I’d like to share a favorite success story from my ELA class that brings home the true power of differentiation.
There was one boy—let’s call him Dipper. (It’s not his real name; I just really like the show “Gravity Falls.”) Dipper was the sweetest, kindest, most wholesome eighth grader I have ever met. He was absolutely precious.
Dipper also suffered from fairly severe academic struggles. He was well below his middle school reading level, struggled to express ideas in writing, and took longer than other students to break down basic concepts. When Dipper first came to me, he couldn’t start or complete a written sentence. He was easily frustrated and often overwhelmed to the point of tears.
Spoiler: By the end of the school year, Dipper was writing multiple paragraphs and starting to connect them with transition sentences.
Here’s how he got that much closer to grade level.
Using sentence starters and scaffolds to build success
My school district had recently adopted Amplify ELA. At the outset, I placed Dipper at the differentiation level with the most support. When we talked about how a character reacted to a moment in the story, Dipper had corresponding smiley, frowny, and disgusted faces to identify feelings. He had his own lesson plan with example quotes, shortened readings, alternative questions to spark thinking, and sentence starters to help him focus on comprehension instead of getting stuck at the start.
All of these supports helped him comprehend, share his responses, and contribute to discussions.
So far, so good.
But putting those thoughts to paper—or text box—was a completely different hurdle.
Facing academic struggles with patience and persistence
I can’t talk about Dipper without talking about his one-to-one aide. Let’s call her Ms. Mabel. (Again, “Gravity Falls.” I’m telling you, check it out.)
Ms. Mabel had sat beside Dipper during every ELA class since sixth grade. She helped him stay focused, generate ideas, and even transcribed his answers when needed. Ms. Mabel’s devotion to Dipper’s success was profound and inspirational.
And it made all the difference when it came to Writing Prompts. At first, the prompts were met with tears and tantrums, panic and disdain, all the joyful wholesomeness ripped from Dipper.
Ms. Mabel would console him and redirect his passions to the work. She would point out the sentence starters, help him copy and paste them to the text box, and have him fill in the blanks. Again and again.
And then, little by little: Less panic. Fewer tears. Sentence starters, fill in the blank. Progress.
Sentence starters, fill in the blank. Success.
Day by day, Dipper, stacking wins like pancakes at an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, found confidence in himself, his reading, and his writing. He went from barely being able to complete a sentence to writing multiple paragraphs with evidence to support his ideas.
Why it takes more than just an awesome teacher
Obviously, you can’t pin success on one factor. Dipper had many supports in place: two blocks in the resource room, a dedicated aide, supportive peers and family, and—above all—a fierce drive and work ethic.
But if you asked Ms. Mabel, she would tell you that Amplify helped, too. She found that the way the questions were broken down allowed her to teach Dipper what he misunderstood better than she had been able to in previous years.
She had seen him grow from a tiny sixth grader into a less tiny eighth grader and had watched his initial tenacity meet with stagnation, frustration, and defeat—until this year. This year with Amplify was different.
First year teaching Amplify: Changing my view of fidelity
Confession: If you had told me a few years ago that “fidelity” would become a word I associated with positively, I would have laughed out loud. What about teacher autonomy?
But then I was given the opportunity to be on the curriculum adoption committee. Amplify ELA was the obvious choice from the very beginning, and fidelity to this program didn’t sound like a bad thing. So, despite my initial trepidations surrounding teaching any program with fidelity, we chose to teach Amplify, at least in our first year, as it was designed. What we discovered very quickly was how much autonomy was built in.
It wasn’t rigid. It gave us structure and trust. It made differentiation easier, clearer, and more meaningful.
Maybe Dipper was maturing. Maybe I’m just an awesome teacher. Or maybe, just maybe, we need every little bit of help we can get to do the hard work in life. Maybe we need someone to push us in the right direction. Maybe we need those guardrails to keep us on course. Some of us can start our own engines, but we all need to be able to race.
Sometimes, we need someone who can help us start our sentences so we can learn how to be the ones to finish them.
More to explore
- Let’s keep the conversation going! Join the discussion in our Amplify learning communities.
- Looking for inspiration? Watch Teacher Connections, a video series featuring practical advice and tools straight from fellow educators—our very own Amplify Ambassadors.
- Dive into our podcast hub to hear from top thought leaders and educators and uncover cross-disciplinary insights to support your instruction.
