P.S. duPont Middle School
Subjects Information
The Parallel Curriculum
All curriculum developed for our students receiving Gifted Education is guided by the Parallel Curriculum Model.
The Core Curriculum
This parallel reflects the essential nature of a discipline as experts in that discipline conceive and practice the discipline. It is the foundational curriculum that establishes a rich framework of a discipline's key information, skills, concepts, and principles. It is the starting point for all of the parallels in this model.
The Curriculum of Connections
This parallel expands on the Core Curriculum by guiding students to make connections of key concepts and principles within or across disciplines, across times, across cultures or places, or in some combination of those elements.
The Curriculum of Practice
This parallel guides learners in understanding and applying the facts, concepts, principles, and methodologies of the discipline in ways that encourage student growth toward expertise in the discipline. Its purpose is to help students function with increasing skill and confidence in a discipline as professionals and scholars would function.
The Curriculum of Identity
Curriculum developed according to this parallel guides students in coming to understand their own strengths, preferences, values, and commitment by using the key concepts, principles, and skills of contributors and professionals in a field of study. The goal of this parallel is to help students gain a better understanding of both the discipline and themselves.
Assumptions Underlying the Parallel Curriculum Model
Curriculum should
- Guide students in mastering key information, ideas, and the fundamental skills of the disciplines.
- Help students grapple with complex and ambiguous issues and problems.
- Guide students in progressing from novice toward expert levels of performance in various subject areas.
- Provide students opportunities for original, creative, and practical work in the disciplines.
- Help students encounter, accept, and embrace challenge.
- Help students uncover, recognize, and apply the significant and essential concepts and principles in each subject area that explain the structure and workings of the discipline, human behavior, and our physical world.
- Help students develop a sense of themselves as well as of their possibilities in the world in which they live.
- Be compelling and satisfying enough to encourage students to persist depside frustration and understand the importance of effort and collaboration.
Parallel Curriculum Model
ELA - Gifted
Our gifted ELA curriculum includes a diversity of literature and informational text as well as vocabulary and grammar as set by the state standards. However, due to the nature of the gifted child, our students learn in an environment in which the pace is accelerated & the depth of the material is richer. The instruction and activities require critical thinking in order to promote analysis and synthesis of a variety of texts including poems, short stories, novels, current and historical events, and plays. We look to challenge students while allowing them to explore their own creativity and authentic thinking based in reason and text support. Our goal is to develop independent thinkers who can effectively communicate through strong written and verbal skills.
6th Grade Novels
- Call of the Wild
- Dragonwings
- Sherlock Holmes
-
Fables and Fairytales
7th Grade Novels
- Flares of Memory and The Devil’s Arithmetic
- Hidden Figures
- Literature Circles— Classics and Memoirs
- The Odyssey and Mythology
8th Grade Novels
- Frankenstein
- Animal Farm
- Self-Selected Novels (Fieldtrip to Shakespeare)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Math - Gifted
6th grade Math: Covers the 6th grade common core standards and includes review of prerequisite skills from 5th grade.
Gifted 6th Grade Honors: Covers all of the 6th grade common core standards and some of 7th grade common core standards. This course prepares students for Gifted Honors Pre-Algebra in 7th grade.
Gifted 6th Grade Fast Math: Moves very quickly to cover not only all of the 6th grade common core standards but most of the 7th grade common core standards as well. This course prepares students for Fast Math Algebra in 7th grade.
Honors or Fast Math?
Not all students are ready for the abstractness of Algebra at the same time. Our goal is to find the 6th grade class that will meet your child's needs by giving him/her the appropriate amount of challenge.
We will use NWEA Scores, Smarter Balance data, and a basic skills test to determine your child's initial placement.
Reassessment of this placement and movement is possible during 6th grade if we feel a change will benefit your child. This can be initiated by a teacher, parent, or child.
At the end of 6th grade, your child will be placed in either Honors Pre-Algebra or Fast Math Algebra.
Sample Traditional Pathway
|
GRADE
|
HONORS
|
FAST MATH
|
|---|---|---|
| 6th | All 6th and some 7th Grade Standards taught through units developed at PS | All 6th and most 7th Grade Standards taught through units developed at PS. |
| 7th | Pre-Algebra | Algebra |
| 8th | Algebra | Geometry |
| 9th | Geometry | Algebra 2 |
| 10th | Algebra 2 | Pre-Calculus |
| 11th | Pre-Calculus | AP Calculus |
| 12th | AP Calculus |
AP Statistics
Probability & Statistics
Discrete Mathematics
|
What are the implications of using Parallel Curriculum Model in Mathematics?
The Parallel Curriculum Model (PCM) is used to guide lesson development and decision making. All lessons can be tied to at least one of the four Parallels.
- Core: The essential nature of a discipline.
- Connections: The relationships among knowledge.
- Practice: The applications of facts, concepts, principles, skills, and methods as scholars, researchers, developers, or practitioners.
-
Identity: Developing students' interests, expertise, strengths, values, and character.
Math Clubs/Competitions
AMC 8 National Math Competition
- Open to all 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students
MATHCOUNTS Building Competition
-
Open to all 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students
DE Math League
- Club for 7th and 8th grade students - 6th grade students may participate in the practices
Social Studies - Gifted
Our gifted social studies curriculum starts with the state standards at each grade level. However, due to the nature of the gifted child, our students learn in an environment in which the pace is accelerated & the depth of the material is richer. The activities are grounded in a hands-on, student-driven learning approach and challenge students to use their knowledge to solve real world problems. Students are encouraged to incorporate their creativity & interests into the topics/ projects which cover both historical and contemporary issues.
6th Grade
World Regional Geography: The 6th grade curriculum builds student’s map analysis skills through an in depth exploration of the regions of our world and shows students how humans have impacted the development of these world regions over time.
7th Grade
- Civics: (Origins of Government, U.S. Government, Bill of Rights, Expansion of Freedom)
-
Economics: (Economics Basics, Supply & Demand, International Trade, Money & Banking)
8th Grade
United States History: The 8th grade curriculum analyzes historical events beginning with the Age of Exploration (1400’s) and moving chronologically through Reconstruction (1870’s)