Westborough staff report districtwide rollout of new writing units after multi‑year literacy review

District literacy leaders reported to the Westborough School Committee that they have moved into the second year of implementing recommendations from a final literacy review first presented in June 2023. Presenters described work this year on writing instruction from kindergarten through grade 12, alignment across grades and a set of classroom resources meant to make expectations clearer for teachers and students.

The literacy team said K–6 teachers received new “I can” statements, annotated exemplars and anchor units designed to show the progression of writing skills from year to year. Coordinators described professional development this year that included model lessons, calibration sessions to score student work consistently, and weekly planning support for some grades to help teachers use the new units in daily lessons.

The team told the committee that middle and high school work focused on building a clearer progression for analytical writing and on collecting annotated exemplar essays from grades 7–12. Presenters said comparisons of student work across adjacent grades revealed important differences in task complexity — for example, an eighth‑grade essay responding to a short story versus a ninth‑grade literary analysis of a full novel — and that the district is adjusting curriculum and text choices to reduce those gaps.

Instructional leaders said the review also prompted curricular changes to restore more narrative writing and to diversify nonfiction reading at the secondary level. They said the K–12 effort aims to create a common instructional language so students and teachers share consistent expectations; one example reported to the committee was students using shared vocabulary when discussing parts of an essay in different classrooms.

On assessment practice, the literacy leaders described concerns with the DRA2 leveled‑text assessment — chiefly the subjectivity of scoring and the time required to administer it to every student. To address that, the district implemented the I‑Ready adaptive digital screener this year for grades 3–6 and continues to use DIBELS as a universal screener in K–2. Presenters said I‑Ready yields immediate, broader data (fiction, nonfiction, vocabulary) that can guide interventions and trigger diagnostic follow‑up where needed.

Presenters addressed supports for English‑learner students and other diverse learners, saying units include oral rehearsal, sentence stems and targeted small‑group instruction. The team noted co‑taught classrooms and explicit reference to WIDA language standards as part of efforts to make units accessible while maintaining high expectations.

Committee members asked about college readiness and external feedback. Teachers and leaders said alumni report feeling prepared in college writing and that MCAS and other common assessments will be used over time to track progress. The literacy leaders said subcommittees and the full curriculum teams met monthly during the review and that the implementation phase will continue with refinements, new exemplar collections and additional teacher resources over the coming school year.

The presenters and several committee members also flagged artificial intelligence as an emerging classroom issue. The district said it is forming a committee to develop guidance and professional development about appropriate classroom uses of AI and how to teach students to use the tools ethically.

The committee thanked the literacy team and invited continued updates as the implementation continues and the district gathers outcome data.