Every curriculum tells a story.
What’s yours?

A smiling female teacher with curly hair and earrings standing in a classroom with students sitting at their desks doing work.

Partner with Lumina to craft a powerful curriculum story shaped by your vision and guided by our research and expertise.

Let's Collaborate

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Curriculum Writing

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Whether it's building from curriculum you already have or creating complete units from scratch, we design cohesive curriculum tailored to your vision and goals. ​

Curriculum Review

We offer thoughtful, research-based reviews with a trained eye for coherence, rigor, and practical instructional design. We share actionable feedback to elevate instructional quality.

Curriculum Training

We provide professional learning that equips your team with the knowledge, skills, and resources to develop powerful, rigorous, cohesive curriculum.

Our Development North Star

We believe the most effective curriculum is crafted intentionally and systematically. Our approach is shaped by cognitive science and pedagogical research, along with years of experience working with schools, districts, and national publishers. ​

About Us

We Believe​

Every component of the curriculum we design, from Essential Questions to tasks and assessments, is built from these core principles.

A motivational poster with a blue circle featuring a screwdriver and wrench icon at the top. The poster states, 'Students are capable of meaningful, authentic work.'
An infographic with a green circular icon featuring a brain and cogwheels, and the text "Students rise to the level of thinking they encounter."
A graphic with a red circle featuring a white globe icon at the top. Below it, the text reads, "Knowledge builds confidence and competence," in red and pink font.
A graphic with an orange book icon at the top, and text that reads 'Powerful text sets reveal humanity’s richness' in orange font.
A graphic with blue speech bubbles and a blue circle at the top. The text reads "Writing and discussion clarify thinking" in blue font.
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Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Just as Sir Isaac Newton attributed his success to the “giants” of thinking who came before him, the curriculum work we do would not be possible without the following giants of thought leadership in the education space.

Education and Curriculum Design

  • Daniel Willingham

  • Mike Schmoker

  • Doug Lemov

  • Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe

  • Zaretta Hammond

  • Natalie Wexler

  • Barbara Davidson

  • Harvard Project Zero

Literacy

  • Kelly Gallagher

  • Jeff Wilhelm

  • Doug Fisher & Nancy Frey

  • David & Meredith Liben

  • Tim Shanahan

  • Marilyn Adams

  • Freddie Hiebert

  • Anne Cunningham

  • Vermont Writing Collaborative

Social Studies

  • Bruce Lesh

  • James Loewen

  • Art Worrell & Paul Bambrick-Santoyo

  • Sam Wineburg

Tremendous gratitude for so many others, including former and current colleagues and active practitioners!

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Development Approach

Lumina follows a transparent process, working alongside you to turn your vision into effective curriculum.

LISTEN

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Green background with white text stating, 'We provide a free consultation to understand your goals, vision, and needs.'

PLAN

Text on a teal background that reads, "We analyze your materials and goals to identify priority areas and set a timeline."

TEST DRIVE

Blue background with white text about drafting initial samples for review and team discussion.

CREATE

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Text on blue background reading 'We refine our work based on your feedback and develop the remaining content.'

DELIVER

Text on a dark blue background that reads, 'We deliver a full and organized set of curriculum resources that are ready to teach.'
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Highlights From Past Projects

KIPP NYC

Worked with district team to write a vertically-aligned K-8 core ELA curriculum grounded in full-length texts, including:

  • Vertically aligned K-8 standards-based Scope and Sequence

  • Unit plans

  • Lesson plans

  • Assessments

  • Instructional Handbook

  • Professional development

Result
State reading proficiency nearly doubled, from 26% to 51% across network schools.

NY School District

Created middle school ELA unit plans aligned to a published curriculum with autonomy for teachers to create their own lessons.

  • Developed standards-aligned throughlines

  • Curated text sets

  • Wrote content & language objectives

  • Developed exit tickets and culminating tasks

  • Created Instructional Practices Handbook

Result
Adoption across all classrooms

Publishers

We provide curriculum development and strategy support for national curriculum publishers. Past projects include:

  • Foundational literacy Teacher Guides

  • Teacher and student resources for reading intervention

  • Science-of-reading based training

  • Virtual learning curriculum for ASL

  • Unit design and curriculum review for K-5 core ELA

  • Multilingual learner lesson supports for novel-based ELA units & lessons

  • Edited professional book for music educators

  • “Watching our students make progress this year has been so rewarding. They are becoming stronger readers, thinkers, and writers, due in no small part to all the thought and intellectual prep you put into making our ELA curriculum happen.”

    KIPP Middle School Teacher

  • Your review suggestions were deeply insightful and thoughtfully designed to steer the lessons toward best practice in writing instruction (and critical thinking). I really do believe that this work we do will make a difference in how students navigate the very complicated world they are growing into.

    Curriculum Leader

  • “Working with April today was the single most productive hour spent in the last 10-12 years of my career. Game changer.”

    Middle School Teacher

  • “Those two hours you spent with our team really stuck with us—not just because you explained everything so clearly, but because you helped us understand the heart behind it all. You gave us the why behind the what, and that’s going to stay with us every time we design a new experience for our teachers and students."

    Curriculum Developer

  • “It has been so helpful to have you take a tiny nugget of an idea and blow it up into something concrete and executable.”

    KIPP Leader

  • I am so grateful for the warmth, compassion, and positivity you brought onto our team. You led us through many murky waters, never wavering in your support and wisdom. I am so thankful for all your guidance and for making me feel seen, respected, and valued.

    Curriculum Writer

  • You came in at a challenging time and cultivated the relationships, vision, and space we needed to build something meaningful together. Thank you for reminding us why we love this beautiful creative process.

    Grade-Level Lead

  • Your contributions have made the curriculum more concise, usable, fun, and rigorous, which will improve the lives of many, many kids. I will take what you've taught me about early literacy, curriculum design, and management into many future projects.

    Grade-Level Lead

  • I was particularly impressed with your expert weaving of texts—the stories, nonfiction, and the atlas fit together very naturally and cohesively—no easy trick to find those connections and sequence the texts!

    Curriculum Leader

Ready for curriculum support?

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Schedule a free consultation to review your goals and needs. We’ll craft a free customized plan for you.

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