UNIT CALENDAR Week # Monday 1 Argument vs. Disagreement worksheets - bring worksheets!

Metaphor & similie lesson Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Argument Argument Argument Examination of structure lesson journaling activity journaling activity argument in day 1 day 2 James and the Giant Peach bring excerpts & clip (if movie is possible)! Editorials & Punctuation lesson bring articles + quotes! Advertising lesson Advertising bring example creation day 1, ads! give assignment and set groups, preliminary thinking. Make sure you have art supplies and digital equipment! Advertising creation final day, finish work on final product, computer time as required. Evidence read aloud during opening block paragraph during work time. Advertising creation- day 2, scripting and brainstorming

Advertising creation day 3, more script/drafting work

Advertising creation day 4, final pass on scripts/planning, begin putting final product together

Poetry lessons and examples given, allow students day to get used to forms and experiment Final project day 2, groups discuss what they believe are their most relevant points (3 pro, 3 con) and begin research. Bring reference material! Final day opening block used for exhibition of student work, specifically advertisements and poems that the students feel comfortable sharing.

Poetry day 2, students pick format and are given topic for poem, begin composing

Poetry day 3, Proof lesson students editing bring chart paper and producing and markers! final draft of poems

Final project day 1, introduce discussion topic and brainstorm list of relevant points in opening block, groups choose their positions in work time Wind down game day! When groups are at the E/LA table, they are encouraged to play The Resistance, a game subtly incorporating things they've learned.

Final project day 3, groups meet with teacher to flesh out arguments and points, receive advice.

Final project day 4, groups compose final outline of argument and salient points to hand in.

Final project day 5, opening block set aside for teacher-moderated round table discussion

EDUC 506 Unit Plan Persuasive Speech Grade 6 Peter Worthington #315204 Submitted October 16, 2012

I will not be going into much more detail here than I already did in my unit plan pre-prep, but before going into my individual lesson plans, there are several details which have changed about my unit plan since the pre-prep was submitted. First and foremost among these is how the day itself will be structured. While I do still very much like the idea of all subjects happening simultaneously, I realized rather quickly that large group instruction would be necessary from time to time. Whenever possible, I planned my lessons so that the better part of a day would be spent introducing and activity and the next couple of days would be spent actually doing it, which I hope would give me time to do the same in other subjects. That is, on days when the students are aware of what they need to come in and get to work on in English, I am able to give the better part of that day to explaining the start of the latest Maths/Science/Social/Art lesson to the students while they work, and vice-versa. This will not always be viable however, and in order to accommodate that, I have been thinking that the implementation of a flex block would be needed. That is, the first block of the day would be dedicated to whole class instruction in one subject or another, depending on which is in need of it according to its own unique unit plan. Days when English/Language Arts is using the flex block are denoted on the unit plan calendar I provided with the parts of lesson requiring opening block time saying so. I imagine then, that the day would start with 15 20 minutes of silent reading when the students arrive in class, followed by the flex block, followed by the students in their table groups rotating around the subject at each bell/class change as dictated by the schedule of the school at large. For the purposes of my lesson plans, I worked on the assumption that this change would happen roughly every hour. This also allows me to make room for silent reading, which it was rightly noted in my pre-prep I had not accommodated for. As the silent reading will simply be student choice books and not planned lessons, there is not a lesson plan included for this, but I do plan to have it there. It will also provide the students with something to do immediately as they come into the classroom, allowing the class to settle without me having to try to gather everyone's attention as they come in first thing in the morning.

Second, as the focus of this course is on English/Language Arts, those are the lesson plans I provided. While I do have in mind the gist of what I would want each other subject to cover as relates to this matter and would love to have a cohesive unit plan incorporating all subjects, to hash out all of the specific lesson plans for each one at this point in the semester may have killed me. I have provided 12 English lesson plans which taken together with wrap-up activities (student work showcase, etc.) would cover 25 days of school. I hope this is enough, as it was a whole lot of work. One thing I would like to specifically mention is that during the first couple of days of art class, the students will be encouraged to think about where the unit may go and design and decorate a portfolio storage folder accordingly. This is something that one of my own teachers had me do in elementary school and something I've always remembered fondly as it got my imagination working on what to look forward to. I'd like to incorporate that into my own teaching. There are a couple of days which would require worksheets to be made ahead of time. While I have a good idea of what these worksheets would look like, I have not yet had the opportunity to make them, so they have not been included. Again, hopefully this is not held against me too harshly.

In terms of marking, I am still planning on going with a portfolio system. I have marked two lessons in each block (block one: argument, block two: convincing, block 3: proof) with asterisks, which denotes that the products which result from them will be included in the students' portfolios along with artefacts from other subjects. Each of these will be discussed during weekly meetings with the students for formative assessment, and when the time finally comes for summative assessment at the end of the unit, students will be asked to choose one from each block and their mark will be based on the marking of these three artefacts as well as the plan that their group handed in for the final product. I am hoping that this will give students a feeling of agency and control over their fate in the class, but should still ensure that the work actually gets done. That I will be meeting with them

regularly to discuss their progress should also encourage this and let them to feel as though they aren't just checking off boxes on their way to a report card.

The classroom will still be organized into subject tables, with an Art table near the art supplies, English table near the class library, Maths and Sciences near their supply shelves, and so on. I have included a (rather crude, I'll admit, but it should give you an idea) hand-drawn map of how I envision my classroom to look should I have the ability to lay it out. I did not assume a window, but it would be nice to have one. I have tried to plan my lessons in such a way that they will be workable with either a SMART board or just a whiteboard, depending on resources. As mentioned in my pre-prep, I wish to avoid depending too much on technology in any of my lessons as it is prone to break. I'll be happy to incorporate it where it makes sense (for example, in the James and the Giant Peach lesson, watching a clip from the movie on the SMART board would be great if available), but am trying to plan for the eventuality that, worst case scenario, I may have to teach in a power outage. If I can handle that, I'll feel prepared. While some of my lessons do require handouts or worksheets, they could be done without if the need requires, via read-alouds, collaborative work on the white board, and so on. Nothing is foolproof, of course, but I hope I've designed in such a way that technology will not let me down. Further, I've tried to include a good amount of class interaction in the set-up to each activity, so if it becomes clear that anything is starting to flop, I'll be able to adjust it more to the class' interest as we go. Unfortunately I just learned that the actual class I'll be working with this year is a 1-2 split and this plan is for the 6th grade, so I will likely not get to try it out for quite some time, but hopefully my hypothetical future class likes what I've come up with.

I discussed which specific goals from the Program of Studies I hope to meet with my lessons in the pre-prep, but to reiterate, I am attempting to cover the spectrum. Of specific note are group work from section 5.2, use of organizational strategies from 3.3, self-expression from outcome 1 as well as

outcome 3.4, and enhancing artistry from section 4.1. It's also worth pointing out that 4.2 has a focus on certain punctuation, which I've included an entire lesson in the proper use of regarding newspaper articles and quotation. In all, I feel that I've covered a good amount of what I'm looking for out of the POS for a unit, and with only five weeks taken up there will be plenty of time to address other things which may be lacking in this unit.

I'll restate what I said at the end of my pre-prep, I wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew. It's certainly been a lot of work to even get what I have here prepared. That said, I feel that I have the foundations for a really good unit here, and the best way to start improving upon it and editing it at this point I think would be to start trying it out. I feel that it's nearly something that I'd be comfortable putting into practice, lacking at present only a couple of specific artefacts such as the worksheets I have in planning stages. As I said, I'll unfortunately not have the chance to try it out in the near future, but I very much look forward to one day giving it a shot. It's something that I feel needs to be addressed earlier in education and will give my future students a leg up as they enter higher grades and begin to need to create position papers from their own synthesis of information. Hopefully, in trusting the students with more advanced material and strategies, I'm allowing them to explore that space earlier and become better equipped to deal with the world as it comes to them.