Curriculum construction can best be thought of as a process for creating culturally significant domains for conversation. So suggests a recent report from the National Research Center on Literature Teaching & English Learning, Shaping Conversations: A Study of Continuity and Coherence in High School Literature Curricula, by researchers Arthur Applebee, Robert Burroughs, and Anita Stevens.

Their study sought to explore questions like: What factors govern teacher choices of what to do next with their classes? What constraints and possibilities do they see? Can the tacit knowledge of accomplished teachers -- the regularities underlying their curricular decision making -- be articulated in ways that will more effectively explain their curriculum to parents and administrators, as well as to less experienced teachers who are still trying to find their way?

In earlier research, Applebee found that one principle critical to a coherent and engaging curriculum is that the materials need to be related to one another. This allows the conversation to build and deepen as the semester progresses. The recent study found two sets of factors that contribute to a sense of coherence in classrooms of accomplished teachers of English: one set has to do with establishing conventions that govern discussions of literature; the other involves the way the curriculum is structured.

Consistent Discussion Conventions

The researchers found that establishing a consistent set of conventions for what was appropriate to discuss and how the discussion would be carried out was an important first step in creating a sense of coherence and purpose within the literature classroom. In some classes, for example, lectures might be used to introduce literary terminology, teacher-led discussions might direct the students in some sort of textual analysis, and small-group discussions might be used for exploring more personal responses to literature. When such conventions were established, teachers and students came to know what to expect -- not just in terms of how to discuss, but also in terms of what kinds of behavior were appropriate (e.g., who initiates what kinds of interaction, what kinds of evidence are acceptable, what role personal experience plays) and what amount of closure to expect -- and that was enough to make the curriculum seem coherent.

Interrelating Content

However, they also found that another layer of coherence and sense of direction had been established within some of the classrooms they studied. This sense of direction was derived primarily from the interrelatedness of elements within a larger conversational domain. Experiences that came later in the curriculum were not only informed by those that come before, but also led to a rethinking and reshaping of earlier experience -- texts read earlier were reconsidered in light of later texts, and questions raised previously were raised again in light of new information or ideas. Although evidence of this kind of curriculum was rare in the classrooms studied -- and virtually nonexistent in lower-track classrooms -- the benefits of such curricula seemed real in terms of the depth of discussion they provoked and the enthusiasm exhibited by both teachers and students.

Engaged Students

Students' engagement was highest and their perceived understanding of the domain was greatest when domain structure and discussion conventions worked together to support students' entry into significant conversations about interesting issues. Here, students had room to develop their own views and to enter into open dialogue and debate with others. The more integrated courses focused on issues currently being debated in society at large, raising questions, for example, about the roles of race, gender, and ethnicity within the fabric of American life and culture. These courses offered a sense of legitimately unresolved but important issues being debated within a larger conversational domain into which students were asked to enter.

The results of this study show that curricula conceived in these terms will look very different from traditional scope-and-sequence charts and will require consideration of a different set of issues during curriculum planning and review. Such courses will require teachers to think carefully about the conventions they establish for discussion as well as the conversational domains they set up for courses to explore.

Also see Curriculum as Conversation, A. Applebee, University of Chicago Press, 1996.