Balancing Literacy With Other Curricular Demands: An Autobiographical Account

This paper is an autobiographical account of one junior high teacher’s attempts to teach a Balanced Literacy curriculum with an emphasis on her experiences with English language learners (ELLs). The account is framed chronologically from her first days of teaching through her final semester and is organized by her attention to her state’s old English/language arts core, her state’s new English/language arts core, the World-class Instructional Design Association (WIDA) standards for ELLs and finally, the Common Core Curriculum Standards (CCSS). At the end of her autobiography, the author emphasizes the lessons she learned about trying to overlay Balanced Literacy with standards as they evolved during her teaching career. Those lessons focus on the opportunities and limitations of teacher agency and what is means to sustain oneself and sustain other teachers in their attempts to engage in Balanced Literacy practices