UNIT IDEA #1: “You can’t go it alone!”
This concept-based unit will focus on communities and relationships in nature and in society. Our students study ecosystems in the natural world at the beginning of the school year in their science class. I don’t intend for this to necessarily be an interdisciplinary unit, but I do intend to use their conceptual understandings from science to make generalizations (by comparing/contrasting) about how organisms — including humans! — interact with others in their environment.
The conceptual lens for the unit is “community.” Because this is a language arts unit, I’ll use the unit strands for process disciplines: understanding, responding, critiquing, and producing.
Here are some significant topics and concepts for the unit:
- UNDERSTANDING: Reading comprehension focus as we read a literary text (and small, supplemental informational text).
- RESPONDING: Students will respond in the systematic way we do all year — in their reader response journal and partner-pair dialogue journals. Additionally, there will be opportunities in the course to respond verbally in partner, group, and whole class discussion.
- CRITIQUING: Through discussion and structured activities (like ones from Making Thinking Visible), students will have opportunities to challenge one another’s thinking as they develop new conceptual knowledge about community.
- PRODUCING: In the end, I imagine we’ll develop a project (or multiple unique projects) based on where the unit takes us, with an emphasis on ACTION or “doing.” Maybe we’ll create lapbooks to share with younger students studying “community;” maybe we will share our learning in a meaningful way with the larger community.
Generalizations:
- Individuals in our communities have dignity and have their own important stories.
- Sharing is essential for living in community.
- Diverse perspectives within a community help us understand our own selves.
- Members of our classroom community bring different perspectives that help us develop our own ideas (in writing and reading conferences especially!)
- Characters in a sometimes book grow and change because of the members in their community.
Guiding questions:
- What clues do authors give readers to understand how characters interact? (Factual)
- How do characters interact with other characters in their communities? (Conceptual)
- How do you interact with individuals in your community? (Conceptual)
- What do characters in your book learn from one another? (Conceptual)
- What do we in our own community learn from one another? (Conceptual)
- What story do you have to share? What do you have to contribute to your community? (Conceptual)
- What can we learn from someone else’s story? How do others’ stories impact us? (Debatable)
Some of the critical content for the unit includes the following strategies, skills, and processes: character traits, theme, using evidence, making inferences, character change, narrative, pre-writing, drafting, revising, using the writing process
Classroom Snapshot:
- Students in their strategic reading groups will read The Wild Robot (Brown); Seedfolks (Fleischman); or One Crazy Summer (Williams-Garcia). In their reading groups, they’ll start by inferring character traits and recording supporting “evidence” in a double-entry journal. They’ll then use that information to choose a trait that shows their relationship with others in the community. We’ll extrapolate that trait to help answer one of the inquiry questions.
- In another lesson, students will make a concept map about the word “community.” The intention here is for them to include ideas from their small group novel, their lives, and the larger concept of “community.” From this, they’ll brainstorm an aspect of community they want to write a story about.
- I’ve found success in structuring units about identity and community with resources from Facing History and Ourselves (link to the Facebook page here).
In terms of the final assessment and learning experiences, I hesitate to dive too deeply into the work now, because I tend to let student inquiry guide where we go. Of course, if I am to implement this unit fully, I would take time in my weekly planning to pull texts and assessments and integrate other programs (our word work, for example) that are adaptive and context-dependent.
UNIT IDEA #2: “Is it worth the risk?”
This unit is one I have already done, but can’t wait to adapt! It focuses on taking risks conceptually. In addition, we examine stories of immigration and border crossing as examples of taking risks.
The conceptual lens for the unit is “risk,” evaluating types of risk, conditions around risk, the personal nature of risk, etc.
Because this is a language arts unit, I’ll use the unit strands for process disciplines: understanding, responding, critiquing, and producing.
Here are some significant topics and concepts for the unit:
- UNDERSTANDING: Reading comprehension focus as we read a literary text (and small, supplemental informational text).
- RESPONDING: Students will respond in the systematic way we do all year — in their reader response journal and partner-pair dialogue journals. Additionally, there will be opportunities in the course to respond verbally in partner, group, and whole class discussion.
- CRITIQUING: Through discussion and structured activities (like ones from Making Thinking Visible), students will have opportunities to challenge one another’s thinking as they develop new conceptual knowledge about taking risks.
- PRODUCING: In the end, I imagine we’ll develop a project (or multiple unique projects) based on where the unit takes us, with an emphasis on ACTION or “doing.” In the past students have written personal narratives about times they have taken risks. Other times they have used examples from our reading to write an editorial that answers one of the “inquiry questions.”
Generalizations:
- Taking risks is valued differently by different people.
- There is a difference between taking a risk and being put in a situation where you have to act in a “risky” way (where it is the only option).
- One behavior may be perceived as a risk by one person or group but not by another.
- We learn by taking risks — even when we “fail.”
Guiding questions:
- How can freedoms be gained by taking risks? (Conceptual)
- Why do people knowingly take dangerous risks? (Conceptual)
- Are some risks worth taking no matter the consequence? (Debatable)
- Can change occur without taking risks? (Debatable)
- Where do characters in our common reading books take risks and why? (Conceptual)
- When do I take risks and why? (Conceptual)
- How can I take risks with my writing? (Conceptual)
Some of the critical content for the unit includes the following strategies, skills, and processes: theme, using evidence, personal essay writing, writing process
Classroom Snapshot:
- Students will analyze “I Look at the World…” by Langston Hughes and “Risk Taking is Free” using these guiding questions.
- After many weeks of inquiry, students will use this organizer to help them develop an opinion piece about taking risks. To begin, they will identify “evidence” from multiple sources that can help answer some of the inquiry questions.
In terms of the final assessment and learning experiences, I hesitate to dive too deeply into the work now, because I tend to let student inquiry guide where we go. Of course if I am to implement this unit fully, I would take time in my weekly planning to pull texts and assessments and integrate other programs (our word work, for example) that are adaptive and context-dependent.