Unit plan modifications EDUC 506 Peter Worthington #315204 Submitted November 6, 2012 A large part of what I believe

was problematic with my original lesson plan is not so much due to the structure, but due to my ability to communicate exactly what each activity entailed. Under many of my activities, comments were written along the lines of but will the students have time to x? when the x in question was not something I intended them to do. Being new to lesson planning, I take this as an issue on my part with clarity in my plans, as I have an idea in my head of exactly what each lesson should be but the comments indicated that my plan was saying otherwise. Thats not to say that I hadnt also planned too much, and this paper will hopefully show the ways that I have revised the plan to lighten the load somewhat, but what I will start with is a clarification of my lessons to hopefully better illustrate exactly how much Im hoping to get done in the amount of time that I have. To keep this from being an overwhelming amount of paper, the following will be included in the pages to come: First, a re-description of the activities that I feel require one, either because I believe were written in a confusing way, or to give a quick overview of the changes I have made to lessons in order to make things a bit more manageable, time-wise. Second, a handful of worksheets, rubrics, checklists, and so forth for marking purposes and examples of what the students will be working with, as my plan was also lacking in these particular artefacts. With any luck, this combination of things will help me to plug some holes in the unit plan I submitted weeks back.

Before I get into any specific lessons, I would like to mention that at several points throughout the notes made on my work, it was mentioned that extra lessons on fallacies would be

valuable. I whole-heartedly agree, but as another issue with my unit was a very packed schedule, could not find a place to work that into this plan as it is. That said, it is definitely something I would like my students to be knowledgeable about (and call other people out on) and the offer of files that would help with planning lessons on this is something Id very much like to take you up on (as well as the offer of materials related to an advertising unit). Further, the notes on my argument structure lesson mentioned that what Im doing is teaching the students to write a critical essay, which is exactly what I hope the unit to turn out as. I kept in mind throughout the planning of the unit that this is probably not something that the students would be familiar with yet in the sixth grade, and that asking them to produce an entire critical essay at the units end would likely be unfair, which is why the final project is a discussion. That said, along with that I am asking them to hand in a structured list of premises with supporting information for their final conclusion, and to show why it fits together. My end-game in this unit was, all along, to have the students draft a planning document that could be developed into a critical essay with minimal effort. I am a big fan of making learning as subtle as possible, and the hope is that when the time comes that students need to begin planning essays in future grades, they would look at what they had to do and say Thats it? We were doing that in sixth grade! At the same time, I thought that framing it as preparation for a class discussion would serve to make it less dry and something that theyd be more likely to get involved with. Finally, Ill make a note that I have added an extra week to my lesson plan (making the unit now take place over 6 weeks), rather than cut an activity. I feel that the extra 5 days sprinkled throughout to allow students extra editing/arguing/whatever time should give my unit the breathing room it needs.

Ill start my lesson re-descriptions by looking at the lesson on the third and fourth day, in which the students were meant to write a brief autobiographical narrative of a memorable

argument they have had. This is one which I feel I could have made much more clear. The notes suggested a struggle to reconcile a narrative piece of writing with the overall unit topic of argumentation, and I can certainly see how that came across. One reason that this activity is so early in the unit is that I would like the students to get accustomed to thinking about an argument while writing. To this point, I assume that the form of writing that the students are accustomed to is that of the narrative, so rather than get them to present an argument to me in anything resembling an essay format, I am simply trying to get them to think about their own history with arguing while practicing in a writing format they feel comfortable. They will not be presenting me with any actual argument, merely remembering one that they had and telling me about it. As we are still in the early stages of the unit, the class would still be in an exploration phase. The fit would simply be the subject matter, as they explore what they already know through a familiar writing format. That said, I was looking at this as something of a free-writing exercise and as such hadnt considered the editing process in this. I now feel that a third day should be added for editing this assignment (using a sheet I will provide as a guide) in order to reinforce this process with the students.

The next thing Id like to change is my lesson on editorials and punctuation, and how facts can be manipulated by using punctuation in certain ways. This is actually one of my favourite assignments, and I feel that the kids learning through mischief (that is, manipulating the quotes of others to change their meaning) is something that will really stick with them. As such, there is not much I would change about it, but I would really like to add extra time to it. In the original plan, I had students getting the primer lesson, going through a selection of articles to find examples, and then using these conventions against the authors of the pieces they were examining. I feel that this is a very valuable lesson, as as the punctuation it deals with is a

specific goal of the program of studies, one that I would like to ensure is memorable. Because of this, Id like to add two days to the lesson. The first day would now be spent on the briefing and finding examples in articles. The second would be spent taking quotes and manipulating them, and the third would be spent sharing these quotes with the group. I feel that this third day would allow the students to relax somewhat in the middle of the unit and just share what kinds of funny quotes theyve come up with, in the same way that my peer group was very into sharing our mad lib books with each other when I was that age. Learning a new way to play with language is always rewarding, and Id like the students to be able to share that with one another.

Another assignment that I am largely happy with but would like more time for is the creation of an advertisement by groups of students. As such, again, the lesson itself will remain largely the same, but there will be an extra day added to it in order for the kids to put things together and focus more on editing on the final day rather than having to cram any last minute content creation AND editing into one day. As this is one of the larger projects in the unit, having more time for it is something that I think would be very valuable for the students, and having a full day dedicated to editing would help to underscore the importance of the process.

At this point, Id like to address a comment that was made on the lesson plan centred around the reading of Evidence and creation of a paragraph as a result of that. That is, that it is possible that Im trying to fit too many different forms of writing into one unit; autobiography, editorials, advertising, poetry, and, of course, argumentative. I must admit, this isnt really something that had occurred to me when drafting the plan, but on reflection Id like to take this opportunity to address why I think this is. In my mind, when creating any unit, Id like to have students include as many different types of writing as possible. This is a reflection of the view

that all forms of writing can be equally valid, and that any topic can be written about in a myriad of different ways. On reflection, having a separate poetry unit is something that is rather important, and this is something that I am now planning around, but for most other forms of writing, explicit instruction isnt something I see as doing a lot of good. By learning to switch modes of writing while staying on a similar topic, I feel that students will benefit greatly. Being given tips on different forms of writing can be done throughout the year as they practice them over many different units. It is also a way of ensuring that they will be keeping up with these forms of writing rather than just relegating it to a two or three week period at some point during the year. It is also a reason that, even with the possibility of a poetry unit earlier in the year, I still feel it is important to have occasional poetry projects interspersed with other units. Because of the comment, I feel I should justify the broad range of styles of writing present in this unit as a philosophical decision, and one that, now that I have reflected on it, I stand by.

That said, the second lesson where I really feel like I failed to communicate my intent is the poetry assignment on days 15 - 17. I feel that what was perceived as a problem with the assignment is actually, in my mind, what was the most important part of it. That is, the appropriateness of the format of poetry to talk about the concept of proof. As mentioned in the comments, there are things that are knowable but not provable, and many of these are often best expressed in poetic terms. This is the sort of thing that I am hoping to provoke students into noticing as they begin to compile their poems. That said, the point about trying to cram a lesson on various forms of poetry into one day is well taken, and as such that has been removed in favour of planning to have a full unit on poetry earlier in the year and merely reminding the students of what they learned in that unit on the first day. As was said several times, I will have a

full year with any students taking part in this unit, and planning with that in mind is something that I should have taken into account.

Finally, the final activity in which the students prepare and then have a group discussion on a topic that came up over the course of the unit. This is the one where I received the comment which caused me to feel I should clarify several of my lessons. It says on the sheet that you were under the impression that I had already had an argument paper earlier in the unit, which I believe was the journal exercise. As I hope is now clear, the intent behind that exercise was actually to write about an argument, not to write an actual argument. Now that this distinction has been made, Im optimistic that Ive enhanced the clarity of my lesson plan and the intent is a bit easier to follow. Im really not used to writing these sorts of things, let alone writing them for someone else to decipher, so Ill chalk that up as a learning experience. As for modifying this lesson, Im still rather happy with how it looks and what it is, but as with others Id like to extend it by a day. In this case, Im happy with the amount of time that the students will have for research and putting their argument together, but feel that an extra day after the full class debate will be beneficial for debriefing. Id like the students to have a day in which the group could discuss what they felt went well, as well as whether their own personal opinions were changed at all by the arguments of others. I believe that this kind of peer feedback a day after the fact would be a great way for the students to reflect on the arguments that they put together themselves and help them to refine their own habits going forward.

That concludes the changes Id be making to my lessons. Another thing that was made very apparent to me was that it would be helpful to have a handful of rubrics, templates, and worksheets that the students would be working from over the course of the unit. I havent made

all of the ones that Id be using throughout the whole unit, but have created a sample so that you should be able to see the kinds of things that Ill be going for if/when I get to enact this unit in an actual classroom. Youll find them attached to this paper. I hope you feel that Ive improved my unit a fair amount by the addition of these, as well as the tweaks that I made on the preceding pages.