Unit Final 433

Student Demographic:

I will ideally be working in a middle school setting with students ranging from 10 to 14

years of age. The ideal demographic I would like to someday be working with would

consist of :

African American/Black 5.2%

American Indian/Alaska Native 0.5%

Asian 9.5%

Filipino 2.4%

Hispanic/Latino 55.3%

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 0.4%

White 21.7%

Multiracial 4.1%

Paradigmatic Knowledge:

➢ Think outside the box and don’t be afraid to speak YOUR truth

➢ This unit is to help ALL of you discover or rediscover yourself. There are no right

or wrong paths to doing so. Each major assignment will have options and you

will ALL choose your own path.

Theme/Rationale

My theme for my unit is the self or rather finding yourself. The reason I have

chosen this theme is because I believe that in middle school ALL students are trying to

find themselves and discover who they want to be and what better way to teach a

student than to show them they are not alone and there are texts that they can read that

show them that being in THEIR skin is the best place to be. I’ve personally ALWAYS

believed that although we are individually, only one person in this world, we may mean

the world to one person and that is ALL that matters. For that one person, you represent

the good, the bad, the questionable, love, hate, loyalty, respect, and everything else in

this world. For THIS reason, we must learn to see ourselves for who we are and see

that although we carry faults and are imperfect those are the very things that lead us to

find a better self because there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

Time Frame

The theme itself is everlasting and therefore I believe that this would be an

ongoing theme for the school year. I would find ways to incorporate it through other

texts and other assignments. It would then also serve as a reminder that there is no limit

to when or how many times we may need to find ourselves.

Constructivist Goal/Scaffolded Activities

As an introduction to the unit I would have students write a piece or letter to a

parent/guardian/sibling or other person of importance in their lives. The start of the

piece they choose to write would have to be, It makes me uncomfortable to talk about

this but I’ve kept it bottled up so long it’s time I tell you that… This assignment would be,

hopefully, a moment of reflection of the person they are and a breath of fresh air to
exhale something they’ve carried around with them for so long it may hurt. These would

in essence be pieces for them but I believe it would be a powerful starting piece to a unit

on finding yourself. I believe that opening the unit with such an empowering assignment

would open them up to the idea that we are all different and have lived through many

different experiences and obstacles that have helped mold us into the people that we

are. In between reading texts and discussing them, I would throw in small assignments

like this to reinforce the idea that self discovery is a beautiful thing that we do at various

intervals of our lives.

Another assignment I would include is taking a poem that speaks to them and

borrowing the first stanza and then creating a piece of their own starting with that

stanza. Students would have the option to either pick one from the books available in

class or by looking up a piece online. Either way they would be required to provide the

actual text and their own so as to verify that they did not simply rephrase the poem or

copy it in part or as a whole. Again, simple activities that are engaging but enforce the

theme.

Assessment

At the end of the unit I would have a life book as the assessment. Each page

would be descriptive of different aspects of their lives and would require different

prompts. Some prompts would be simple inserts of the smaller assignments along the

way such as the piece of breath of fresh air. It would include a small research page on

the country, or if U.S. then of the state, where they were born. Another page would be a

small research page on the country or countries of family descent while yet another

would be a Doomsday page where they narrate the worst day of their lives and towards
the end they would narrate the Hip Hoppity Day that they hold as the best day in their

lives. Each page would build on each other to formulate the story of the individual. The

final page would be a This is Me page where they would have a choice of presentation

for their presentation.They could in essence elect to create a collage, draw a mask or

create a symbol with symbolic drawings that represent them, write a poem or

monologue, or go traditional and write a paper. They would then be required to present

two of their favorite pages and their final page to the class.

Texts to be Used:

My first text to be used is The Unteachables by Gordan Korman because it

speaks of both students and teachers being viewed as failures or bad seeds but are

given an opportunity to turn that around. I liked this text because it demonstrates how

society may view us as one thing but we, as individuals, are capable of so much more

and there is no limit to what we can do so long as we believe in ourselves and in what

we are doing. Society does NOT dictate the person we are nor what we can and cannot

do.
 The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman is another power house that would fit

perfectly with my theme. It is a story of two siblings running away to escape domestic

violence while trying to deal with a developmental disability in one sibling. These

siblings are put through everything in the book and are tested against all the forces of

nature. It is a story of uncertainty, love, and overcoming.

New Kid by Jerry Craft is the ultimate identity book of a kid trying to find their way

while still living under his parents expectations and trying to fit into the titles and rules of

society in an unfamiliar community. I would probably start this unit with this book simply

because it fits into the middle school life. They are new in school and trying to figure

themselves out as they are growing into young adults but are still trying to stay a kid.

Their responsibilities are growing but they are trying so hard to stay a kid.
Classroom Activities:

1. Breath of Fresh Air.. a piece to be written in the fill in the blank version. Students

will be prompted to write a piece starting with, It makes me uncomfortable to talk

about this but I’ve kept it bottled up so long it’s time I tell you that… I would

provide an example but the students would be asked to write a piece revealing

something that they have kept a secret for fear or knowledge of lack of support

from family given traditions or expectations. It could be anything from a desire to

cut one's hair to a revelation of being bullied or the like at a young age or

present. Or it could be a BIG thing to admit you avoid a certain dish because it

reminds you of an event that happened on an occasion when that dish was

served. This is a personal piece that would be turned in essentially for

participation.

2. Poetry that Speaks would be an assignment where the students would be taking

a poem that speaks to them and borrowing the first stanza and then creating a

piece of their own starting with that stanza. Students would have the option to

either pick one from the books available in class or by looking up a piece online.
 Either way they would be required to provide the actual text and their own so as

to verify that they did not simply rephrase the poem or copy it in part or as a

whole.

3. A discussion on the difference between the norms they know here in the states

versus the norms they know at home or when they travel back home would be

included at some point while reading A Bridge Home. After said discussion they

will be asked to write a short two part piece on why they believe domestic

violence is acceptable in other countries and how they believe they can make a

stance against something they feel is wrong here in the U.S.

Assignments:

1. An assignment for The Unteachables would be to write a narrative on an

occasion when they were expected to be or act a certain way but they did not

follow the norm that society dictated and to tell the why they refused to go with

the norm. Students would be asked to elaborate. A simple because or because I

didn’t feel like it would not suffice. At the end of their narrative they would be

asked to explain what they see wrong with said norm and why.

2. For The Bridge Home, students would have an assignment where they would

have to work in partners and role play. They will be asked to play either the boss

or the child and work together to create a dialogue between the two on how a job

interview could go for young Viji in an Indian setting. Students would be asked to

identify t\he type of job Viji is applying for, the qualifications needed, why Viji
 thought the job suited her, other than obtaining money and food for survival, and

whether they thought the employer would take advantage of the child and how.

3. New Kid would have a two part collage assignment to it. The first part being a

creation of a collage of what they remember their younger selves being. It could

include favorite characters or shows, a fam fav, or a popular saying they had as a

kid splattered across the page somehow. For instance, the famous MINE!!! That

so many children grow up saying because they lack the social skills to know how

to share. The second part would be another collage of the things that make them

up in the present. After creating both collages they would be asked to plaster

words of advice that they would give to their younger selves if they could.

Assessment:

A great majority of assignments throughout the unit would be unconventional so

therefore, my grading rubrics would follow in the unconventional. I believe my grading

would be based primarily on creativity, uniqueness, effort, and when applicable,

grammar. On certain assignments they would also have a presentation grade that would

be based on quality and inclusion of specific aspects of the material being presented.