See what's new in Amplify ELA

Bringing poetry to life

New poetry lessons now available in Amplify ELA!
We partnered with Poetry in America to develop new lessons and content that get students and teachers truly excited about poetry. The lessons include tips for leading rich classroom discussions on poetry, tools to help students and teachers, and videos of a wide variety of interpreters close reading poems, including Shaquille O’Neal, Shiza Shahid, Richard Blanco.

Lessons are flexible and are often discussion-based. You will find 3 lessons for each poem. The first two lessons are used to analyze the text. The third lesson is used for a creative response to the poem.

The new poetry units include:

• Gulf Motel, Grade 6
• Carrying a Ladder, Grade 7
• Fast Break, Grade 8

Mobile Solos

The Solos are an important part of the ELA curriculum, and are designed to be completed as homework—but not every student has a computer at home. However, most students DO have access to a mobile device. The new Mobile Solos give every student access to this part of the curriculum, protecting valuable classroom time for lessons and group activities.

Learn more about Mobile Solos, including how to access and supported devices.

Quill

For teachers who want to give their students even more opportunities for practice, we’re including free access to Quill, where students will find a wealth of engaging learning activities that teach grammar and writing. Some of the most popular Quill activities include complex sentences, comma usage, capitalization, verb tense agreement, and commonly confused words.

This experience currently does not include access to teacher reporting. We are excited to explore a more custom integration with Quill and are actively seeking feedback on what type of activities and features you would like to see.

All teachers and students will see a Quill icon in their global navigation.

Black, White, & Blues in Chicago Quest

The Black, White, & Blues in Chicago Quest—part of unit 7B—has been updated to improve both the teacher and student user experience.

In this Quest, students explore the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s by examining photos to better understand the city’s setting in the play A Raisin in the Sun. In the previous version, it was difficult for students to select specific photos because they had to navigate through connected, clickable images. The updated version makes it easier for students to navigate and view images and documents with the new media gallery feature.

This updated version allows teachers to tailor the Quest experience for their classes by distributing only the Quest activities they would like students to complete.  Additionally, the student writing prompts, available as PDFs on the teacher pages, have been revised and now allow for easier implementation as well as additional flexibility and differentiation.

Learn more about the recent updates to the The Black, White, & Blues in Chicago Quest.

Embedded Assessment Measure

All Amplify ELA units include a robust system of embedded assessment that provides teachers actionable student performance data long before end-of-unit or benchmark exams. The Embedded Assessment Measure (EAM) reports allow teachers to easily track and interpret student performance against the three core domains of Reading, Writing, and Language without ever interrupting the flow of daily instruction to test students.

The EAM system examines student performance on selected reading and writing activities, taking into account the difficulty of each activity. Teachers then receive EAM reports that provide an at-a-glance look at which students are at risk in each of the three core domains. EAM reports also provide recommendations about how to group students for differentiated instruction and extra practice during Flex Days.

Classwork

What you know as Gradebook has been redesigned and reimagined as Classwork! Providing feedback has never been easier—teachers can now review students’ writing and multiple choice answers, and easily add scores and comments (and even emoji!) all in one place, giving students the immediate feedback they need to further develop their confidence and literacy skills.

Homescreen

Homescreen is intuitive and easy to navigate, and provides relevant and timely data that helps teachers prepare for class. Teachers can see student performance by period, view Solo completion, link to reporting on student writing and other activities, and see which students need written feedback, all in one place.

Novel guides

We asked teachers to name the books they love to teach, then we created novel guides for some of the most popular titles that we don’t teach in the curriculum. These guides are only available in the digital library.

Our novel guides follow the Amplify ELA pedagogy for close reading and include standards alignment while providing:

• Activities that focus on a range of literacy skills
• Project-based learning activities
• Discussion questions
• Writing prompts
• Role-playing opportunities
• Collaborative activities

This group of diverse titles comprise a range of genres and themes from mystery to nonfiction and justice to identity and courage. Students will explore classics and contemporary award winners, expand their literacy skills and discover the rewards that come with close reading compelling texts. The guides are flexible and come with suggestions for implementation.

Amplify Library new titles

We’ve add 50 new titles to our Amplify Library. See complete list of new novels.