Here is the rough outline of my year long unit plan, as it stands now. I would love to hear what people think. The biggest question facing my year long unit right now, in my opinion, is the actual order and flow of the smaller units. Does anyone have any recommendations regarding the order of the units? I totally reject the idea of "teaching to the test"–obviously–but do you think the units are scaffolded towards the STAAR appropriately, in a manner that supports authentic learning along with testing access?
Also, instead of using a "Conceptual Unit" theme like identity... or something like that, I decided to extend the idea of literacy improvement and lifelong literacy development throughout the entire year. I think this is a way to keep everyone (students, teacher) focused on the true purpose of English (Literacy) class, and to build a meta-cognitive awareness of their learning experience. My hope is that if I can get 8th grade students meta-cognitively understanding the purpose of literacy development and learning, then they can then carry this purpose into their high school years and beyond.
Year Long
Unit Timeline (8th Grade)
Conceptual Question that will extend throughout
the year:
How can we grow our literacy skills to
impact the rest of our lives?
9 Smaller Units:
1.
Examining our Literate Lives (And setting goals
for our literacy development)
2.
Working with our Writer’s Notebook (As a
lifelong literacy tool)
3.
Memoir Unit (non-fiction)
4.
Poetry Unit
[Winter Break]
5.
Non-fiction and Persuasive writing Unit (through
Speeches and Social Issues)
6.
Grammar Unit (2 weeks, very short unit, non-traditional, and meant to be fun/empowering: meant to challenge the conventional ideas of grammar. What is "Proper?" What are the roots of English grammar? How does grammar affect out world? Politically? Socially? How can we use grammar to help our communicative abilities?)
7.
Testing Boot Camp (Leading up to STAAR)
8.
Short Fiction Unit (starting immediately after STAAR)
9.
Reflecting on our Literate Lives. How have we
grown? Have we reached our goals? What are our goals for the summer? For next year?
Note: Independent
Reading and Writing will be present throughout all units.
Thank you for this Alex! Your outline gives me an idea of how I want my year plan to flow. It's a great example to have as I'm planning.
ReplyDeleteI think your flow and ordering sounds good, and we can talk more about that in small group work time. One thing I'm wondering about is your thinking about "reading". I'm guessing that's linked into the memoir unit and certainly the poetry unit, and the writer's notebook too. But I just ask because words about writing are prominent in the first couple of units and reading isn't as explicit...
ReplyDeleteI like your thinking about the grammar unit. I wonder what you think about a title such as language study or inquiry vs. grammar, even though I see you're turning those expectations on their head.
Alex, I really like how you have an overarching goal and focus for the year to tie your units together. That will send a strong message to your students about your view of literacy and your values as a teacher. I also really like the way you framed the grammar unit as an inquiry into ideas of correctness.
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