Mikaela Macdissi

ENG 480 T @ 4:30 PM

26 April 2021

Reflection

Looking at this unit, I think I am most proud of the Shakespeare mini-lesson. I

personally have always loved the Bard, but I know that his poems and plays can be an easy

source of frustration and confusion for students. With this lesson, I tried really hard to make the

lesson interactive, but also fun and engaging for students. In all, I really like how the slides

came out and I think the content I added will be both informative and creative for students,

which is something I want to do with all of my lessons!

I struggled a lot creating this unit. This was my first time creating a unit, as my only

experience prior was putting together a ten day lesson plan. I think one of my biggest obstacles

was trying to figure out what to put for each day. I had a difficult time gauging if I was putting

too little or too much content in a day. Likewise, I struggled a little bit with flow. When I

started this project, I had a lot of ideas, but when it came down to organizing them in a way that

would progress students comfortably, it was harder than I expected it to be.

From this experience, I learned that planning really is crucial. I definitely didn't develop

a concrete plan going into this assignment and as a result I struggled to organize each day and

overall the week. In the future, I know that I will need to set more time aside to create a more

definitive plan. In all my school experience (especially in my writing), I had never been much of

a planner/ outliner. However, lesson planning is a different medium and I will need to work on

establishing a planning method that helps me with organization! This assignment also made me

learn so much about the importance of mini-lessons and precision in assignment sheets. I never
really thought of mini-lessons, but doing more of them made me realize they are such a valuable

asset to use in the classroom. Likewise, being explicit with assignment expectations. As I

created my assignment, I learned that I need to make sure students have a clear picture of what I

expect from them. This can be shown by creating a rubric, but also explaining each part of the

assignment in detail to the class.

If I hope students get one thing from this unit, it is the versatility and beauty of poetry

and just creative art in general. As someone who has always been very passionate about creative

writing, I want my students to realize that there is a place for it in this world. I hope students can

walk away with possibly a way to express their own feelings that they are too afraid to speak out

loud. Ultimately, I hope this unit lets students feel more comfortable and confident with writing

and themselves as individuals.

As I mentioned before, setting adequate time aside to plan and revise my unit is

something I definitely can bring with me as a future teacher. I also think this assignment really

made me start to think more about what I value as a teacher and my philosophy of education.

Before I teach, I want to explore and reflect more on what kind of teacher I want to be and how I

can bring that into my teaching. Overall, while this assignment was difficult, I feel so

accomplished! I am really proud of how far I have grown since the start of this semester. If this

assignment has shown me anything, it is that I am capable of putting a large unit together if I put

my mind to it!