SpringBoard English Language Arts Grades 6-12 // An Introduction
SpringBoard is the College Board's college and career readiness program for ALL students, Grades 6-12. The program is designed to make rigor and the Common Core State Standards accessible so every student benefits from the very best opportunities to succeed.
Download the SpringBoard Overview Brochure
- Robust alignment with the Common Core that deeply addresses the intent of the standards.
- 2014 Edition built from the ground up to fully address the standards, inside a carefully scaffolded, sequenced framework at each grade level.
Key Differentiators
- Far more than a collection of texts, the program delivers tools, resources and supports to help teachers make essential instructional shifts that improve their craft and engage diverse classrooms.
- The program is continuously informed by practicing teachers so it works in the context of today's classrooms.
- Program authors began with the standards and then built the embedded assessments and instructional activities to include work worth doing into every unit.
- Based on the Understanding by Design instructional model, the program "back maps" the essential skills and knowledge students need to succeed in the courses, like AP®, that are "on ramps" to college and career readiness.
- SpringBoard's professional development components are face-to-face, multi-year and ongoing and focus both on teachers and administrators. Coaching, Focus Seminars and onsite Progress Monitoring extend our users options.
A Closer Look at the SpringBoard Approach
- Teacher's Editions pinpoint alignments to CCSS standards.
- Students see corresponding Learning Targets in their materials.
- The program emphasizes text complexity and diversity, including literary nonfiction, informational text and historical documents, balanced with rich, engaging literature.
- Academic vocabulary, emphasizing cross-curricular terms with broad applications, is a foundational element.
- Writer's Craft activities emphasize argumentative, expository and narrative writing.
- Writing Workshops mirror the writing activities in Advanced Placement® Language and Literature courses.
- The entire ELA sequence aligns to AP Language and Literature courses. AP Connections are featured prominently throughout the Teacher's Editions.
- SpringBoard's embedded assessments emphasize the same design and philosophy of the PARCC Model Content Framework to help students prepare successfully for the new Common Assessments.
Created by Teachers for Teachers
SpringBoard is annually updated and revised by teams of current SpringBoard classroom teachers and subject matter experts to keep the program fresh, relevant and responsive to the challenges of today's classrooms. Recognized by Phi Delta Kappa as a program of quality, SpringBoard is in use in 42 states, serving more than 1.7 million students.