The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum for High School Students

“Keep working to get this program incorporated in all schools. Your message and story are truly helpful for this generation of students.”

– Josef Woody, English Teacher, Douglas High School

WHY THIS HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM WAS NEEDED

High school is a critical time for students. The choices students make in high school often determine life-long outcomes for a student’s life. From the choices of using drugs and alcohol and engaging in sexual activity to going to college or entering the workforce, the impacts of these decisions affect the student’s life, their family’s life for generations, and the entire community.

I created the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for high school students to help students understand the tremendous importance of the decisions they make in this period of their lives. The curriculum helps students understand themselves, face their challenges, and set themselves up for success while improving literacy and academic performance.

The curriculum has been impactful because I combine a relatable, non-fiction text that youth actively seek to read with a workbook that uses higher learning standards for English Language Arts to teach critical life lessons. Most students see themselves in the story, and the workbook encourages them to examine their choices and prepare for the future they want to have.

A Life Skills Curriculum for High School Students that Improves Literacy

The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum guides students through my journey from bullying and insecurity to confidence and success. Through the text along with the workbook and journal, students explore the obstacles that I encountered, discuss my challenges and choices, and examine their own. The curriculum helps students discover who they are, what they like, and possible career paths to pursue. With a focus on helping students achieve success by overcoming their obstacles, eliminating their excuses, and calculating their choices, the curriculum addresses tough topics that impact students’ lives the most.

The non-fiction text has an estimated Lexile band of 1050-1160, which aptly supports the Higher Learning Standands emphasis on text range, quality and complexity. Most importantly, even students who have said they don’t like to read are actively reading the text and improving their literacy skills.

A High School Curriculum that Helps Schools:

Improve academic performance, standardized test scores, school attendance rates, graduation rates, and post-secondary attendance rates
Build digital literacy and STEM skills
Develop college and career goals and workforce readiness
Promote literacy, academic excellence, health-related and financial education
Build self-esteem and help students value themselves and their futures
Reduce bullying and violence and decrease discipline referrals
Encourage leadership, teamwork, and community involvement
Develop character and teach life skills to help students succeed in school and beyond
Improve emotional learning initiatives

A Literacy and Life Skills Curriculum the Parent Turned Teacher Can Easily Support

Parents have always played a critical role in supporting the educational achievements of their children. They are also a student’s first teachers of life skills and character development. With many parents now forced into a teacher role, educators need curriculum that parents even without the background and the patience of educators can easily support. Students as well as adults can relate to the text and workbook contents of the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum. Because the curriculum fosters important conversations, educators and parents learn more about their student as the student learns more about themselves, how to make good decisions and overcome their challenges, and how to set and achieve goals for their future.

What educators say about the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for high school students

What students say about the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for high school students

What parents say about the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum for high school students

“Reading Life After Birth had such a positive impact on my relationship with my sons. Because I saw pieces of myself in Summers’s story and how she was able to achieve her dreams it gave me the courage to push forward. I share Summer’s story with my sons to help them see that in spite of what life throws at you, with hard work and the right attitude you can be successful. As a single parent I know that the curriculum could help so many of our students. We have to provide our children with the resources that they need to achieve greatness. This curriculum is one of those resources”

Belinda Simpson

How the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum Works

Contact me to discuss the number of students and facilitators in your program. We then also discuss the best implementation plan for your program, school or district.
After purchasing the curriculum, you will receive all materials which include:
For students-
- The Life After Birth textbooks
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education workbooks
- S.O. What! T-shirts
For facilitators-
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Curriculum license and access to the online portal
- The Life After Birth textbook
- The S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education Instructor Guide
- S.O. What! T-shirt
Facilitators then take the one-hour online Train the Trainer course available in the online portal.
Facilitators distribute materials to students and begin curriculum implementation based on the plan I support you in developing.

A few points to note:

The program starts with students sharing a S.O. What! Statement of a current challenge or insecurity. This statement helps students take away the power from their problems and sets the tone for openness, connection, and respect for the remainder of the program.
The workbook includes 14 lessons each of which can be taught over one or multiple periods depending on the goals of the facilitator and identified needs of the class/group.
Most programs allocate 2-3 meetings per lesson and spend at least one semester for the full curriculum implementation.Because student engagement is typically high and the curriculum includes several topics, many programs implement the curriculum over an entire school year.
A capstone project concludes the program. Students revisit the key topics of each lesson, perform a job shadowing activity then write and present on what they learned and how they will apply what they learned to their careers and lives in general.
For the final activity, students create So NOW What? Statements where they express how they will move forward from the challenge stated in their S.O. What! Statement.

Bring This Impactful Literacy Curriculum to Your School or District

Contact me to discuss the best implementation plan for the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum in your classroom, school or district. I’ll help you get your students reading, writing, thinking, dreaming, and achieving S.O. What! Success.

Looking for an inspiring, relatable speaker to encourage and motivate your high school students. Bring Summer to your campus in-person or virtually!

Schools using the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum also get the Summer Send-Off program at the conclusion of the curriculum implementation.