!! This portion of the website is under construction as the MISIC curriculum is updated to align with the Iowa Core Curriculum. When that alignment is complete, new scope and sequence templates will be created and uploaded.

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To further articulate the grade level expectations for each benchmark in the curriculum, a scope and sequence can be created as teachers talk through what benchmarks really mean for students at their grade level.

Consider creating a scale of three (3) or four (4) levels that describe what expectations are for growth toward mastery. For example, use four categories such as Awareness, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, Mastery. Each of these should be described collaboratively to develop a common understanding of their meaning.

The next step in the process is to indicate the level of expectation at a given grade level for benchmarks. For example, if a third grade teacher is working on this project, he or she would read benchmarks from at least two grade levels below and at least two grade levels above and indicate what level his or her students are expected to perform on each benchmark. This teacher will have Awareness expectations for many benchmarks above their grade level, maybe some at Guided Practice and Independent Practice as well. What is recorded is a progression of increasingly complex expectations around one benchmark over more than one year.

For benchmarks that are written at the teacher's grade level, Mastery is the appropriate expectation. Then, at each grade level that follows, students should be expected to maintain that level of mastery.