UNIT
Planning
Unit Planning is the second step in the planning process regarding effective planning practices for the year. Once my long term plan is set, I move on to unit planning. This is when I create specific and intentional lesson plans online that are centered around a specific standard. Once again, backwards planning is essential in my practices for unit planning. See below for specifics on how I utilize unit planning to inform my instruction and academic best practices.
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When planning for each unit, I utilize the Learning Focused Lesson with Rigor Plan. This organizer ensures that I am deliberate with my planning of each assessment which in turn builds to the task to demonstrate mastery of that unit's goal. Below is an example of one of my unit plans, with a detailed breakdown directly beneath.
Step One: Learning Goals
The first step in creating effective unit plans is identifying the standards and understandings that students will have mastered by the end. In this specific plan, I have identified three reading standards and one writing standard that students will work on throughout. Then, I use those standards to create a series of skills that students will have met with success by the end of the unit. Once that is complete, I break ideas down even further by writing down the exact information that students will be expected to know by the end of the unit. I break the knowledge up into skill and content knowledge, as reading is both strategy based and application based.
In planning for learning goals, I also need to prepare my instruction in terms of key vocabulary and prerequisites. In this unit, students will need to understand each of the vocabulary terms on the left, as well as demonstrate a basic understanding of the English language and it's nuances.
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In addition to planning for my core instruction students, I also make sure to plan for students who might need additional supports.
Step Two: Learning Assessment
Once the standards and knowledge of this unit is established, the next step in the unit planning process is to identify a way in which students will demonstrate mastery of said standards and content. In this unit, students will demonstrate that they understand each of the kinds of figurative language by creating a powerpoint and then presenting their own examples of each type. This meets the standard and allows students to practice real world skills like public speaking that they will need to be successful in college and/or career.
Step Three:Learning Activities
Once the standards, knowledge, and assessment are planned out for this unit, the fun begins. Planning each lesson is where I am able to focus on creating the building blocks that my students will need to practice in order to meet rigorous learning goals. From my unit goals, I know that students will need to do several things to demonstrate fifth grade level understanding of figurative language. In this specific unit, the expectation is that students are able to explain in writing why writers use figurative language, analyze figurative language in literature, and eventually create their own examples of figurative language to explain to their peers. Below is the unit plan that consists of the weekly Essential Question, daily Focusing Question, and daily Student Objective. Each question builds upon the last in order to provide students with scaffolded practice that will ensure they met all of the aforementioned goals with success.
Implementation of Unit Planning
This is an example of the guided notes that I create for students to copy into their interactive journals. During the knowledge week (the first week of the two week unit), students and I define the required vocabulary terms and students practice creating their own versions of each kind of figurative language.
Once they are able to do that, they are tasked with analyzing figurative language in literature. The idea here is that students are already practiced in not only identifying and defining the figurative language, but analyzing the thought process that is required to create their own versions of figurative language. This will ensure that they are successful in the mid unit quiz, which will expect students to explain why figurative language is more powerful than what I deem "ordinary" language.
Below are two examples of student notes in their interactive journals. The student on the left was able to create their own "extraordinary" language with my "ordinary" examples and thus demonstrated an understanding of hyperboles. The student on the right accidentally made a simile, which I reminded students not to do, and had to go back and change his hyperbole, but afterwards was able to create interesting examples of figurative language.
Mid Unit Assessment
The picture on the left is an example of a question from our mid unit quiz. Students were given a poem and tasked with identifying and analyzing the figurative language within it. In order to demonstrate mastery of the fifth grade standard, students not only have to identify figurative language, but also interpret it. In expecting students to change the figurative language to "ordinary" as well as explaining why the figurative language is more powerful, I am facilitating the thought processes that will ensure student success in demonstrating mastery of the rigorous standard expectations.
Above is a spreadsheet of student responses from the mid unit quiz. I used the data from this assessment to pull small groups while those who demonstrated mastery worked in collaborative groups. Specific trends that I identified from this data was that 67% of students demonstrated mastery of identifying the three possibilities that this poem could represent. 36% of students identified and explained the example of personification, while 19% did so for the simile and 12% of students explained the hyperbole within this passage. 27% of students chose either idiom, metaphor, or alliteration, which were not examples from this passage. As students who represented the 67% worked in pairs on their application project, I pulled three groups of four to practice identifying and creating new examples of the different kinds of figurative language to demonstrate understanding for this unit.
Demonstration of Mastery
This is a powerpoint presentation from two individuals who I pulled for small group discussions. The pair struggled with defining each kind of figurative language, so we were not able to complete all examples of every type, but they did demonstrate understanding of four different kinds, which showed great progress from their initial demonstration of understanding from notes and discussions.
These students demonstrated understanding of all six kinds of figurative language that we defined and analyzed throughout the figurative language unit. They presented the examples to the class, and connected them to a specific theme, which, because it was near Halloween, made sense that they would enjoy making it spooky for their classmates.
IN
Summation
By breaking down my year into specific units in which my students not only demonstrate comprehension of content but also practice relevant life skills, I am preparing them for success in both school and life beyond it. In the practice of unit planning, I am also constantly reflecting upon, and making adjustments to, the units in terms of the standards that students need to master, as well as specific student needs that arise throughout the years. In addition, instead of having to start from scratch ever year, I am able to utilize these unit plans and deeply analyze each, making changes as needed. This also saves an incredible amount of time that can be spent seeking out additional resources to provide to students or participating in professional development sessions in which I can focus on my own educational growth.