts courses during their high school careers. Students who have completed this course in our partner school districts have scored higher on standardized assessments than older peers as well as fellow gifted peers after the completion of this sequence.

Like other Online Program courses at CTD, Accelerated English & Language Arts I is an asynchronous course. This provides students with optimum flexibility to work at their own pace and according to their own schedule. This course is best suited for students who maintain a high level of independence in their learning. This model also allows students to accelerate through topics when they wish to and allocate more time on topics that are more impactful or interesting to them. Our instructors are experts in building community in their classroom and fostering engagement and connection with their students even without live class sessions.

Feedback from our students in partner school districts has been overwhelmingly positive – students emphasized feeling safe, respected, and supported in their learning. Further, students took the initiative to connect the injustices they saw in their communities, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the political movements of the past two years to the course’s major

themes. In years in which the stress, uncertainty, and isolation caused by the pandemic were paramount, our students used the language and skills they gained in the course to process and analyze what was happening in the world around them, safely, in our virtual learning environment.

Our new Accelerated English & Language Arts I course is a unique offering for gifted students at CTD. For middle school students who are not yet ready to dive into Honors-level courses, this course accelerates skill development at a less intensive pace, while still providing the necessary rigor for gifted learners. The course is now open for applications – find the application as well as more information about course content and eligibility here. For more information or to provide documentation to apply for a need-based scholarship, contact the CTD Online Program at ctd-online@northwestern.edu.

Mishal Qureshi is the Program Assistant for Student Programs at CTD.