Unit Plan Papers Soft Copy

8/8/2019 Unit Plan Papers Soft Copy

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Unit Plan Assignment

I. Overall Framework

When crafting the framework of a Creative Writing unit meant for high school students in

grades 9 through 12, it is important to draw upon widely varied and distinct theories of literacy

and learning. As an elective course, Creative Writing both benefits and suffers from its lack of

pressure to abide by standards-based alignment; assuming administrative support, teachers have

the freedom to create a curriculum that caters to their own pedagogical preferences and desires,

while also finding themselves faced with the problem of making the content meaningful to

students both in the immediate moment and later on in school and beyond. Neither a strictly

writing-focused course nor a strictly reading-focused course, Creative Writing can root itself in a

thoroughly exploratory approach to literacy, deviating from traditional assignments without

sacrificing the development of crucial skills. The theoretical underpinnings of my own Creative

Writing unit will influence my attempt to realize this opportunity, helping me choose the texts

which I use in my classroom, the projects I give to my students, the long-term trajectory of what

I hope for my class to learn, and the short-term plan of what my students must learn every day in

order to get to their final destination. By and large, my unit will attempt to unpack the broad

spectrum of meanings attributed to literacy in an attempt to help students come to their own

conclusion regarding literacy and its link to identity formation.

The guiding question of the unit is influenced by the interrelationship between text and

context. As Paulo Friere claims, reading the word is preceded by reading the world, and in order

to derive meaning from text, it is important not only to decode written language but also to

comprehend the ways in which the words reflect or serve to illuminate ideas about the world

around the individual (Freire 6). If students must read through various genres of work and


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produce their own written examples, doing so while imposing their own selves on the text means

that they stand a better chance of engaging with the literature beyond a superficial surface

reading, and as such, they also stand a better chance of synthesizing the literature beyond

reproducing a superficial surface analysis of what district standards deem to be the important

stuff.

As an example, a student who reads a text such as To Kill a Mockingbird will most definitely

read the word, exposing themselves to a new literary style and building up important literacy

skills such as vocabulary development (which in many ways, could also be reading the world

the acquisition of another lexicon or the revelation of a new way of speaking). But they will also

be reading the world more overtly, adding themes, questions, images, and ideas from the text to

their understanding of the social, cultural, political, and economic spheres around them, as well

as bringing knowledge from their immediate lives into the reading of the text itself. A discussion

regarding voting rights and the judicial system might stem from a text like To Kill a

Mockingbird, where students reread the circumstances of their own individual communities in

order to empathize or base as a comparison against the environment in which the characters of

the text live (Freire 8). So circling back to the idea that students can synthesize their self-

insertion into the text in a way that transcends simply demonstrating mastery of standards listed

on a planning-scheduling timeline, for this particular text, instead of producing a five-page essay

on the theme of Justice in To Kill a Mockingbird, students might produce a modern-day

rendition of the blockbuster trial from the book, scripting the proceedings as they think they

ought to unfold and acting them out. By giving this assignment, we as students and an instructor

are engaging in a partnership wherein I am not acting as the students creative jailor but as the

students creative gateway. As Freire says, I am giving the students help with the technical skills


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and organization of thought needed to get to a place where they can read the word in their own

way; though I am giving them an assignment that essentially asks them to meditate on justice in

the book, the students through virtue of creative license are tasked to read the word justice as

their own, and to rewrite it in the context of their understanding of the text and their own worlds

(Freire 10).

Of course, the intersection of imposing a set of rules on students and letting them create their

own rules within the realm of literacy is tricky; the balance between learning content and

appreciating its meaning comes into play here. In urban schools especially, and in classes such

as Creative Writing, which are often seen as extensions of test-prep classes where important test

skills can be remediated and practiced, the impetus to learn by the book is huge. Largely, this is

because the students I am teaching lack the basic grammar, spelling, and critical thinking skills

that characterize school-based literacy, despite the fact that this understanding of literacy is often

standardized amongst those who know the so-called privileged grammatical code (Kutz and

Roskelly 6). However, as Kutz and Roskelly demonstrate, it is possible to teach based on the

pedagogy that developing good writers is a processif not independent ofonly tangentially

related to the dog-and-pony show of grammar instruction. What is most important is giving

writers the toolkit they need to adequately express themselves; this toolkit will be unique to each

writer and their understanding of what makes a good writer. Perhaps because of this, my unit

will work to change the very perception of writingrather than focus on the way mechanics

validates writing as good or bad, complex or simple, and correspondingly associates good with

complex, bad with simple, the course will examine style and word usage as its mechanics

focus: going through Blooms Taxonomy, we will first identify grammar rules but then strive

to synthesize, apply, and explain, in the context of the world which students are reading.


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For example, a lesson on verb tense agreement may begin by going through conjugation, but the

end goal will be for students, in their own writing, to play with verb tense agreement deliberately

to change meaning. Stressing the importance on meaning rather than the mechanics gives the

students the power to be wrong and not have the fear of such defiance limit creativity. Many

of the errors students produce are evidence of the world around them and the language to which

they have become accustomed (and further evidence of patterns and styles of learning), and as

such, can add important insight about their identity to the works they produce (Kutz and

Roskelly 8). As a result, even mechanics instruction can be manipulated to relate to the

overarching theme of Who Am I? by examining the cultural and educational underpinnings to

language in the individual.

One of the biggest challenges in crafting this unit plan will be choosing texts and deciding on

appropriate assignments, because as an educator, my hope is to increase cultural literacy within

my students own communities, while as an instructor, I want to ensure that my students can

access the same texts, vocabulary, and knowledge that is used to gauge literacy rates

countrywide. These two identities have motives that at once coincide; as Hirsch says, knowledge

of words goes hand in hand with knowledge of the cultural realities that the words represent

(Hirsch 161). By knowing their own communities, students will be better equipped to read the

world at large. So the challenge falls to me to develop a roster of works that integrates the

community around them as well as providing ample examples of worlds beyond their own that

are, nonetheless, accessible and readable. Gary Howard, when talking about teachers and their

notions of cultural superiority, notes that it is necessary for curriculums to reflect a move away

from unconscious or conscious exposure to assumptions of rightness, luxury of ignorance, or

blind perpetuation of the legacy ofprivilege (Howard 127). By ensuring that the unit plan I


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devise accounts for both the worlds that my students already read and the worlds that they must

learn to read, the outcome should be one where students learn a combination of content and

meaning.

II: Theoretical Framework

Being a Creative Writing teacher, I teach an elective that is not bound by a pre-written

curriculum nor by a District-created planning and scheduling timeline. For electives, there is no

outlined, specific set of objectives that absolutely must be mastered; elective courses are meant

to diversify experience and give students supplemental knowledge, as my principal says, and

according to most of the personnel (both administrative and District) who have visited my

classroom, those decisions are best left to the teacher because the teacher has a better sense of

what her kids do and do not know. As a result, I have total autonomy over my course; because it

can be whatever I want it to be, my curriculum can also be whatever I want it to be. Accordingly,

during the progression of the year, after careful observation of my students, I have decided to

tweak the Creative Writing nature of the course. While it does still focus on non-traditional forms

of writing, especially the kinds which empower students to use their own voices (because there is

so little opportunity to do so in a continuous and evolving manner with other courses), the class

has narrowed its thematic focus on multiculturalism and global studies. By doing so, I can

reinforce learning goals from both the schools history curriculum--a class with which my

students universally struggle, from grades 9 to 11--as well as on PSSA reading and writing skills.

As my class is populated with mostly 10th and 11th graders, with the odd 9th and 12th

grader thrown in, I do have some people who--while not overtly dictating my classroom--

strongly suggest that my course touches on certain areas of test-prep. As such, my course caters

to non-fiction texts (an area of the PSSA which is consistently failed) and constructed responses


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(a format which can be applied to any form of writing response in the class, so as not to feel like

test prep), as well as general vocabulary enhancement (for the SATs) and DBQs (preparation for

a common type of history question). While these testing-like materials threaten to give the class

an air unlike the free-thinking, bohemian style I so want to cultivate, the fact remains that these

requirements loom large in my students minds. What my curriculum does, by combining non-

traditional source material with the type of questions they must get used to answering in a

specific way, is give my students the opportunity to common History and English themes in more

than just their core classes (thereby validating the importance of such themes and giving students

much-needed repeated exposure) while also allowing them to exercise some measure of freedom

in the areas of interest that they explore.

Much of the content of what I choose to cover in the class is dictated by a student-

generated list of important issues facing the world and communities today; while they may have

to discuss the topic of choice in the format that I have decided they need to practice, they do get

to choose the topic in the first place. My students have responded positively to this direction, as

has the administration. Though the kids can sometimes get fatigued of repeating the same

objectives more than once (for example, Identify and describe the theme of the piece) they

voraciously consume the texts because they are new areas to study, outside of a restrictive

curriculum that dictates what kids need to know. Instead of learning history or social studies in

the context of old dead white men, they are learning current events in Africa. Instead of learning

theme through Edgar Allan Poes greatest work, they are watching a documentary and

communicating important examples of symbolism and their correlation to theme. So the students

are happy to get something old (and sorely in need of practice) under the guise of something new

and exciting, and my principal is happy because I am preparing the 11th graders for areas of the


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PSSA, while also appeasing his sense of be creative in the classroom. While the class isnt a

completely effective avenue of test-prep, by incorporating certain forms of writing and reading

and critical thinking that they will need to master on PSSAs and SATs, I am giving students at

least once a week reinforcement on those things.

While some may criticize this class as not having an overt big goal, and as such, no way

to measure success or growth over the year, I disagree. Potential pushback and obstacles do arise

as we near the PSSAs and the school renews its focus on constructed responses in every class, all

the time. But my point of view as an educator is that core classes are already cluttered with

objectives and standards that need to be taught. Elective courses are, in my view, meant to teach

the things that students do not get through their mainstream education--the skills and ideas that

they normally would not get to exercise. As such, I want my students to get a broader world

education and practice writing that is not always held to the grammatical and mechanical

standards that often keep kids from expressing their ideas freely. Too scared not to conform to

the standards that the courses demand, students do the work needed to get the grade and nothing

more (and often, they dont perform to expectations, so that effort is thwarted as well). But if

they are given opportunities to write where their critical thinking skills and thoughts are more

lauded than the manner which they are expressed, I am confident students will better learn the

type of responses that are expected on tests that look for higher-order thinking. The presentation

skills come through subtle reinforcement such as peer revision and Do-Nows that examine

mistakes in punctuations and grammar, but the main crux of the class is to use interesting content

to incite deeper thinking from my students in a state-test format with which they must familiarize

themselves, and in turn, help them become better thinkers, deeper readers, and confident test

takers.


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interest? Will learn to research and apply knowledge in order to separate fact from fiction. Will

learn elements of drama. Will practice non-fiction writing by turning fictionalized work into a

newspaper article.

b. Rwandan President Rejects Human Rights Criticism. Overarching question: What

are the long-term effects of genocide in a country like Rwanda (both seen and unseen)? Will

use the internet to track the history of Rwanda prior to and since the 1994 genocide. Will

examine U.N. documents and debate whole-class regarding the appropriateness of global

response to the crisis. Will practice PSSA- style constructed responses comparing and

contrasting Rwandan genocide to other world crises.

c. Excerpts from Stories from Rwanda. Overarching question: How does a story

change depending on the person telling it? Who can we trust when we are hearing stories

from a life so different than our own, and how do we know? Will identify and assess the

motives of various characters from the conflict/text. Will analyze authorial intent and write a

reaction assessing whether individual pieces were or were not effective in their goals. Will

work on developing voice in writing by role-playing as different actors in the text.

III. Part III: Sudan- How to Save Darfur

a. Sudans Mass Killings Not Genocide-UN Report. Overarching question: Does the

naming of an event as genocide make it worse? Without the term genocide, do the events of

Darfur lose their resonance? If so, why? What are the implications of a word like genocide and

what words carry a similar weight in Western culture? Will examine other genocides in world

history and discuss the globally-recognized definition of genocide. Will write and then perform

an oral argument on whether Darfur was a genocide, assuming teacher-assigned points of view.


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Will examine words in Western culture that carry a similar controversial weight of is it or isnt

it? and outline the cause and effect of applying the words.

b. Artists Abetting Genocide? Various pictures of campaigns such as Save Darfur and

Darfur is Dying. Overarching question: What role do celebrities, television, and the internet

play in a globalized world? How do conflicts like Darfur become a cause and is it beneficial

to the Sudanese that this occurs? Will examine marketing techniques in various campaigns to

raise awareness for Darfur; will accordingly learn about and assess propaganda. Will write a

creative essay from the point-of-view of a Sudanese fan of a celebrity who supports world

power that supports Sudanese rebels. Will use PSSA-style constructed responses to discuss the

implication of celebrity support on global politics.

IV. Part IV: Synthesis of Issues Facing Africa as a Continent

a. Overarching question: How does the general American public perceive Africa? Is this

perception accurate, and if not, what are the prejudices that go into this perception? Will make

KWL chart about the continent and the conflicts/issues that take place therein. Will list

observations regarding the continent and discuss the implications of the observations. Will

discuss racial heritage, culture, and racism in the context of the United States and globally.

b. Overarching question: Which social, economic, or political issues facing the different

countries on the continent are most in need of immediate remedy? How might that remedy come

about? Will identify and list the main social/economic/political issues that come out of Africa.

Will write a PSSA-style constructed response identifying the main problem and suggest

remedies. Will discuss what the average Western teenager can/should do to raise awareness of

global issues.

The unit as I have planned it covers the length of approximately one month, with each part


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covering the length of one week. I plan to introduce each part of the unit with a piece of dynamic

and engaging source material; usually this is two days of watching a movie or going over posters

and texts with a graphic organizer accompaniment to track observations and thoughts. Then the

third day will be a full lesson on the history of the region, so that each source is given an added

weight in the larger framework of the unit. The fourth and fifth day of the week will focus on

writing the assignment for that part of the unit, both learning the skill and then demonstrating the

ability to practice that skill. Each part of the unit will begin with an introduction to the specific

region, and end with students presenting information on that region to show their knowledge.

The educational goals of this unit as a whole are to learn how to write constructed

responses on questions that require students to read a non-fiction text, synthesize the facts, and

draw conclusion based on their understanding of what they have read; to practice different forms

of persuasive and creative writing such as dialogue (script form) and debate (oral arguments); to

learn and repeatedly use PSSA/SAT-level vocabulary such that is found in newspaper articles and

then regurgitated in the students own writing; and to develop students critical understanding of

the readings presented, as well as how to construct a critically-thoughtful written work of their

own. Grammar and mechanics will be an important component to the development of good

writing, but will not be a specific target of this unit.

The overarching hope for this unit is to make students comfortable with creatively

expressing themselves and then progressing to them doing so under the restrictions that will be

placed on them in formal writing experiences. These restrictions that will be taught to work

under are mainly ideological in nature; not much attention will be paid to what the writing looks

like aesthetically, and instead, how it sounds and what the writing actually says.


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III. Lesson Plans Included in the Folder

IV. Evaluation of Unit Plan

In the course of completing this project, I think that I have learned quite a bit about the

depth of thought and planning that goes into creating a whole new unit that is aligned to the goals

of yourself, the goals of the district, and the goals of the particular class you are teaching. I found

out about restrictions, and how creativity can be marred by requirements such as certain skill

remediation. But I also learned about ingenuity, and how a teacher can sometimes enhance

creativity by merging requirements with an innovative new practice.

The assignment itself was difficult to complete only because the natural procrastination

instinct, coupled with a sudden overflow of work, ensured that while the planning stages went

well, the actual execution is not as good as it could be. I think if the assignment could be bumped

up, with lesson plans due with each paper part, too, people would not find it so daunting to turn

in 30 (or 15, as it turns out) lesson plans, in the end.

As for sessions in the class that I particularly enjoyed versus sections of the class that I

did not, I would have to say that while I love hearing my peers share out, sometimes, some

classes where we shared our own best practices and ideas felt too much like venting and

complaint about the ways in which the system screws us over or the ways in which we are

exemplar teachers and everyone should be in awe of us (although to be fair, this could be

bitterness and resentment projecting rather than any real basis behind my claim); to perhaps

offset this foray into too much editorializing, perhaps having a more steady forum of discussion

and a set format would help.

All in all, however, I very much enjoyed the class. The style of experiential learning and

the ways in which you challenged us to think really do enrich the ways in which I view my


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practice and this profession. For this reason, I really appreciate the dialogue-driven nature of

your classroom and the ways that teachers continually get to share out.

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