CURRICULUM VITAE
AsylumText staff and longtime contributors have helped bring scores of online, software, and print products into classrooms and homes in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Prominent Clients
With respect to the largest publishers shown below (Pearson, HMH, McGraw-Hill), AT did not have a direct contract but developed core and/or ancillary materials as a subcontractor.
BBC STUDIOS LEARNING, MICROSOFT, TWIG EDUCATION (UK), STEMSCOPES, PEARSON VIRTUAL SCHOOLS, SAVVAS LEARNING, BENCHMARK EDUCATION, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, TRIUMPH LEARNING, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT, McGRAW-HILL EDUCATION, CENGAGE, WRIGHT GROUP, AGEMSOFT (EU), STraive (formerly SPI GLOBAL U.S.), MPS LIMITED, OWL LEARNING
Notable Projects
The five projects below speak to AT’s range. The first offers a link to an online media literacy pilot of lessons and news documentaries. The next four fall in the major curricular areas. Three have been widely adopted. (Modules of Twig’s middle-school science program will reach CA in September 2020.)
For all these products, AT provided editorial development and in some cases both quality assurance and design support.
MEDIA LITERACY
CHALLENGE | Satisfy multiple stakeholders. Build a BBC pilot for Microsoft’s platform, pairing 10 media literacy lessons with 10 segments of the tween-teen BBC news-magazine show My World (Exec. Prod.: Angelina Jolie). Write treatments for filmmakers and create lessons. Working in 45-minute classroom plans, render a primer on the history and nature of news, show how journalism works, and analyze the precepts of solid news reporting. Confront “fake news,” along with the echo chambers of cable networks and social media groups, for a digital generation of 11–14-year-olds. Most importantly, give young people the knowledge and critical thinking skills to both understand the news and evaluate its credibility.
> To view a sample, click on a company logo.
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English Language Arts
CHALLENGE | We can’t display lessons, but this grade 10 TOC shows the breadth of Asylum’s origination work (as a sub-vendor) on core parts of this overhaul of a grade 6–12 ELA Program. Our job? Help the publisher enrich its literature series, student- and teacher-facing, and deepen its digital presence. Make the program more fun, yet more rigorous. Integrate a world of ancillaries. And we have since contributed to state adaptations of this program for Texas, Florida, and Nevada.
Mathematics
CHALLENGE | Make high school pre-calculus relevant to the real world—that is, answer the question, “Why, aside from the SAT, do I need to know this?” Work with QBS Learning to develop a clear program in step with its authors—at the mad dash of a publisher behind schedule. Write clear student- and teacher-facing instruction, refining its editorial consistency and mathematical integrity. And provide quality assurance for the accuracy of compositionally complex mathematical notation.
Science
CHALLENGE | Make middle school science as compelling and relevant as the learning architecture of this creative publisher. Take a rich and complex web of synopsized content briefs—video, digital, print—and create consumable, student-facing Twig Books and hub Teacher Guides. Bring NGSS benchmarks into clear focus and engaging instruction. Help bring an exciting, hands-on feel to science at this critical age in students’ lives. NOTE: As this program is not yet published, a Grade 4 sample is provided.
CHALLENGE | Make primary science inviting and fun while giving students the tools to meet Next Gen Science Standards. Develop and refine copy to spark future scientists. Bring science into kids’ homes and on their journeys through the physical world. Prompt and nurture their curiosity, encouraging them to ask “Why?” and “How?” Pare down text to let visual content do a good deal of the work. Simply put, invite young minds into the first steps of understanding complex, fascinating processes.
Additional Products
AsylumText has contributed to materials across the curriculum and at all grade levels. Some products, too recent to display or not cleared for presentation, are described under their relevant subject headings.
Reading | English Language Arts
AT staff provided development and management (with another vendor) on Pearson’s grade 6–12 ELA program, myPerspectives. Since then, we have customized its TEs and Assessments and have created ancillary products across levels for various states. We have also created several grades of K–12 State Assessments for the HMH K–6 series Into Reading and its 6–12 ELA series Collections.
English Language Development AND SUPPORT
The lower row (below) shows TE pages of an ELD customization AT developed for a 2019 update of Pearson’s K–5 Elevate Science NY. That same year, we developed ELD for Benchmark’s K–6 Advance 2.0 ELA program. AT staff worked on the creation of HMH’s 2016 Escalate English, a reading-rich ELD program for K–5. In 2020, we’re building ELD support for Twig Education’s middle-school science for CA.
Mathematics
In 2019, AT developed two 900-page Teacher Editions—Geometry and Algebra II—along with specific student-facing sections of Algebra I, for the HMH series AGA Math. We finished in less than five months, and HMH singled out our work for praise. (To view a sample, go to HMH and scroll to RESOURCES.)
Science
HOMESCHOOL COURSEWARE In 2020, AT is creating online/blended-learning courses in Biology, Physics, and Chemistry for a major publisher. Year-One learning objects and multimedia assets (podcasts, videos, slideshows) will soon hit the homeschool market (national and international).
Social Studies | History
In addition to helping create acclaimed national editions, AT has refined our state customizations. In 2018, AT developed the Illinois edition of myWorld, Pearson’s K–5 national social studies platform. Also on our staff list of state customizations are Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia.
