Advocacy: Defining Academic Rigor

“This strategy of outlining various types of rigor widens the available opportunities to provide rigor for both teachers and gifted students.”

The relationship between rigor and gifted education or rigor and differentiated curriculum has been prevalent over time regarding the discussions about what constitutes the appropriate academic response to giftedness. The factor that continually needs clarification is not the need for the presence of rigor but the definitions of the term rigor especially as it affects differentiating the curriculum for the gifted. There will never be total consensus among educators concerning the definition and implementation of rigor. However, the experiences of educators of gifted students attempting to clarify the meaning of differentiation as it coincides within national, state, and district curriculum goals and designs; the academic achievements of gifted students; and the voices of teachers of gifted students seem to have created an interest in reassessing and subsequently redefining the concept of rigor.

Acknowledging that the meaning of rigor is dependent on varied elements, a single definition appears to be lacking in interpretation and for practice. The concept of defining rigor as a set of options that can guide the appropriate match between definition and practice for gifted students could ameliorate some of the misunderstandings about the what and how of employing rigor within the differentiated curriculum available to students. The following chart delineates both the set of options that comprise the “what” and “how” of incorporating rigor into a curriculum. The types of rigor are presented sequentially, indicating levels of sophistication and individualization. There is a potential dependency of one form of rigor on another that could take place within or over time for a gifted learner.

The underlying purposes of defining these types of academic rigor are to guide the teacher/student decision-making process related to selecting differentiated experiences that are responsive to the nature of giftedness and to make an independent decision affecting each rather than all gifted learners. Accepting the fact that there is no one way to describe and provide academic rigor to gifted learners, this strategy of outlining various types of rigor widens the available opportunities to provide rigor for both teachers and gifted students. More significantly, the proposed range of options defining rigor can be implemented as a sequential series of types of rigor that gifted students can experience within the study of a single curriculum or course of study.

The most important reasons to present an alternative definition of academic rigor is to reinforce the need for clarity of what is expected and intended when the vernacular related to “differentiation” is used. Clarity of terminology and definitions are both important elements of advocacy for “gifted education.”

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Table 1.

Incorporating Rigor Into a Curriculum

Types of rigor	Meaning and purposes of each type
Institutional rigor	The district or gifted programs’ curriculum and its relationship to either gifted and/or national standards often dictate this type of rigor.
Preparatory rigor	This type of rigor is defined by the curriculum’s discipline connection and serves to guide gifted students into either deeper awareness of the discipline or a more concentrated effort within the study of the discipline. The ultimate goal underlying this form of rigor is the opportunity to experience the discipline as a “disciplinarian.”
Personal rigor	This type of rigor is defined by the student’s proclivity toward OR an acknowledged ability or stated interest in an area or skill. This type of rigor requires the utilization of the instructional strategies of individualization or personalization of curriculum and potentially instruction.
Societal rigor	This type of rigor requires the juxtaposition of the gifted student’s needs, interests, and abilities with societal interests and demands. This form of rigor requires the gifted student to develop an awareness of economic, political, cultural, and/or aesthetic current events to operationalize the meaning of societal rigor.