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"The Multiple Menu Model is designed for individual or small groups of teachers who want to write comprehensive curricula and who understand that the endeavor is rewarding but time consuming." (Renzulli, Leppien & Hays, 2000)

The Multiple Menu Model is more of a curriculum tool to help teachers improve the curriculum writing process than a total school model. It was developed to provide those who design curriculum to have a variety of information and knowledge available to help make sound decisions on how to create authentic units of study. It is made up of six planning guides that help the teacher to narrow the scope of information and then flesh out the basic principles and concepts to create in-depth units. The model also encourages teachers to personalize their units to "...bring life and meaning to the content." (Renzulli et al, 2000) The menus are: Structure of Knowledge, Instructional Objectives and Student Activities, Instructional Strategies, Instructional Sequences, Artistic Modification, and Instructional Products. **Structure of Knowledge Menu:** There are four sections in this menu, each of which help teachers determine the most significant set of ideas and concepts that should be taught and presented to students. Section I ensures that students see the "big picture" through introductory activities, essential questions and knowledge trees. Section II helps students "get the big idea" by identifying the key principles and concepts of the field of study. Section III relies on methodological resources like how-to books to develop activities in which the students "act like practicing professionals. Section IV gets the students to apply the "tools" they have learned in the previous sections. (Renzulli et al, 2000)

**Instructional Objectives and Student Activities Menu:** This menu breaks down processes used in gathering information about a subject area and incorporates the ideas of Bloom's Taxonomy "by clarifying the process skills" (Renzulli et al, p. 50). The menu gives examples of behaviors under four categories of learning processes: assimilation and retention, information analysis, information synthesis and application, and evaluation.

**Instructional Strategies Menu: ** This menu provides a detailed list of teaching strategies with bullet point examples on how to enhance the strategy **. **Strategies include more teacher-centered strategies as well as more independent, student-led strategies.

**Instructional Sequences Menu:** This menu ensures that the teacher assesses "the student's knowledge base, experiential background, and the capacity to learn" in order to progress a the field of study. (Renzulli et al, p. 57) It is designed to be used in a sequential fashion and helps to ensure formative assessments are included in each unit. The menu breaks down the eight areas of the sequence: gaining attention, informing students of the purpose, relating the topic to other material, presenting material through various strategies, providing other options to extend the material, assessing performance, preparing students for future topics, and pointing out application opportunities.

**Artistic Modification:** This menu encourages teachers to personalize their curriculum material. It provides detailed examples of how to personnally modify the curriculm to "bring life and meaning to content." (Renzulli, et al, p. 60)

**Instructional Products:** This is a database of concrete and abstract products that teachers can use when planning their unit.

The overall goal of the Multiple Menu Model is "to achieve balance and coordination between knowledge and instructional technique and to proceed from the abstract to the practical in the process of curriculum development" (Renzulli, 2004).

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