WAAS

takes great pride in offering a rigorous curriculum in a small, nurturing

environment. Since parents expect rigor in the curriculum, it is important for us
to understand what rigor means at WAAS.

At WAAS, rigor is

Quality of thinking, not quantity, and can occur in any grade at any subject (Bogess, 2007)
Deep immersion in a subject and should include real-world settings (Washor & Majkowki,
2006)
Thoughtful analysis with sufficient attention to accuracy and detail (Beane, 2011)
Helping students develop the capacity to understand content that is complex, ambiguous,
provocative, and personally or emotionally challenging (Strong, Silver & Perrini, 2001)

Two different tools can be used to describe rigor. Each addresses something different.
Revised Blooms Taxonomy- What type of thinking verb (s) is needed to complete a task
Webbs Depth of Knowledge- How deeply do you have to understand the content to
successfully interact with it? How complex or abstract is the content?

At WAAS, we provide rigor by:
Providing sufficiently challenging work without making it hard for the sake of being hard.
Engaging students interests to get the level of engagements that leads to rigorous learning
Creating open ended learning opportunities
Giving students open ceiling rubrics with clear expectations (i.e. this is what you need to do to
get a B Now, take it above and beyond or to the next level to get an A)
Asking questions with no right or wrong answers, but require the students to support their
answers
Integrating the curriculum and using reading, writing, critical thinking, research, public speaking
and study skills
Providing instruction, support, feedback and collaboration during class time rather than doing
those things during instructional time that can be done at home or in guided study (i.e.
independent reading, brainstorming, and/or studying for more than 10 minutes in class)