UNIT PLANNING

Ideas from Peter Smagorinsky's Teaching English by Design

Infographic by Kayla Fry

UNITS ARE CONCEPTUAL WHEN THEY FOCUS

ON A SET OF KEY IDEAS THAT DEEPENS
STUDENTS' UNDERSTANDING AND ARE
ENGAGED WITH OVER TIME.
Smagorinsky 98

There are eight types of units:

THEME - ARCHETYPE - GENRE - PERIOD - MOVEMENT - REGION -

WORKS BY A SINGLE AUTHOR - LEARNING A KEY STRATEGY

Smagorinsky 103-106

GOALS ARE IMPORTANT IN ORDER TO KNOW

THE UNIT'S DESTINATION AND TO ALLOW FOR
LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES ALONGSIDE
ASSESSMENTS
Smagorinsky 99

Teachers should have a good balance with the way they go

about using their knowledge:

They can teach a topic by using information they know about and have a
lot of experience with or they can work as a way to learn about certain
texts and information.
Smagorinsky 117

STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO LEARN ABOUT

A CONCEPT THROUGH MANY LENSES AND
TEXTS AND CONNECT THEIR LEARNING TO
THE OVERARCHING CONCEPTS, OTHER UNITS,
CLASSES, PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, AND THE "REAL
WORLD."
Smagorinsky 107-108

There are many things to consider when identifying a unit topic:

Students Teacher
The Curriculum
Culture &
Curricular restrictions & community, Interests &
curricular overarching developmental knowledge
concepts level, interests and
needs

Smagorinsky 111-117

WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO JUSTIFY THE

CHOICES THAT WE MAKE FOR OUR UNITS TO
OUR STUDENTS AND OUR SCHOOL
COMMUNITY AND PERSUADE OUR
PARTICULAR AUDIENCE AS TO HOW THESE
CHOICES ARE RELEVANT AND NECESSARY.
Smagorinsky 121-128

When choosing The different level classes schools may have (and where our
students fall into them), how we justify literary value of
materials,
texts, that we should use multiple forms of texts, if the texts
we have to think are appropriate according to the community we find
about: ourselves in and about having a variety of authors.

Smagorinsky 118-119

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES ALLOW STUDENTS TO THINK ABOUT AND WRITE

FOR REFERENCE:
AND/OR DISCUSS TOPICS BEFORE DIVING INTO THE UNIT.
WWW.ENTREPRISESCANADA.CA
Smagorinsky 149