te843 davidson unitplanproject

7/28/2019 TE843 Davidson UnitPlanProject

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Kathleen Davidson

TE 843 Hartman

Unit Plan Project

6/24/12

Introduction

I have decided to do my unit plan project using one of the classes I will be teaching next year,

advanced literature. Advanced literature is the final required class that students will take in high school and

is meant to prepare students for both college and future careers. The classes will be composed of

advanced juniors and average to below-average seniors. Some of the seniors in the classroom will also be

special education students. This will mean that I either have a paraprofessional in the classroom to help

these students, or the classroom will be co-taught.

Harper Creek High School is set up on block scheduling. Students have five blocks during the

school day. Four of the blocks are 80 minutes and one block is 40 minutes long and is used for either

support for struggling students or as an elective. Advanced literature will be an 80 minute class and some

students will be placed in the 40 minute support class to make sure that they succeed in the course.

While the class is 80 minutes long, the first 30 minutes of the class will be dedicated to a

readers/writers workshop. This means that for the first 30 minutes of class each day students will spend

time either doing choice reading or responding to mentor texts in a written form. The other 50 minutes of

class will be dedicated to the assigned curriculum for the course.

This unit will be the final unit of the course. The major purpose of this unit is for students to

demonstrate the skills they have obtained regarding doing research, writing, reading between the lines, and


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presentations. This unit will fine tune those skills using conferencing and practice. The previous units used

modeling, mentoring, conferencing, and practice to work on these skills. This is the students chance to

show that they can use what they have learned.


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Curriculum Map

Instructional Context: This will be the third and final unit of the course.

Timeline: This unit will last approximately five weeks.

Placement Context: Advanced Literature (final required English course)

Essential Questions/ Overall Goals Essential Question: How do leaders use the power of language

to influence and inspire people? Because this is the final unit, students will

use this big essential question to developtheir own branch off essential questions.

Standards: Read closely to determine what the text

says explicitly and to make logicalinferences from it; cite specific textualevidence when writing or speaking tosupport conclusions drawn from the text.

Assess how point of view or purposeshapes the content and style of a text.

Integrate and evaluate content presented indiverse formats and media, includingvisually and quantitatively, as well as inwords. 1

Delineate and evaluate the argument and

specific claims in a text, including thevalidity of the reasoning as well as therelevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Analyze how two or more texts addresssimilar themes or topics in order to buildknowledge or to compare the approachesthe authors take.

Conduct short as well as more sustainedresearch projects based on focusedquestions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess thecredibility and accuracy of each source,and integrate the information while avoidin

plagiarism. Draw evidence from literary or

informational texts to support analysis,reflection, and research.

Present information, findings, and


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supporting evidence such that listeners canfollow the line of reasoning and theorganization, development, and style areappropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Make strategic use of digital media andvisual displays of data to expressinformation and enhance understanding of

presentations.Content The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss

Anti-Semitic political cartoons (use of propaganda)

Enron article (use of propaganda completed together)

Political speeches (use of propaganda completed individually)

Night by Elie Wiesel Never Shall I Forget Elie Wiesel The Perils of Indifference Elie Wiesel Research project examples

Skills Students will be able to: Read between the lines to make inferences

about a text Write to effectively present an argument Respond to readings and other students

opinions through writing

Research effectively Compile research into an effective

presentation format Present effectively to an audience

Learning/Teaching Strategies Anticipation guide using statements relatedto the main essential question of the unit

Questioning Circle (after reading) Secret prompts (before reading) Silent discussion threads (during reading) Three level reading guide prepared by the

students (during reading)Cumulative Assessment The final assessment for the unit/course is a

research presentation. The presentation will requirethe following steps:

1. Decide on one issue from society toresearch

2. Conduct research on the issue


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Lesson Plan #1 Frontloading

Context

This lesson will open the final unit of the semester. This will be used to introduce the big ideas of

the unit so that students will be able to make connections to the unit and become motivated.

Objectives

Students will be able to

Make connections to the unit big ideas Develop higher level thinking questions

Lesson Outline

1. After students complete the first 30 minutes of readers/writers workshop we will move into thelesson for the day. Students will be presented with the big essential question for the unit. They willuse this large essential question to develop branch off essential questions. They will first writetheir essential question on a note card. They will then share their essential question with the other students at their table. After sharing they will come up to the backboard where the big essentialquestion for the unit is presented, present their essential question, and post it to the board.

2. After all of the essential questions are posted we will move onto the anticipation guide. Students

will be given an anticipation guide to write down their opinions on statements related to the bigidea for the unit. They will either agree with the statement or disagree and then write down whythey feel that way.

3. After all students are finished writing down their opinions, students will stand up. The room will bedivided into two sides: agree and disagree. I will read off a statement and students will move tothe side of the room that represents their opinion. From there we will discuss why people movedto each side of the room. We will go through each statement until the end of the block.

Assessments Students will be assessed through their presentation of their essential question and also through

their participation in discussion.


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Name: Block:

Anticipation Guide

How do leaders use the power of language to influence and inspire people?

Directions: Today you are going to begin making connections between the essential questions we havecreated and your life. Read each of the statements below carefully. On the line next to each statement,you will write A if you agree or D if you disagree. In the space under each statement you will write thereasoning you have behind your opinion. You must share your opinions with the class in order to receive

participation points for the assignment.

1. ____ People tend to reveal their true selves when placed in a difficult situation.

2. ____ People do not change.

3. ____ When someone is influenced by others to do something against their natural tendencies, it isreally their choice, not peer pressure.

4. ____ When faced with something we disagree with, it is almost always best to stay quiet andaccept it.

5. ____ People are likely to conform rather than act on their own individual values.

6. ____ People need authority figures to tell them what to do.


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7. ____ You should stand up for your beliefs, regardless of the consequences.

Lesson Plan #2 Frontloading 2

Context

This lesson will be used to make connections between a text and the essential questions for theunit. It will also helps students build their beyond the text reading skills.

Objectives


Make connections to the unit big ideas Develop their beyond the lines reading skills Take effective notes while reading a text

Lesson Outline

1. After students have completed the readers/writers workshop for the day we will move into thelesson for today. I will introduce the lesson for the day by telling students that we are going toread a childrens story. It will be their job to make connections to the essential questions we have

created for the unit.2. Each student will receive a copied version of Dr. Seusss The Sneetches. They will receive

instructions that they are to take notes on the text to show how it relates to the essential questionsfor the unit. They will also receive an example of the cover of the story and the difference

between skimpy notes and effective notes.3. From there we will read the story together as a class. We will stop after each page so that

students have time to take notes over the reading.4. Once we have finished reading, we will discuss as a class how the book is connected to our

essential questions.5. After the discussion, students will receive their questioning circle for The Sneetches. They will

complete the guide on their own during class. If they do not finish the handout during class theymust complete it for homework.

Assessment

Students will be assessed through their notes over The Sneetches, which will be turned in with


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their other assessment the questioning circle.

Name: Block:

Questioning Circle for The Sneetches

Dense Question

Text and Me

Text and World

World and Me

Me

Text

World


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Lesson Plan #3 During Reading

Context

This lesson will be used when we are in the middle of reading Night by Elie Wiesel. It will be usedto help students make connections between the text, the essential questions for the unit, and the studentslives.

Objectives


Make connections to the unit big ideas Read effectively to see what is on the lines as well as what is said between the lines.

Lesson Outline

1. After finishing the reading/writing workshop for the day, we will begin with the lesson. The lessonwill open up with students participating in silent discussion threads. Students will work with the

people at their group of desks for the discussion threads. Each student will receive their own prompt on a sheet of paper. Students will receive two minutes to respond thoroughly to thequestion in front of them.

2. When time is called, students will pass their sheet to the person to their left. That person will readthe question and the response that the student wrote. They will then respond. This process willcontinue until every person at the table has responded to every question.

3. The students will then use these silent discussion threads to prompt a discussion about the text.4. When the discussions are finished, we will continue reading Night.

Assessments

Students will be assessed through the discussion threads that they turn in.


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Silent Discussion Thread Topics

What is most important about Elie and his fathers relationship? What keeps Elie motivated during this hard time in his life?

What event during the novel so far is most significant to Elie? Why didnt anyone take a stand when they were being moved to the ghetto?

Lesson Plan #4 Post Reading

Context

This lesson will be used after we have finished reading Night. After this lesson students will beintroduced to the final assessment for the class. This lesson will make a bridge between what we have

read and their final assessment

Objectives


Make connections to the text through writing Edit their writing to compose a final draft Take effective notes while reading a text

Lesson Outline

1. After students are finished with the readers/writers workshop for the day we will move onto thelesson for the day. Today the lesson will open up with students reading Elie Wiesels speech ThePerils of Indifference. Students will be instructed to take effective notes while reading. Theywill be given a few minutes after reading as well to add notes.

2. After we finish reading and taking notes, we will discuss what Wiesels message is for hisaudience. We will also go over what his audience is supposed to take away from the speech.

3. After the discussion, students will receive another writing by Wiesel. This time students will readthe poem Never Shall I forget. We will read the poem together as a class. Students will thenuse the poem to do their own writing about an event they will never forget. They will work onthese for the rest of the class period. They will turn in a rough draft that they have edited and atyped final draft tomorrow.


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Assessment

Students will be assessed through the notes they take on Wiesels speech and their participation indiscussion. They will also be assessed through the writing they turn in tomorrow.


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Never Shall I Forget

Never shall I forget that night,

The first night in the camp

Which has turned my life into one long night,

Seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke

Never shall I forget the little faces of the children

Whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke

Beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames

Which consumed my faith for ever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence

Which deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments

Which murdered by God and my soul

And turned my dreams into dust.

Never shall I forget these things,

Even if I am condemned to live

As long as God Himself.


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Never.

-Elie Wiesel


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Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel, gave this impassioned speech in the East Room of theWhite House on April 12, 1999, as part of the Millennium Lecture series, hosted by President Bill Clintonand First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Perils of Indifference

Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends:Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the CarpathianMountains woke up, not far from Goethe's beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy calledBuchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never wouldbe again.

Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw. Andeven if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and alsofor their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what heneeded to know -- that they, too, would remember, and bear witness.

And now, I stand before you, Mr. President -- Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, andtens of thousands of others -- and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to theAmerican people.

Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being.

And I am grateful to you, Hillary -- or Mrs. Clinton -- for what you said, and for what you aredoing for children in the world, for the homeless, for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society. And I thank all of you for being here.

We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of thisvanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be

judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast adark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations -- Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin -- bloodbaths inCambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevoand Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level,of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence, so much indifference.

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnaturalstate in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment,cruelty and compassion, good and evil.

What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary attimes to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to lookaway from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams,our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain anddespair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And,therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest.Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the"Muselmanner," as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on theground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were, strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing.They were dead and did not know it.

Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the


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ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better anunjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment thanto be a victim of His anger. Man can live far from God -- not outside God. God is wherever weare. Even in suffering? Even in suffering.

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman.Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative.One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees-- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is toexile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most importantlessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, thevictims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps --and I'm glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, thatperiod, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance -- but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten.All of us did.

And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka wereclosely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going onbehind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against theJews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies.

If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth tointervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. They would havebombed the railways leading to Birkenau, just the railways, just once.

And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Departmentknew. And the illustrious occupant of the White House then, who was a great leader -- and I sayit with some anguish and pain, because, today is exactly 54 years marking his death -- FranklinDelano Roosevelt died on April the 12th, 1945, so he is very much present to me and to us.

No doubt, he was a great leader. He mobilized the American people and the world, going intobattle, bringing hundreds and thousands of valiant and brave soldiers in America to fightfascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler. And so many of the young people fell in battle. And,nevertheless, his image in Jewish history -- I must say it -- his image in Jewish history is flawed.

The depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo -- maybe1,000 Jews -- was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after the Kristallnacht, after the first state sponsored pogrom, with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned,thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already on the shoresof the United States, was sent back.

I don't understand. Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who neededhelp. Why didn't he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people -- in America, a greatcountry, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. Whathappened? I don't understand. Why the indifference, on the highest level, to the suffering of thevictims?

But then, there were human beings who were sensitive to our tragedy. Those non-Jews, thoseChristians, that we called the "Righteous Gentiles," whose selfless acts of heroism saved thehonor of their faith. Why were they so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers


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after the war than to save their victims during the war?

Why did some of America's largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler's Germanyuntil 1942? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not haveconducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from American sources. How is one toexplain their indifference?

And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in Ireland. And let us remember themeeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and Arafat that you, Mr. President,convened in this very place. I was here and I will never forget it.

And then, of course, the joint decision of the United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo andsave those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man whom I believe thatbecause of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. But this time, the worldwas not silent. This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene.

Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Hasthe human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other formsof injustices in places near and far? Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr.President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of childrenand their parents be allowed anywhere in the world? Will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same?

What about the children? Oh, we see them on television, we read about them in the papers, andwe do so with a broken heart. Their fate is always the most tragic, inevitably. When adults wagewar, children perish. We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine. Some of them --so many of them -- could be saved.

And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathian Mountains. He hasaccompanied the old man I have become throughout these years of quest and struggle. Andtogether we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinaryhope.

Elie Wiesel - April 12, 1999

www.historyplace.com/speeches/wiesel.htm
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.historyplace.com%2Fspeeches%2Fwiesel.htm&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH2xwLKJgoIn-3qO-Dlu4ez68hD5g


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Reflection

When planning this unit for next year I used a lot of what I learned from this class; I got a lot of

help from Jefferey Wilhelms book Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry. I began planning my unit

by coming up with the big essential question for the unit. I developed a question that went along with the

course required text Night. I also decided that because this is the final unit of the semester, I would like

the students to develop additional essential questions. This will help demonstrate that students can develop

higher-level thinking questions.

Moving into the next step of backwards design, I needed to come up with the final assessment for

the unit. Not only was this going to be an assessment for the unit, but because it is the final unit, it would

also be the final assessment for the class. I developed a final assessment that would incorporate the big

ideas that I hoped students would learn from this unit but also from the advanced literature class.

Now that I had the final assessment, it was time to develop the steps it would take to make sure

that students could finish the assessment effectively. I knew from the readings in this class that I needed

to scaffold lessons in order to help students make a bridge from what they currently know to what they

needed to know.

Finally, I used one of the first assignments we did in this class to plan this assessment. I knew that

when I was planning the unit and what I wanted students to achieve, I had to look at the common core

standards to make sure that what I wanted to do aligned with the standards.

te843 davidson unitplanproject

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