Amplify ELA, Grades 6-8 is an online language arts curriculum. The content aligns with the newly-adopted Utah Core Standards for ELA, but some of the texts includes push the limits of what parents would consider appropriate. Additionally, some texts seem to be suited to a higher grade level. However, with each lesson, the curriculum includes a section for differentiation to help teachers address the needs of individual learners. Amplify ELA especially works to meet the needs of English Language Learners and includes significant helps for them. Lessons are fully scripted. Assessments are included throughout the curriculum. Amplify ELA utilizes an automated writing tool that will grade student writing for the teacher. Teachers can override the automated score if desired. Each unit includes a summative reading assessment at the end. The digital platform of Amplify ELA is easy to navigate and understand. It looks nice and is engaging for students. However, this a fully digital program. Schools would need 1-1 technology access in order to implement this curriculum. If students cannot work online each day, it won't work for a school. Appeal: After reviewing the materials being appealed, Amplify ELA Grades 6-8, as well as the three areas of concern, Technical Standards, Bias Free, and Adaptability, We approved this appeal for the following reasons:

1. Technical Standards: The concern for this program as “fully digital” and that “schools would need 1:1 technology access in order to implement this curriculum” because there “is no print option" as unfounded. Depending on the teacher's needs and wants, they can depend on this program fully digitally or both print and digital. If the teacher has some of these texts in their classroom, they can have the student hold the book and do the assignments online. The teacher can print out any assignment. If a teacher doesn't want the student to do a Close Reading in the text provided online, they can print it out and have the student do a Close Reading on paper.
2. Bias Free: We searched the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade material and text and have a hard time supporting the "concern that some of the texts in this curriculum might “push the limits of what parents might consider appropriate” and that the material “seems to be suited to a higher grade level." Let's be honest, the key player in all these texts, anyway, is the teacher who decides what and how to teach as well as what to leave out and to what depth. In all teaching guides, if needed, Amplify provides a section on "Sensitivity" and how to prepare for certain questions. Amplify provides a "Caregiver Letter" to parents (to be handed out before the unit of study) being transparent about the topics taught as well as the skill that will be learned - parents should be involved, and we need to look for ways to get them involved. I thought the 8th grade unit on Fredrick Douglas and slavery was well-done. Additionally in this unit of study, Amplify provides a resource called "The Emancipation Project Quest" (providing that students have ALREADY read The Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave). In the "Caregiver Letter" it lists this as "the student MAY work with The Emancipation Project Quest. We would have liked to have seen more angles to the slavery unit - pictures of white abolitionists, people mentioned like William Ellison, Jr., the black slave owner, freed slaves who decided to stay with their owner due to good treatment and benefits, or Africa's part in their own slave trade. Students should definitely feel uncomfortable when reading about slavery, but providing just one angle to slavery is not right either; there were good people of other colors as well trying to make a difference. We can see why there might be a concern that the "material seems more appropriate at a higher grade level" in that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is not taught until 9th grade, and Frankenstein is not taught until 12th grade (British Lit.). Some of the poems are taught in 11th grade when American Literature is typically taught; but, it is up to the teacher whether or not they want to use part of these texts as the vehicle to teach skills. A student being exposed to these texts to some degree twice isn't bad; teachers tend to not like the overlap though.
3. Adaptability: We saw many possibilities in adapting the content to students at different levels of learning, especially the writing activities and grammar. We agree with the various adaptation levels mentioned above in the appeal. Not sure why "adaptability" was a concern. Overall, We see a lot of potential for this program.