How would you differentiate between grades 5-8 with your program?

Differentiation for the EB Teachers' Club

In terms of differentiation for grades 5-8, there will be some monthly lesson plan Issues that you might find are better suited for one grade over another. 

For example, the April 2020 Issue ("Putting the Poe Back in Poetry") is centered around Edgar Allan Poe's poetry. If you think his poems might be too advanced for your 5th graders, you could hypothetically only use that Issue with either 7th or 8th. 

In addition, in some of the Issues, there is differentiation built-in. In the June 2019 Issue ("Theme On!) the through lesson includes a game where students practice identifying themes and composing thematic statements for various texts. We include two levels of the same texts ("on-level" and "challenge"). So, you could use the "on-level" text cards with your 5th graders and the "challenge" level text cards with your 8th graders.

Additionally, starting with our June 2021 Issue through our December 2023 Issue, we have been including a section called "Beyond the Bundle." 🥰

  • This new addition offers helpful ideas for differentiating instruction in each of the bundle’s lessons. Whether you need to make activities more challenging or you need to make them a little simpler, "Beyond the Bundle" will help you better reach every learner in your classroom.
  • On top of that, we will also show you where you can go to learn extra teaching tips, tricks, and ideas related to the September Bundle’s concepts (think podcast episodes and other helpful resources!).

Also, you can easily differentiate many of the resources in the "Choose Your Resources" section of the membership. As mentioned previously, each month you get to select two different resources. Again, you may find some better suited for one grade over another. However, there are also MANY resources that you can use simultaneously with all three grades (for example, the reading response quilt) and you would simply use it with whatever piece of literature you are studying in each particular grade.

Finally, the members-only Facebook group is such a valuable part of the membership. There are fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade teachers (several of whom teach many grades) who are happy to collaborate and share ideas. We suggest using this group to ask for suggestions in planning out your scope and sequence and ideas for differentiation. We've witnessed lots of support among the members so far and are excited to see the ideas they're shared.

Starting  in Jan 2024, all resources released will include Instructional Support suggestions for differentiation. All long form texts will also include an Audio Recording.


Differentiation for The EB Writing Program

In The EB Writing Program, you have access to all four grade levels of each writing style. The videos and materials (student practice activities, examples, texts, etc) included in each unit focus on the same concepts and increase in complexity from 5th-8th grade. This is intentional as the ELA writing standards are quite similar for each grade, and we want to maintain consistency as students work through the program, ideally all through middle school!

In the EBW Approach section of The EB Writing Program (5th Grade), we have also included a scaffolded version of all the materials.

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