Planning Your Unit of Study:

By Marilyn G. Stewart and Sydney R Walker

Unit Overview
Unit Title:
● Enduring Idea: these ideas span across time and culture, as they include
topics such as race, identity, the environment, emotions, individualism,
community, existentialism etc.
● Rationale: why is this important for my students to learn?
● Key Concepts: important ideas about the enduring idea and visual culture
● Essential Questions: what questions will guide the investigation of the
Enduring Idea and Key Concepts?
● Unit Objectives: these are not lesson specific objectives, but what students
will inevitably take away and learn from the unit as a whole
● TEKS: (state standards within Texas)
Assessment
● Evidence: how will they demonstrate that they have learned something and
have met the unit objectives?
● Levels & Criteria: how will students know that they have completed the task
successfully? Judging these three levels of achievement
○ Exemplary
○ Essential
○ Partial
Overview of Lessons
This isn’t specific lesson planning but an overview of the sequencing of
lessons, what they will do, and what they will learn from the lesson.

When planning the lessons within a unit take note of the following:
1. How will you help students connect the enduring theme or idea to
the student’s lives?
2. How will you build the student’s knowledge base about the enduring
idea/theme as it relates to life?
3. How will you build the student’s knowledge base about the enduring
idea/theme as it occurs in art (art criticism, art history, aesthetics)?
4. How will you engage students with exploring, questioning, and
problematizing the enduring idea/theme through artmaking?
★ Lesson 1:
○ What will students do?...
○ What will students learn from this?...
★ Lesson 2:
○ What will students do?...
○ What will students learn from this?...
★ … and so on for about 5 lessons