We began our Partner Spotlight series last school year to highlight educators who are making thinking the minimum standard and creating classrooms where students are challenged to analyze, question, write, and engage deeply with what they are learning.
This year, we’ll continue sharing stories from our partners across the country, along with the voices of our scholars and the ways their learning prepares them to contribute to society and strengthen our democracy.
By now, most educators are a few weeks into a new school year, but what I know from my time as an administrator is that the school year never really ends. Much of our summer is spent reflecting on the year behind us, digging into data, identifying areas for growth, and using those insights to shape our instructional priorities for the year ahead.
With that in mind, I thought it was fitting to kick off this school year’s Partner Spotlight series with Learn 8 Middle School in Chicago, Illinois, a school that used its data, teacher feedback, and student needs to thoughtfully shape what came next. After three years with Thinking Nation, Learn 8 expanded from our supplemental resource to our comprehensive 6th and 7th grade Social Studies curriculum, along with additional professional development. We began this school year with an in-person PD session focused on intentionally mapping critical thinking, engagement, and writing throughout the year.
Here’s what Learn 8 principal Tannita Smith shared about their journey.
Q: What does it mean to make thinking the minimum standard at your campus?
A: We began our journey with Thinking Nation approximately three years ago to find a curriculum that would not only engage our scholars but also challenge them to think deeply about history. We wanted to create rich, structured learning experiences where scholars analyze historical events, consider multiple perspectives, develop evidence-based arguments, and engage in meaningful debate. For us, making thinking the minimum standard means creating consistent opportunities for scholars to question, analyze, use evidence, communicate, and make meaning of what they are learning.
Q: In what ways has this approach shaped conversations around instruction, data, or collaboration?
A: Since implementing Thinking Nation, our ELA and Social Studies teams have collaborated more intentionally around writing standards and creating consistent expectations for student writing across both content areas. This collaboration has contributed to improved literacy outcomes, with our scholars exceeding our network literacy goal last year. Thinking Nation’s Curated Research Papers (CRP) and THINKS protocol have also given scholars structured opportunities to analyze primary and secondary sources, develop evidence-based responses, and write about history. This has been especially important because writing has historically been a struggle for many of our scholars. Rather than writing being limited to the ELA classroom, students now have consistent opportunities to strengthen those skills through Social Studies as well.
Planning for the year in action
What stood out to the Learn 8 leadership team was not just that the data showed growth, it was where they saw the work happening.
In the first year, the campus saw a 5% gain in writing scores, followed by an additional 20% gain in each of the next two years. As administrators dug deeper, they saw that the reading and writing happening in ELA was also being reinforced in Social Studies through aligned standards and consistent expectations. The data helped tell a bigger story: literacy doesn't belong to one classroom, and thinking doesn't belong to one content area.
When students are consistently expected to read, write, analyze evidence, question, and communicate their thinking, those skills become part of the culture. That is what it means to make thinking the minimum standard, not adding more, but creating a shared expectation that every student, in every classroom, is capable of deep thinking and deserves the opportunity to practice it every day.
Learn 8 Middle School
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