Planning Units/Last Minute Planning

I am really excited to begin the discussion about unit planning. I feel this is the crux of great instruction. Far too often, teachers are so overwhelmed that they plan at the last minute. We have to ask ourselves: Does last minute planning lead to effective instruction informed by data, goals, and relevancy? In this entry I want to set the stage for planning a unit together with a 6th grade reading teacher and I would like to offer some reminders of backward planning.

Joey
I am so fortunate to introduce you all to Joey from KIPP: Central City. He is a new teacher. He teaches 6th grade reading. (I only wish I would have been as good of a teacher in my first year as he is in his.) During my last visit at Central City, Joey and I discussed the idea of planning thematic units. (The discussion began because I felt that I had pushed the teachers so hard to teach strategies that interest and relevancy had suffered. I didn't see kids excited about what they were learning because they were learning strategies - not very interesting to young adolescents.) A few weeks ago Joey contacted me about beginning the process together. I asked if we could do it on-line so more people could be involved in the process. He graciously agreed. Thanks, Joey!

School Background
The team at Central City has been given a lot of freedom to expand their horizons in the last quarter of the school year. The state test is over and their supportive and creative leader suggested that they "experiment with a lot of things."

Project Background
When Joey first contacted me about beginning this process, we discussed that he might do a unit with the Social Studies teacher. With that as a backdrop, I asked him to send me the following pieces of information.

1. Talk to the social studies teacher and find out what they will be studying at some point in the future that will give us time to plan together electronically.
2. Create a theme around the social studies topic i.e. civil rights era or holocaust could turn into a justice theme.
   
3. Choose 4 GLEs (Grade Level Expectations) that you have not covered or that the students have not mastered, two for fiction, two for nonfiction.
4. Split your students into three leveled groups. Let me know who is in the groups along with their levels.

When Joey got back to me he told me about the teachers' opportunity to "experiment". He told me that he wanted to do a thematic unit, inject drama into the mix, and try literature circles. He also shared that he would not be doing the theme connected to the Social Studies curriculum. In addition he shared that he had not chosen a theme but would possibly center the theme on the book, Bud, not Buddy. He also shared that these would be the benchmarks that he would like to address through the unit: character development, main idea, theme, and raising questions.

Next Steps
I suggested that if he was to use Bud, not Buddy, he might look at a theme about family or loss. Here is the information still needed to begin planning:

• The theme, preferably written as an essential question. (Example: How do teenagers deal with loss?)
  
• The average reading levels of the literature circle groups that he will form. (Example: Group 1 - F&P level P, Group 2 - F&P level R, Group 3 - F&P level T, Group 4 - F&P level V)
  

Reminders of Backward Planning
When backward planning, it is important to think first about our goals. You'll notice that when I began assisting Joey I asked him what benchmarks he wanted to cover. In addition, you see that I am pushing Joey to think of an essential question as opposed to a topic. If we plan our units with an essential question that is relevant to our students we will most likely see more engagement and motivation. Therefore, when writing an essential question we have to ask ourselves: What really matters to our students?

Let's take the sample essential question into consideration. Is loss something your students are dealing with or have dealt with? If so, that might be an engaging essential question. The question should be the impetus for everything in the unit - assessments will be affected by the question, books will be chosen with this question in mind, and it should "set the purpose" for all of our reading.

If we are going to use the literature circle model, we will need to choose at least 2 books for each level that would help students answer the essential questions. Books might include: Maniac McGee, Alice in April, Abduction, Beyond the Mango Tree, etc.

Warning: I have seen some teachers who use essential questions but the questions are academic oriented. For example: How does asking questions help us become better readers? For most of our students, this questions is not going to sustain interest. However, if our students really want to learn about how teens deal with loss, they will be enthused to read to find out how characters in books deal with it.

But what about those "pesky" benchmarks? How will we get the students to ask questions or identify main ideas? As students try to discover how teens deal with loss, we want to give them strategies to assist them. Therefore, the benchmarks become the tools that help us learn what we want to know.

Up Next
Keep your eyes open as to what Joey decides about his essential question. Our next step will be to look at how students will demonstrate that they can track character development, identify main ideas and themes, and raise questions.