A “Coherence Map” for the

High School Standards

WHY DID WE CREATE THIS MAP?
We began this map in response to our work with teachers at UnboundEd’s Standards
Institutes—twice-yearly convenings of educators who want to learn more about the
shifts in practice required by college and career readiness standards. During these
events, we’ve observed how K-8 teachers benefit from Student Achievement Partners’
Coherence Map​—both as an illustration of the coherence of the CCSSM, and in using it
as a tool to design instruction that builds on students’ prior learning—and wanted to
help high school teachers in a similar way.

We imagine that this map might be used in several ways: as a resource for lesson
planning or curriculum development, or as a way to power the features of various
instructional technologies. Perhaps most importantly, we see it as a way for high
school teachers to assist students who have unfinished learning from previous grades.
Students often enter high school without many of the prerequisite understandings and
skills from K-8, and it’s up to high school teachers to skillfully integrate those ideas into
an already packed instructional calendar. We hope that having easy access to the
connections between middle and high school standards, as well as the connections
among high school courses, will allow teachers to more quickly and effectively meet
their students’ needs.

In our day-to-day work, we’ve also observed that open-source curricula and
instructional resources are focused disproportionately on K-8. While giving students a
solid mathematical foundation in the early years is certainly important, high school is a
critical time for preparing students to meet the challenges of post-secondary education
and careers. We believe it’s time for organizations to invest more heavily in high
school instruction, and we hope this map can be one small part of that effort.

​HIGH SCHOOL COHERENCE MAP - v1.0 1

HOW DID WE DRAW THE CONNECTIONS?
A few notes about our process should help readers better understand the map:

Types of connections. ​ As in the K-8 Coherence Map (and Jason Zimba’s ​CCSSM Graph
before it), this map includes two types of connections: directed edges (i.e. arrows) and
undirected edges (i.e. dotted lines). To paraphrase Zimba’s descriptions of these
edges:

● A directed edge from one standard to another indicates that a student likely
needs to meet the first standard in order to begin working toward the second.
As in Zimba’s graph, we drew these connections only between “nearest
neighbors” in order to avoid a redundant and overly-complicated network.

● An undirected edge from one standard to another represents a meaningful

relationship between the two standards, although not one in which it’s clear
that one standard should be taught before the other. (In these cases, it may be
appropriate to teach both standards in conjunction.)

Courses and curricula.​ States, districts, and schools organize their courses in a variety
of ways and rely on a vast array of curricula and textbooks. In order to be usable by all,
this map does not group standards by course.

(+) standards.​ Since preparing students for a variety of post-secondary educational

experiences, including advanced mathematics, is one important function of the high
school standards, we thought it was important to include (+) standards on the map.

Primary focus: high school instruction. ​ As we mapped the standards, our primary
focus was helping high school teachers lead their students through a coherent
mathematical journey, using the CCSSM as guideposts. Thus the map is limited to
helping teachers see how CCSSM expectations in one grade or course serve as
prerequisites or adjuncts to CCSSM expectations in the same or another grade or
course, and not as an exhaustive representation of all possible connections among
topics in 5-12 mathematics.

“Nodes.” ​The connections among some groups of standards are sometimes so

intricate that it was difficult to determine whether and how they fall into a clear
progression. In these cases, we thought it most likely that good instruction would
begin with standards which emphasize conceptual understanding of a given topic, and
then move to procedural skills and applications. (For example, in examining the
Interpreting Functions domain, we determined that HSF.IF.A.1, which describes a

​HIGH SCHOOL COHERENCE MAP - v1.0 2

foundational understanding of a function, was the most likely “node” from which many
other standards in the domain proceed.) While we recognize that this isn’t an absolute
rule, and that different topics are best approached in different ways, this way of
thinking helped us to avoid drawing an inordinate number of connections, and to
design a map that best helps teachers account for important prerequisite
understandings when planning.

Grouping and scaling.​ In order to simplify reading and locating standards on the map,
we divided the map into a series of pages according to conceptual category; within
each page, we placed standards in a given domain in the same general area. The map is
not scaled in any way, so horizontal or vertical placement of standards and the lengths
of various edges are all incidental.

WHAT TYPE OF FEEDBACK ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

As of April 2018, this map is in draft form. Over the next 12 months, we are seeking
feedback from educators, with the aim of producing a stable version for public use.
Feedback on the following issues is especially welcome:

● Does the map accurately represent the progression of mathematical ideas from
Grades 5-8 to high school as described in the CCSSM?
● Do our “nodes” accurately represent the progression of mathematical ideas
from Grades 5-8, to and through the high school standards?
● Are the connections between conceptual categories, as indented by the CCSSM,
adequately represented in the map?
● Are there other connections, not presently captured on the map, which should
be included because they impact classroom instruction?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of our colleague Doug Sovde, now of the
Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, who provided a great deal
of insight and encouragement during the initial phase of this project.

Copyright © UnboundEd Learning, Inc. 2017.

This work is licensed under a ​Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License​.

​HIGH SCHOOL COHERENCE MAP - v1.0 3

 6.EE.B.5  HSA.REI.A.2 

8.EE.A.2  HSA.REI.A.1  HSA.REI.B.3 

8.EE.B.5  HSN.RN.B.3 

HSA.REI.B.4.A 
8.EE.C.7 

HSA.REI.B.4 
HSN.CN.A.1 
8.EE.C.8  HSN.CN.C.8  HSN.CN.C.9 
HSA.REI.B.4.B  HSF.BF.A.1 

HSN.CN.C.7 
HSN.RN.A.1 
HSF.BF.A.1.C 

HSA.REI.C.6  HSA.REI.C.7 
HSN.RN.A.2 
HSA.REI.C.5 

HSN.VM.C.6  HSA.REI.C.8  HSA.REI.C.9 

HSF.BF.B.4.A 

HSA.REI.D.10  HSA.REI.D.11 

7.EE.B.4  HSA.CED.A.1 

8.EE.C.8.A  HSA.CED.A.2 

HSA.CED.A.3  HSG.MG.A.3 
8.EE.C.8.C 

HSA.REI.D.12 
HSF.IF.A.1 

HSF.LE.A.1.B 
HSF.IF.C.7 

7.EE.A.1  HSF.LE.A.1.C 
HSA.CED.A.4 

8.EE.A.1  HSA.SSE.A.2 
HSF.LE.A.4 

HSA.SSE.A.1.A 

HSA.SSE.A.1  HSA.APR.D.7 
HSA.SSE.B.4  HSF.LE.A.2 
HSA.SSE.B.3.A 
HSA.SSE.A.1.B 
HSF.IF.C.8.A 
HSA.SSE.B.3  HSA.SSE.B.3.B 

HSA.SSE.B.3.C 

5.NBT.A.2 
HSN.CN.A.2  HSF.BF.B.3  HSF.IF.C.8.B 

7.EE.A.2 
HSA.APR.B.3 
HSA.APR.A.1  HSA.APR.B.2 

7.NS.A.1 

7.NS.A.1.D  HSA.APR.D.6 
HSF.IF.C.7.D 
HSF.IF.C.7.C 
7.NS.A.2  HSA.APR.D.7  HSG.GPE.A.1 

HSA.APR.C.4  HSG.GPE.A.2 
7.NS.A.2.B 

HSG.GPE.A.3 
Copyright © UnboundEd Learning, Inc. 2017.
8.G.B.6 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.