Reconfiguring Bruner: Compressing the spiral curriculum 

It was a cloudy Tuesday, a rarity in Los Angeles, reminiscent of the “marine layer” that friends lucky enough to live near the beach complain about. The gray matched our mood. We were in the exhausted, overwhelmed, nerves-frayed-to-their-nubs time of year — the week before final exams and final grades. We all had harried looks, circles beneath our eyes and stacks of papers to grade. Essays, quizzes, and the like weighed heavily on us. We were meeting in the “penthouse,” named not for its extravagant beauty, thread count, or gravitas but because of the view. It was by far the best view in East Los Angeles. It was a meeting of the schoolwide, cross-discipline literacy cadre, and none of us wanted to be there. 

We went because we said we would and had collectively agreed to this date weeks earlier. Seated in a circle, we did a quick check-in. “I’m exhausted, but my students are working on final exhibitions,” said one, while another said, “I’m so far behind, I’m going to have to cut and mend.”