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ICAP UNIT REFLECTION

Integrated Core Applied Project (ICAP) Unit Reflection

Sarah Eggleston

SCED/THEA 4980

Southern Utah University

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Contextual Factors and Instructional Standards

The school I was teaching this unit at was in a suburban area in northern Utah. The area

was a predominantly white with a minimal mix of Hispanic or Latino and Asian population and

was also mainly from a middle-class to upper-middle-class economical standing. The theatre

class that the unit itself was taught in had 27 students total and was mainly comprised of females

(22 females, 5 males), and majority of the students were white with about 4 students that were

Hispanic and about 2 students that were Asian. None of the students in the class had any

noticeable disabilities, but there is a possibility that some of the students had some other

disabilities that I didn’t know about because I didn’t have access to that information.

There were at least 2 female students that regularly didn’t come to class and out of those two

there was one that before the end of the term ended up dropping the class entirely. I never met

this student that dropped the class, and the other female student only came to class twice out of

the entire term. There were 2-3 male students who also had attendance issues, but for the most

part came to and actively participated in class. Out of the female students, there were about 4

students that were shy and didn’t particularly like speaking in front of large groups, and about

another 3 students who felt some sort of loneliness or lack of comradery/friendship within the

class. This last bit of information was found out over the several weeks of classes and through

parent teacher conferences where parents expressed concern for their students.

The class this unit was taught in was a Drama 2 class, which was a class meant for mainly

freshman students with minimal theatrical background, and the purpose of the class was to assist

students so they could progress to the more advanced theatre classes along with to see students’

potential and talent in a structured space. Since this unit was taught about halfway through the

year, the students had already built up some of their theatrical fundamentals. The instructional
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standards presented in this unit brought many of those developing fundamentals together and

allowed students to build up their performance skills even more. Before the unit was taught I

gauged students’ interests and which areas of theatre they wanted to grow in, and they chose the

general topic of 10-minute one-acts for this unit and that’s what I based my instructional

standards on; it was something the students felt they were ready for and could handle over the

course of the term.

The standards presented aligned with my mentor teacher’s long-term goals because it

allowed students to develop and showcase their talents, which was one of the purposes of the

class in general. The standards used also assisted students in gaining an understanding of the

work behind a performance, along with the experience of performing. This aligned with my

mentor teacher’s long-term goals for the class because it allowed us to see students’ talent,

potential, work ethic in a production setting, and guided them towards the more advanced theatre

classes (at least for those interested in them).

To make sure that all my lesson plans aligned with my mentor teacher’s long-term goals, I

checked everything off with him before diving into the unit. When I introduced the topic of my

chosen unit, he loved the idea and thought it would be great for the students in the class, and that

they’d all do well with the given project. He also thought it would be a great learning opportunity

for me as a teacher to give that large of a project and teach that long of a unit. Overall, he

believed the unit was a great idea to incorporate into the class, and fully supported me in

teaching the unit independently.

The class was Drama 2, however it was made for starting out freshman with some theatrical

background, so I based the instructional standards on the Utah secondary level 1 and 2 theatre

core standards, along with some professional theatre standards. Due to the nature of the class, I
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figured the level 1 standards with a mix of level 2 standards would be appropriate. The state core

standards are also loosely based on professional theatre standards, and so mixing those standards

seemed reasonable and was fairly easy to do. I thought it would be beneficial for the students as

well to learn about professional theatre and would add to their educational experience.

With all of the contextual factors taken into consideration, plus collaboration and careful

planning with my mentor teacher, the students met the instructional and state core standards put

into place in the unit lessons. Although there were some hiccups along the way, it was not due to

a lack of preparation or consideration of contextual factors or instructional and state core

standards.

Assessment and Justification

I planned several opportunities for assessment throughout the unit. In total, there were

about eight major points of assessment: a memorization check, a blocking check, the first

preview, an analysis assignment, a second preview, a dress/tech preview, the performance, and a

peer grade. I would say there were two different pre-assessments for this unit, the first being the

initial ‘assignment’ given before the unit truly started. I asked the students what genre of a play

they’d like to be in, and I allowed them to choose one person they would like to work with

throughout the unit project. This was for me to see who was friends with whom, what the

students were interested in, and how I could arrange the groups.

The second one that I would count as another pre-assessment would be their first preview.

This was the first time that I saw the students truly act with a script and see the work that they

had put into it at this point in time. I had planned two more previews before they performed so

that I could see their growth from the first preview – which is why I would consider this a pre-

assessment – but also so that I could help them and give them feedback so they had the
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opportunity to get better and grow. This pre-assessment aligned with the instructional standards

of performing in a production setting and was part of the unit a bit more than the other pre-

assessment, although it doesn’t necessarily mean the other pre-assessment was any less

important than this one.

For post-assessment I also had two types: the final performance, and a peer grade. The

performance was to show their growth from their first preview, but to show their acting talent

and preparation. The peer grade was a grade their peers gave each other to show how hard each

of them worked on the final performance and the project in general. I had both of these post-

assessments because sometimes in the arts students can ‘get by’ with just talent instead of hard

work, but with the peer grade it combats that and shows me the work ethic of the students instead

of just their talent. These post-assessments also showed me that students met the learning

objectives and were able to gain an understanding of performing in a production setting.

In theatre, it is often hard to assess a student’s work since a lot of it is subjective, but if the

teacher sets out specific areas to assess without bias then it makes things easier; this is what the

scoring sheets for region and state drama competition are meant to do. With those areas of

critique already set out and with clear objective areas for assessment, plus the fact that students

are already somewhat familiar with those or will come to be familiar with them, the areas of

critique on the scoring sheets seemed like a reasonable choice for state criteria based assessment

for my unit. I created rubrics and outlines for the assessment points in the unit based on those

areas on the scoring sheets to stay objective in assessing the students’ work.

During the first preview that students showed me, I took notes and gave them a participation

grade for at least performing and showing me their work. I took notes every preview shown to

me, along with their final performance. I have attached the notes taken during the previews and
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performances along with my grid of assessments and groupings for students. From the first

preview to the final performance, there was significant improvement in the students’ acting,

preparation, blocking, and memorization. I believe that the lessons throughout the unit and the

suggestions given from my mentor teacher, the TA’s, and myself truly helped the students

progress in their talent and their work towards their goal of reaching the more advanced theatre

classes.

Overall, using criteria from a state provided scoring sheet to assess the students’ work and

using the state core standards to shape the learning objectives worked very well for this unit. The

students made great progress, learned more about the production process, and developed their

understanding of theatrical fundamentals. The learning objectives and goals for the classroom

were met through this unit, and the assignments accurately assessed the students’ progress and

work.

Sample of Notes From 1st Preview Pre-Assessment

Sydney love your energy

Sump needs to be together
Know your names
Rachel you can be bigger on chaos
Can you believe she did that Sydney?
Mya sound more whiny
Make this more interesting instead of just sitting, you can do things
Beginning was really smooth, middle needs to be worked a little bit more
Take more pride in your appearance Mya, you're pretty
Continue going even though you're flustered and giggle throughout
Find places to get up and move around
Are you excited that she's getting asked, or betrayed?
You guys are great for this
Dana and Julie, what are you feeling during Summer and Aster's anecdote?
Never have your back to the audience, cheat out
Need to work on lines especially after the first part
Overall for the time not bad
Should I order pizza - be more hesitant, she just blew up
Everything could be played up a lot bigger and comedic
Once you get the kinks out of this and the large pauses
Time: 17mins
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Sample of Notes from Final Performance

Great energy at top

Great vocal variety
Great improvement on memorization girls
Great pauses, but were too frequent
Mya memorization issues
Even though you were sitting, still had energy
Memorization issues overall
Great energy throughout
Very connected to characters
Blocking definitely improved; great blocking
Rachel bigger betrayal
Hair out of your faces girls
Motivation for movement
Jump on those beats; had pauses that dragged out too long
Went really long and didn't have an arc or closure

Ballots for competition are located at https://www.uhsaa.org/theatre/.

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Sample of Analysis Assignment Grading
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Overall Reflection (2pgs)

The entire process of creating this unit was somewhat difficult. My mentor teacher left it

completely open for me design and take control of, which was part of the difficulty. The other

part was trying to design a unit that aligned with my mentor teacher’s long-term goals even

though I wasn’t going to be there after the end of this unit. The fact that my mentor teacher left

the term completely open for me to take control and plan was freeing, but it made me nervous as

well. Often with creativity even a little bit of boundaries is great for creation and helps with

coming up with ideas, but there were almost no boundaries put on me from my mentor teacher

and so I had to pull the unit idea out of basically nowhere. I’m really glad that I asked the

students their opinions on what they would like to do and where their interests lay, because that

gave me the idea for the unit topic/project. I would like to think that in my own classroom and

with my own vision/goals for the class and program, unit and lesson planning would go a bit

easier, but I have no way of knowing that until it actually happens.

In my own classroom I still want to ask my students where their interests are and what

subjects/projects they’d like to do because by asking those questions, it showed the students that

I cared what they thought, that their opinions and wants were important, they shaped their own

curriculum, and I earned their respect a little bit right off the bat. I think those are important

messages to send to my students, especially right off the bat.

There are several challenges that I faced with teaching this unit. There were students that I

certainly struggled with, there were unexpected surprises that popped up and had to be dealt with

right in the moment, and lessons that had to be rearranged within the unit, but that just taught me

that flexibility and perseverance was that much more important in teaching, and planning for the

unexpected was just as important as planning for the expected. The students that I struggled with
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weren’t that bad in reality, and I learned how to get through to them eventually (it was through

building a relationship with them and earning their respect). The lessons being rearranged didn’t

truly affect the overall lesson, they were just minor inconveniences that had to be dealt with; they

weren’t even that inconvenient, just unexpected. Being flexible and perseverant definitely helped

my mood throughout teaching the unit, which in turn I believe helped my students’ attitudes and

learning. I would definitely count my flexibility a victory for this entire experience.

Although we talk about challenges quite a bit, there were several small victories that

happened. I managed to get a student to show up to class a few times and to actually participate

and interact in class, which I was not at all expecting. I believe how I dealt with that student and

that whole situation was just what it needed to be for that student. The other victories would be

the interactions with the students. The few students I struggled with at first that I was able to

eventually build a relationship with would definitely count at victories in my book as well. How

I went about building the assignments went great as well, and I feel were beneficial for the

students which would count as a victory. My favorite assignment would be the blocking

assignment since the students reacted to that mini lesson exceptionally well, and they vocally

told me they learned something from me.

Throughout this process I learned that planning and writing down my plans is probably my

least favorite part of the job, along with assessing and grading. I want my students to succeed,

but if they don’t put in the work or show up, it’s very difficult for them to do so in a performing

art. That’s why assessing and grading was difficult, but assessing in general wasn’t bad. By

assessing my students’ work and performances it showed me where they were struggling, where

they excelled, and what they needed help with. It gave me lesson plan ideas as well since some

of my lesson plans didn’t go exactly according to plan.

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Lesson planning can sometimes be difficult, especially with having to meet the state core

standards and making sure that it also meets the students’ needs for success, plus following what

the school administration wants. There are plenty of restrictions, although those restrictions are

helpful with planning because it allows creativity to flow and some of the best lessons can

happen. Also when I plan it can help me get excited about what I’m doing with my students,

which helps get them excited too. I just dislike writing down my plans no matter how necessary

they are for me and for administration, but I understand and respect the necessity behind it all.

I also learned that I love teaching. Sometimes when the students don’t vocally respond to the

lessons, it’s hard to gauge whether they are learning or it can be discouraging, but I truly love

seeing the students understand the content and being able to interact, help, and coach the

students. Seeing the students improve in their talent and work is very rewarding and I thoroughly

enjoy teaching, even with the planning, assessing, and other challenges.

Out of this whole process nothing seemed outrageously difficult, besides possibly finding a

good place in the classroom to set up my computer for the Zoom observations due to the set up

of my classroom, but even that wasn’t very difficult. Another difficulty I had was coming up

with ideas for my unit since I didn’t have much guidance in that area. Although that was

difficult, communicating with my mentor teacher about his goals for the class and talking with

the students about what they were interested in helped with that. I had a wonderful mentor

teacher and mentor program in general with a great support system backing me up. What could

have been easier about the whole process is clearer communication with my mentor teacher. We

worked very well together and communication wasn’t an issue at all, just having regular

meetings with my mentor teacher to discuss what was going on might have made things slightly

easier throughout. We were very busy and he had a lot of people that wanted to talk to him all
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the time, but if I had been more persistent about having regular meetings then it would have

happened.

Overall, I believe this whole process was a good indication of what teaching will be like in

my own classroom. I thoroughly enjoyed the process even with its challenges, difficulties, and

my least favorite parts. I understand that teaching isn’t just teaching, and that there is so much

more to it and to accept one part of the job I have to accept all parts of the job. I greatly enjoyed

the experience and taking on the role of teacher, and I am excited to have my own classroom and

to do this full time in the future.