Curriculum Issues: The Importance of Selecting Literature for Gifted Learners

Abstract

This column describes criteria for selecting literature for gifted and advanced students in English-language arts. Some of the criteria considered relate to reading level, advanced use of language and vocabulary, multi-cultural literature, employment of an abstract concept, use of advanced literary elements, and exploration of social and emotional issues.

Nurturing brilliance: A cross-cultural exploration of supporting gifted children

“…The American National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC, 2019) Programming Standards for Pre-K-12 Gifted are helpful because they provide clear guidance about expected outcomes and evidence-based practices in learning and development, assessment, curriculum planning, instruction, and professional development and learning environments (VanTassel-Baska, 2017). Nevertheless, these standards represent a significant imprint on the enactment of appropriate standards for drawing up the policies and legislations of countries; they were issued in 2007 after a comprehensive survey of countries' applications for caring for the gifted.…”

“…However, these standards of policies and legislation are not sufficiently integrated to be relied upon as a general criterion (David and Abukari, 2018). Many researchers have developed a set of standards that control policies and legislations, and the most prominent of these is what is generated by VanTassel-Baska (2017), under the title "The Five Characteristics of High-Quality Talent Policies" (Younis, 2018). The additions made by Purcell and Eckert (2006) are also considered valuable to what Ninkov (2020) addressed.…”

“…The additions made by Purcell and Eckert (2006) are also considered valuable to what Ninkov (2020) addressed. Gifted education policies and legislations are represented by elements with direct and indirect effectiveness and impact on gifted children, and gifted education policies are linked by rules to laws and regulations by legislative councils (VanTassel-Baska, 2017).…”

“…Using the method of documentary analysis, the study concluded that there are no comprehensive national policies for gifted care in the United States of America, particularly in the field of identification and acceleration. Tackling the programs of gifted students of two British private schools in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, using the content analysis methodology, Younis (2018) discussed and analyzed the differences and similarities related to talent development through the policies applied in the two schools with the international standards set by VanTassel-Baska (2017). The study concluded that despite the high rating of the two intended schools, the evaluation of the gifted policies applied to them shows that they are not of high quality and insufficient and that they need to appropriately follow international standards for talent policies.…”

Curriculum Issues

“…For curriculum differentiation approaches to be successful in implementation, several variables must work in unison to guarantee cohesion in effort (VanTassel-Baska & Little, 2017). Using any curriculum development model effectively will require schools to implement different aspects of curriculum simultaneously providing a minimum of two hours of contact time.…”