Focus Date Strategy Context Used INTASC

Standard

Grouping for
Instruction

Large Group 1/21/20 Quote Tea Prior to the beginning of the

Party to prep students Jekyll and Hyde unit,
student the class began with each
learning for student receiving a quotation
textual themes from the novella with no context.
Each paper had lines
underneath where students
were expected to discuss the
meaning of their quote and what
they believe it might mean.

Small-Group 1/27/20 “Jigsaw” Group This activity occurred after

Activity during students read the first three
Victorian era chapters of Jekyll and Hyde.
research Students were split up into small
“expert” groups and meant to
interact with one another to
inform different parts of the
Victorian era. I did this to help
students contextualize what the
Victorian era would have looked
like for the characters and
author

Individual 1/30/20 Motif I created a presentation on the

Description differences between motifs and
and Location themes for students who
Activity struggled with identifying the
difference between the two.
Afterward, students reflected on
their readings for Jekyll and
Hyde and were asked to find at
least two examples of motifs
they found in the chapters. The
students identified and
described their chosen motif on
their worksheet.
Discussion

Whole-Class 2/7/20 “Miriam” Short Students near the end of their

Story Socratic Jekyll and Hyde unit, and I
Seminar asked them to showcase their
discussion capabilities by using
their analytical skills on a
different short story, “Miriam” by
Truman Capote. Students were
graded based on their
participation in the discussion,
and performed pre and
post-writes to assess individual
understanding of the short story.

Small-Group 2/8/20 Fishbowl I organized class so that there is

Discussion a center “circle” with several
Activity students who answer discussion
questions from the novella.
Other students take notes on the
discussion happening in the
“fishbowl” and wait their turn to
go up with their group and
discuss the question in a
Socratic manner with one
another.

Individual Conference 2/11/20 Intro+Thesis This is the week when students

with Students construction have begun to work on their
meeting analysis papers for Jekyll and
Hyde. Students were tasked
with creating an intro and thesis
statement the night before class
and should have it completed by
class time. I went around and
talked to each student about
his/her thesis work, giving them
pointers on what to focus on, as
well as glowing points of praise
for each of them

Using Written and

Visual Literacy

Use writing, speaking, 2/10/20 Poem I had students listen to a

and observing as major
modes of reflection,
inquiry, and expression
Use the processes of 1/21/20 Gothic
composing to create
various artifacts of oral,
visual, and written
literacy.
Use writing, visual 2/28/20 Poetic imagery
images, and speaking
for a variety of purposes
and audiences.
Apply knowledge of 2/18/20 Poetry
language structure and
convention to creating
and critiquing print and
non-print texts
annotation and recording of Owen Wilfred’s
discussion WW1 poem “Dulce Et Decorum
Est” and annotate to find
evidence of literary and poetic
devices. Afterward, students
discussed the devices that they
found, and students were
instructed to use the evidence
they found in their annotations to
help create a thesis for the
poem.
Once students ended their
elements TKAM unit, I decided to use the
poster gothic genre found in TKAM to
illustration begin a transition to Jekyll and
Hyde. Students were assigned
to small groups of 3 or 4 and
assigned one part of the gothic
genre. The students were
required to find evidence of that
feature in TKAM and illustrate
this creatively on a poster board.
This activity occurred during our
illustration reading of Act II of Romeo and
project Juliet, specifically during the
balcony scene. I had asked
students to pay careful attention
to poetic language with their
reading guides, and after
finishing the balcony scene,
tasked students with illustrating
their favorite piece of poetic
language in the lasts two acts.
Students were required to
illustrate the imagery, as well as
identify the devices used by
Shakespeare in the play
The class was split up into
Dissection groups of 4 or more, with each
Activity student receiving one piece of
“Sonnet 18” by William
Shakespeare. Each group was
 tasked with translating
Shakespeares archaic language
into more modern speech for the
class to listen to and
understand. Once all students
translated their stanzas, the
small groups would reconvene
and discuss their translations
with one another

Focus Date Strategy Context Used INTASC

Standard

Reading Processes

Uses responsive 1/14/20 Text-based Students were tasked with

Strategies comprehensio reading Harper Lee’s second
n questions novel ​Go Set a Watchman​ in
conjunction with their ​To Kill a
Mockingbird​ unit. For homework,
students were tasked with
reading a small excerpt from one
of the chapters and answering
questions that referenced back
to the original novel. Students
would answer these questions
as they read along with the
novel.

Uses interpretive 1/9/20 Inference Students were confronted with a

Strategies based creative nontraditional text “Ordeal by
writing Cheque” at the beginning of
their ​To Kill a Mockingbird​ unit.
The story is made up entirely of
cheques with details given only
by name, address, price,
locations, and dates on each of
the 30 cheques. After students
completed inference based
worksheet questions,, students
were tasked with rewriting
several of the cheques as a
traditional narrative structure,
similar to ​To Kill a Mockingbird​.
Uses analytic strategies 3/2/20
Provide students with 2/24/20 Character
opportunities to select
appropriate reading
strategies that aid in
unpacking print and
nonprint texts.
Support developing or 2/7/20
low performing student
readers in accessing and
comprehending text.
Individual motif As students were reading
tracking with Romeo and Juliet in class, I
reading organized students in the
classroom into small groups.
These groups were assigned
with tracking a particular motif in
Romeo and Juliet as they read
along, whether it was “violence”,
“fate”, or “love”. As the students
made entries on their
worksheets, they would provide
analysis next to the quotation
and explain how it related to
their assigned motif. At the end
of the unit, students created an
analytical theme statement
utilizing their motif quotations.
After reading the first act of
chart Romeo and Juliet, students
descriptions were tasked with characterizing
and adjectives each of the titular characters in
their own words. Students would
create descriptions of each
character that they felt
encapsulated their qualities well.
Students were asked to draw
upon their own experiences to
try and characterize what these
characters might sound like in
modern-day. Each student
compiled a list of phrases and
adjectives that they felt
represented either Romeo and
Juliet accurately.
“Mind of a I tasked students with reading a
Killer” Article short, informative article
small group detailing researchers’ efforts to
reading “Say try and look at the brains of
Something” serial killers to find biological
strategy differences/cues to a normal
human brain. Students were put
into groups of 3 and were
required to take turns reading

Design and implement a 2/22/20 Archaic
reading process focused
mini-lessons.
Text Selection
Incorporates a variety of 2/18/20 Text to film
genres
the article out loud. Students
read paragraph by paragraph,
and once one student finished a
paragraph, they would turn to
the rest of their group and
discuss what their portion was
saying. Group members would
quickly reply with their thoughts,
and then another student would
begin their turn reading. This is
repeated until they finished
reading the article. At this point,
students would summarize what
they read to one another.
Since Shakespeares language
language is incredibly hard to grasp for
mini-lesson first-time readers in High School,
this mini-lesson focused on
showing the inverted syntax and
archaic diction used by
Shakespeare. Students were
given ancient words used in
Shakespeares’ time and asked
to guess what the modern
translation of it might be.
Afterward, students were given
a mini-lesson on inverted syntax
and were shown examples of it
used by other poets in
contemporary speech.
I believed that many of my
comparison students had trouble deciphering
and analysis Shakespeares archaic
language, and so this made it
hard for proper analysis of
several scenes. To help
contextualize students
understanding of the text, two
film versions of Romeo and
Juliet (Baz Luhrmann and
Zeferreli versions) were shown
 one after the other for particular
scenes in the play. Students
marked the differences between
each movie to the text, and
marking how the film
representation changes the
original meaning in the text.

Incorporate literature 1/14/20 Aspects of To pair with an older novel,

representing a variety of Social Justice students are tasked with reading
cultures critique and a YA novel Dear Martin, which
argument focuses on racial violence and
bias from the perspective of a
young African American man.
Students are tasked with
comparing the main characters’
conflicts with Scout from TKAM,
and looking for differences in
their views of justice. All of this
culminates in a class discussion
on whether or not Atticus Finch
is a proponent of Social Justice,
or if it only seems that way
because of young Scout’s
perspective.

Incorporate a range of 3/11/20 Peardeck I decided to create a short

modes and media. interactive presentation on Gender roles
presentation and their subversion based on
students comments about how
different Romeo and Juliet’s
opportunities and abilities are in
society. To increase student
engagement with the
presentation, I utilized an
interactive PowerPoint
presentation called Peardeck.
Between slides I incorporated a
variety of comprehension,
inference, and interpretive
questions over the terminology
that was just presented in the
previous slides. These
interactive slides ranged from
multiple-choice, to true/false,

Provide students with an 1/30/20 Partner
opportunity for choice
Provide students with 3/16/20 Romeo and
skills and opportunities
to evaluate, analyze, and
ethically use information
and texts.
and even “pick a side” type
questions to show where the
class aligned.
I previously immersed my
Victorian students in the world of Victorian
narrative England with a research jigsaw
assignments activity. For this lesson, I wanted
students to write from the
perspective of a Victorian citizen
in this time, utilizing details from
their previous research into the
era. Students were allowed to
work with a partner for this
assignment and were instructed
to write using the vocabulary
and lifestyle of a rich or poor
Victorian citizen. Students
recorded their stories via Google
Docs and shared their results
with me. I graded these works
based on the thoroughness of
writing and style, along with the
necessary informative details of
the era.
In preparation for their research
Juliet research essays on Romeo and Juliet,
article analysis students were given copies of
and three analysis essays looking at
argumentation different reasons for why the
tragedy occurred. As students
read each article, they answered
comprehension questions about
the content of the essay.
Students then answered
analysis questions regarding
each article and whether they
agreed or disagreed with one
article over another. This was
done to give them professional
venues to see differing
perspectives on the work that
they were all reading.
Support students in N/A
purposeful, self-selected
independent reading.
Composing Processes
Produce a variety of 1/14/20 Professional
forms of written
discourse as models for
student work.
Implement responsive 2/11/20 Embedded
mini-lessons to support
student writers.
Book collection My classroom did not support
independent reading as part of
the curriculum; students in my
honor class were tasked with
doing their reading of the canon
novels at home, with little to no
room for other texts. Despite
this, I brought in my own
collection of novels and poetry
collections that I have collected
over the years in my undergrad
career and set them on my desk
for students to peruse and read
to their hearts content. Students
who were curious about
particular books on my desk
were given preface about the
particular work and whether it
would be a good fit for their
interests.
To model what a good analysis
argumentative essay looks like, I assigned my
essay analysis students to read a short essay
on “Why Atticus Finch Does Not
Help Further Social Justice” for
their To Kill a Mockingbird unit.
During the discussion on the day
of, I asked my students to locate
the central claim of the article
and the counterclaim presented
afterward. This activity helped
model what a proper analysis
essay looks like in the
professional arena. Students
annotated the text and were
checked by the teacher to
ensure that they did in fact read
the article for homework.
During this week students have
quotations been preparing to write their
partner activity Jekyll and Hyde analysis

Use a wide range of 3/11/20 A love song to
writing strategies to
engage students in
generating meaning and
to communicate
understanding.
Create opportunities for 2/12/20 Peer-editing
papers. I created this lesson to
rehash students knowledge on
embedded quotations and their
proper use. Students were
presented with a series of
quotations from books that we
have studied and are asked to
format them in one of the three
primary modes of quotations
that we utilize in class. After
everyone finished, I displayed
the correct answers on the
board and asked students to
pair up with one another to find
the correct answers. Students
partnered up and graded one
another’s answers, helping each
other understand why they got
their answer.
I created an activity where
sonnet rewrite students were to choose a love
activity song, annotate important
features from it, and then rewrite
the love song as a
Shakespearean sonnet. The
goal of this activity was to get
students to look at how
Shakespeare constructs
meaning in his monologues for
characters in ​Romeo and Juliet,​
and to look for key details in
their monologues that serve as
foreshadowing and motifs that
pop up consistently. Students
had a great time turning their
favorite love songs into
Shakespearean sonnets with
their partners and were able to
better understand some of
Shakespeare’s language in
certain parts of Romeo and
Juliet
As students neared the end of
students to provide
peer-feedback
Create opportunities for 3/4/20
student writers to
engage an authentic
audience
Support student writers
who have previously
struggled to meet
grade-level standards in
writing
analysis writing their first full-length
papers analysis essay, I gave them the
opportunity to peer edit one
another’s papers to spot out any
obvious errors and mistakes.
Students traded Chromebooks
with one another and provided
in-depth feedback to one
another for 10 minutes about
errors they saw. I specifically
advised my students to not
make corrections about style or
analysis in their essays so as to
not have confusion. This activity
was done to show my students
the power of peer editing, and
how looking over one’s paper
can save a lot of time looking for
errors later on.
Romeo and During our reading of ​Romeo
Juliet​ read and Juliet,​ I primarily relied on
aloud audiobooks for particular areas
of the play. Shakespeare's
language can make it hard to
catch tone and jokes, and so
trained actors reading the lines
communicated meaning much
clearer to my students. Around
Act III, I decided to let my
students act out the Mercutio
fight and death scene, showing
the stage movement of the play
and how the climax played out.
This became an incredibly fun
activity for the class and allowed
many of my students to better
understand why and how the
fight went down
Weekly To ensure that I have stable
CommonLit data on how my students are
writing doing in the classroom, I utilized
assignments weekly CommonLit assignments
every Thursday. Having my
students engage with analysis
and comprehension questions
that look similar to those on
EOC’s. I reviewed student
answers on each assignment to
check for individual student
progress assignment by
assignment. This helped to see
where particular students
struggled and where others
were making massive
improvements. This turned into a
tool that I see myself using in my
teaching career.