One of the projects for this quarter is a plan for an instructional unit that integrates literature, writing, and speaking and demonstrates the principles of teaching English that you have learned over the past two quarters. It is our hope that you can design this plan for use in your actual classroom and will be able to try out either the entire unit or pieces of the unit. Because it is difficult to plan for "students" in the abstract, we suggest that in any case, you plan this unit for a specific class that you are currently teaching.

Units are a way of organizing instruction into coherent "chunks" that make explicit the connections among individual lessons. The unit plan provides a guide or map for teachers as they do their daily lesson planning and for students as they try to see the connections among class activities and assignments. A unit organization can also provide scaffolding for student learning by addressing and building upon students' growing knowledge, skills, and understandings. By starting with the end goals in mind, teachers can be more mindful in preparing students to meet those goals.

Units are typically between three and six weeks in length. They can be organized around discrete periods or genres (the Roaring Twenties; Romantic literature; autobiography; the short story; poetry; creative writing) or broader themes or ideas (identity; the nature of humanity; family; unreliable narrators in fiction) or essential questions (What does the American dream look like in 2000, in 1900, in 1800; What role does the reinvention of self play in the American dream? What makes a literary work canonical? What is my personal canon?) While units can also be built around a single novel, we are asking you to build a unit that integrates the various aspects of the language arts (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) and that incorporates more than a single text.

For this assignment, you will be designing a unit of instruction that will pull together what you have been learning about teaching the language arts. The unit must integrate the various components of the language arts (e.g. reading, literature, writing, speaking, etc.) and incorporate the use of technology. You will be sharing these unit plans with your colleagues, so consider your audience to be a group of knowledgeable peers. The more detailed your unit plans, the more helpful they will be to you and to your colleagues in the future. We are hoping that you will be able to teach these units in your school during the spring quarter, so choose material that you are likely to be teaching in early to mid April.

A first draft of unit plans will be due on March 1. You will need to get feedback on your plan from your cooperating teacher or supervisor, who has the local knowledge of your school and students. You will also receive feedback from us You will then be able to use this feedback to revise your unit plan before its final submission on March 15

The unit plans will need to include the following components:

1. An overview/description of the unit plan, including a description of the specific context in which you plan to use the unit. The description of educational context should include grade level, student population, school or department goals related to language arts, nature of classroom in which the unit will be taught. You also need describe the essential question or other "glue" that holds the unit together and the core texts and materials you will be using in your unit.

This overview should also provide a rationale for your choices and decisions, drawing upon your own goals as an English teacher and the readings we have examined in this class. Your rationale should demonstrate that you have considered the needs of adolescents, the nature of the subject matter, how the unit fits into the overall curriculum, and the adaptation of the unit for diverse learners. The rationale should also address what makes the question you are using to frame this unit "essential" for both students and the subject matter. Finally, the overview should include a specific discussion of your goals for student learning during this unit and why these goals are important to the secondary English curriculum. In your discussion, be sure to connect your goals to the California language arts frameworks.

2. Goals and learning targets for students which include:

1-2 learning targets for reading

1-2 learning targets for writing

1 learning target for speaking and/or listening

1 learning target addressing some aspect of technology

1 learning target that addresses some aspect of teaching diverse learners

3. A description of the projects and writing assignments to be used in conjunction with the unit. In your description, be sure to explain how these projects and writing assignments will help students achieve the goals for the unit. How will these projects and assignments be assessed?

4. A calendar for the unit, which lists both the content you have planned for the day as well as the kinds of activities you forsee using to teach the content. The calendar should demonstrate an understanding of a range of different classroom activities as well as an understanding of how to sequence and scaffold instruction. Your calendar must include the topic and learning goals for each day; possible activities or teaching strategies for the day; and due dates for all unit assignments.

5. A handout for students and parents that explains the unit, informs them of major projects and assignments, and explains your assessment criteria and grading policy.

6. Examples of resources and materials you plan to use with this unit and references for all resources and materials you consult in the process of planning the unit. Copies of handouts, worksheets, games, or other instructional materials should be attached. Beg, steal, or borrow ideas for teaching as much as you like, but be sure to give credit where credit is due!

7. A discussion of how you plan to adapt aspects of the unit plan to accommodate special needs students and English language learners. Try to be as specific as possible about the nature of adaptations and to include how you actually might modify classroom assignments or activities for specific students.

8. Two lesson plans. Plans should reflect your understanding of at least two instructional strategies we’ve discussed in class (discussion, dramatic play; group-work, mini-lessons, etc.). For these lessons, you should also think about how you would modify instruction for students who, for a variety of reasons, have difficulty with reading and writing. These lesson plans should be as detailed as possible. If you specify discussion as an instructional strategy, you need to prepare questions or prompts you would use to get discussion started.

9. A reflective letter that addresses what you learned about unit-planning through the course of this assignment. In the letter, comment on the feedback you received from colleagues, including your cooperating teacher, and how you used this feedback in revising this plan.