Hancock County Leaders Find An ELA “Game Changer”

The English Language Arts (ELA) teachers at Hancock County High School were exhausted from developing their own curriculum, with many working from outdated high school textbooks. 

It was time-consuming and cumbersome for the teachers. It wasn’t effective for the students. 

At the same time, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) had placed the school on Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI) status due to achievement gaps.

It was time for a change.

So when a group of ELA teachers approached Hancock County High School principal Ginger Estes for help with their curriculum challenges, she trusted them to find what they needed.  

“I gave them three criteria for the curriculum: it needed to be age-appropriate, it needed appropriate text, and I wanted the Lexile levels done the right way,” says Estes.

The teachers did their homework and returned with Lenses on Literature^Ⓡ, a blended, standards-driven core ELA curriculum that engages all students with complex, grade-level texts. 

Built on a Foundation of Research and Results

Prior to becoming Assistant Superintendent of Instruction and Assessment for Hancock County, Robin Poynter worked for a decade at KDE. She was familiar with the structure of Lenses on Literature because of the department’s work with Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC).

LDC began as a group of educators and experts across 40+ states who collaborated to answer one central question: How can we design instruction based on the assumption that every student can read, think, and write creatively and confidently using complex, grade-level tasks and texts? 

The resulting LDC instructional model places literacy standards as the starting point for all lesson plans, classroom activities, and student work evaluations. It changed how teachers and students think about and respond to reading and writing across and within content areas. 

The UCLA Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) independently evaluated the LDC’s impact on student outcomes. It found that students in classrooms utilizing the LDC instructional model gained 4 to 9 additional months of learning per year.

After 15 years of testing and researching the efficacy of the LDC instructional model, it became the basis of the Lenses on Literature core curriculum. 

“The foundation and the mindset of knowing where the research came from and the quality of that research is what sold me,” says Poynter. 

And with that, the Hancock County High School Hornets decided to give Lenses on Literature a try.

Not Your Average Training: Discovering the Why

A department of one, Poynter stays busy in a district without extra resources or staff. 

“When we discovered that Carnegie Learning offered coaching through Lenses on Literature, that was a game changer,” she says.

The solution utilizes a unique approach to professional learning that goes beyond supporting product implementation. The job-embedded coaching, content-embedded professional learning insights, and even the initial implementation sessions focus on building teacher and leader competencies and expertise—not just how to use a product. 

“I went into the initial onboarding thinking, ‘Okay, they’re going to tell us what buttons to push, and we’ll do the rest ourselves.’ That is not at all what happened,” says Estes.

“The Lenses on Literature team spent the better part of the morning reviewing the reasons why English is important and the ‘why’ behind assessments and the ‘why’ behind the need to push standards,” exclaims Estes. “I watched our teachers become engaged. Even our seasoned English teachers needed that review, and our brand new teachers needed to know this is the meat and potatoes of what we do,” she said.

“Our teachers came out of that inspired to teach better. It was fabulous. I was trying to figure out, okay, how can we get this for our middle school, too?” added Poynter.

A Literature Journey Anchored to the Destination

Estes, who taught ELA before becoming a principal, values students' clear understanding of their responsibilities in each lesson. That’s one of the reasons she believes Lenses on Literature is such a perfect fit. 

Each unit centers on a journey initiated by a driving task prompt. The prompt gives students a specific purpose for reading and writing about complex texts, resulting in the final writing product. A color-coded journey tracker aids students and teachers in tracking their progress while students focus their research, analysis, and discourse by engaging with the anchor text. 

At the heart of the driving task prompt, anchor texts are the primary texts for study when students learn literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, and argument evaluation.

“I like the anchor text, the format, and that there’s a task assigned to each portion of the rubric,” says Estes. “Even the unit subtexts lend to the theme. It’s put together very well.”

The units utilize unique Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) analytic rubrics, which serve as the measure for ongoing, embedded formative assessment at the activity level. They are used to score students’ end-of-unit writing products.

“Being able to let students know what they are accountable for is key,” continues Estes. “You see that all the way through the Lenses on Literature curriculum. Even the tasks have rubrics, the writing tasks have rubrics, and the activities have rubrics. They are super important.”

Adds Poynter, “The systematic approach that Carnegie Learning has laid out has made the teacher’s lives better.”

“We are all about trailblazing here in Hancock County,” she continues. “We feel like we're always on the cusp of finding the most innovative resources for our students that meet the needs of our Kentucky Academic Standards. That's why we are pleased with the layout of Lenses on Literature for our students who are learning as 21st-century learners.”

Learning Beyond Boundaries: Leaving Classroom Walls

Students discovered that the lessons in Lenses on Literature extended well beyond English class. During a recent history lesson on dictatorships, one junior made a surprising connection—their sibling had analyzed villains using the same framework in their English course. This allowed the history students to apply their literary analysis skills to understand the characteristics of historical dictators.

Estes observed that the solution encourages students to transfer what they learned through the Lenses on Literature curriculum to other content areas.

“They are thinking, and they’re thinking big,” says Estes of the students. “The transformation itself now opens up a lot of conversations they don’t just expect to have in English class but also in history class and science class. The Lenses on Literature curriculum is helping their learning leave those four walls, and we all know how hard that is. They are more apt to think differently now than they did before,” she adds.

A Collaboration that Powers Progress

Estes and Poynter look forward to watching Hancock County students become more confident thinkers, readers, and writers as Lenses on Literature continues to be implemented.

“The partnership with the Carnegie Learning team has been incredible. The training we had was unparalleled. It was truly worthwhile and worth attending,” says Estes.

“When you have something like Lenses on Literature put together so well, and it’s right in front of you, and it’s easy to use, it’s been a game changer. We were able to be inspired and motivated again instead of overwhelmed and, well, tired!” she laughs.

Poynter agrees. “Lenses on Literature truly supports our teachers to be the strongest leaders they can be in the classroom which, in turn, builds confident students.”