HOW TO DESIGN A CONCEPTUAL UNIT When designing a conceptual unit, it's important to keep the following things in mind. by Krista Noland 1 TYPES OF CONCEPTUAL UNITS There are eight main types a conceptual unit's design can focus on: theme, archetype, genre, period, movement, region, works by a single author, and learning a key strategy. 2 INTEGRATED LEARNING Integrated learning via a conceptual unit allows students to choose a topic and explore it over time - the course of the unit - through the lenses of a variety of texts. 3. LITERARY MERIT When planning a unit surrounding a few key texts, it's important to choose texts of educational or literary merit. Including students in the discussion of what constitutes a text as a “work of literary merit" can be used as “a central aim of a literature curriculum." 4 DIFFER G TYPES OF TEXTS Offering a multitude of textual forms in a unit allows students to examine their central theme through many mediums. 5 UNITS BASED ON CURRENT EVENTS Units that are designed to focus on a current social problem can be effective in an area that's recently experienced a major change or a perpetuation of a social problem for a significant amount of time. 77 > 6 WHOLE-PICTURE GOALS Ss z=) = When designing a conceptual unit - especially if the other members of your PLC are creating other units in the semester - it's important to keep the big-picture goals of the entire course in mind. 1 TEACHING GRAMMAR Teaching grammar rules and concepts is most effective when it’s not isolated from the teaching of writing and speaking. This is especially important to note because all errors made by students do not need the same amount of correcting. 8 WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW Before starting a new text, have students write about a personal experience that's similar to a character in the text they'll be reading. By providing a semi-specific prompt, students will have the opportunity to relate to characters through their writing of specific events while stil leaving space for creativity. Works cited Smagorinsky, Peter. Teaching English by Design: How to Create and Carry out Instructional Units. Heinemann, 2019.