English+Work+Sample+-+Basgall

Unit Rationale used from my Curriculum class:

My major that I integrated into my unit is based on the subject matter of English Language Arts and my partner’s major is Social Studies. It was interesting trying to incorporate both subjects within one unit, as well as painless in terms of using both contents within the unit since they play off of each other well. Our relevant problem used throughout our unit is based off of recent events happening in the Middle East where citizens living in areas such as Egypt saw the world in a different light through the use of social media. Now social media is being used in ways it was never originally intended. Protestors, rebel groups, and terrorists alike are utilizing these websites as underground methods of communication and organization. That being said, several governments around the globe are opting to heavily censor these sites, even shutting down Internet altogether. We basically are asking our students if governments are justified in their actions of shutting out this type of free speech in the name of security and stability?
 * Unit Rationale **
 * Introduction ** :

By this issue relating directly to not only recent events alive in today’s context but also is relevant with social media and its role with people expressing themselves through these mediums. Social media such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are used daily by students and it is interesting to see how students react and what solutions they come up with if America decided to do what Egypt did in terms of shutting down the Internet. Connections through these social media outlets would be lost and I personally would believe the way students and people in society act would change. A way of being sober from social media, as these web pages are used more and more on a daily basis for students. Students are overall asked certain essential questions about the unit such as, “Is there such a thing as legitimate limitations of free speech?” and “To what degree do established governments (if any) have the right to censor their citizens?” These two questions are the main questions students will be finding solutions to throughout the unit.

Students are ultimately educated throughout the unit on human rights throughout the world and freedoms. It is interesting to see how different countries have differences in terms of rights and freedoms and that students will be able to put themselves in different cultures shoes and placed in to a reality where a lot of things we have here in America are materialistic while other third world countries struggle. In this 21st century we need to address issues that are relatable to students now and not try to reflect too much on the past where they have little to no experience in certain situations. Conducting research and applying that research to previous knowledge, personal experiences, interests, and passions results in a gain the students’ knowledge. Also the community is involved with the performance assessment making the curriculum more up to date as well. Traditional classrooms based their classrooms off of the textbook, and that book was the driving force towards all lessons and knowledge gained or learned. For the unit we created and my lessons that I focused on I did incorporate multiple intelligences and technology with the use of multimedia. I expect my students to complete their work with original and unique responses and they actually have to take the time to put thought into their work and come up with great solutions to the overall unit problem.

When deciding on how to create learning goals I made sure that what I wanted my students to know was incorporated throughout lessons and in the end students would build up to a full understanding of the unit and the questions they serve solutions to. I used this process to ensure students were able to complete the performance assessment, and by doing so they had the materials, tools, and knowledge to conduct research and have enough background information of the units main ideas to support their arguments during their debate.

When it comes to figuring out what we, as teachers should apply to our curriculum and course content, the one major key factor is what the school wants the students to learn. And this differs from school district to school district, so I asked myself how I could use this unit within a classroom whose structure is already set up according to district standards. I think that my unit is important for students to learn on the basis of it being relatable to today’s issues and problems as well as having a very 21st century type content within the unit’s lessons. Having students reach outside of the textbook and use materials and research items that haven’t been used in traditional classrooms makes research and inquiry much more fascinating to the students and gratifying with end products. I believe that students should be able to write about interesting context and relate their lives to situations happening throughout the world.
 * Curriculum ** :

With looking at curriculum in alignment with benchmarks the unit I created covers a broad range of expectations. The belief of an English language arts student is that they learn best by being actively involved in activities that assess higher cognitive level of thinking. Assessments should expand past standardized tests and I believe that the assessments, assignments, and projects within the unit are developed with these beliefs in mind.

English language arts or ELA have standards and expectations of their students based on four key aspects. First being writing, speaking, and visual expression, second including reading, listening, and viewing, third using literature and culture and fourth being language. Overall the curriculum created does align with core democratic values suggested by Michigan by way of ensuring students are justifying positions, having a voice for their opinions, and developing ways to research certain issues and either defend or dissent against them.

Students are measured by the goals presented throughout the unit and those goals reflect upon knowledge and understanding gained from the lessons. To measure this and to see how the expectations put on the students have failed or succeeded is done by formative and summative assessments. It’s important to make sure that students actually understand the material gone over during a daily lesson by having homework distributed and graded and seeing if the students need to be re-taught a certain section of the lessons context or if there are only a few students who may need to stay after school and receive extra help from the teacher through more examples or being re-taught.

Working with my Social Studies partner on the unit was great. We were able to play off of major themes in terms of how Social Studies and English could be able to be included evenly and throughout the unit. For the unit we used problems and issues that dealt with Social Studies context and incorporated English activities throughout those lessons. One section was devoted to how social media impacts language and how this could affect problems and issues that may arise within the future of the English language and writing.

With the unit and all the interesting topics it has to offer, students are able to build upon prior knowledge of social media and are able to use their skills and strengths to create essays, PowerPoint’s, work collaboratively in groups, and ultimately be exposed to different ways of learning through the unit. I believe that all students can personally relate to the units curriculum, as I am sure a majority of high school or middle school aged students are exposed to a form of social media on a daily basis. Facebook has integrated itself among a vast variety of forms in technological advances and has provided great resources to businesses and marketing. By students already being immersed to social media and being put in a situation, such as the “Walk Like An Egyptian” lesson formats, where they must use prior knowledge to apply to what the lesson requires of them makes it unique and fundamental to their learning. The level of appropriateness is never a problem within the context of this unit, as it is being based on different countries principal rights and culture submersion. All students are different and not everyone has the same learning style or attainable knowledge situation. In order to ensure I am accommodating all of the students within my classroom during the unit I plan my lessons by integrating the True Colors exercise. I am able to make sure I am using certain aspects of my lesson that reach out to different learning styles and personalities. I also address low-level readers as well as gifted students who might find material challenging or not challenging enough.
 * Students: **

The essential questions addressed within the unit follow along the lines of if limitations or censorship should be used against free speech and governmental dictatorship over human rights. These questions provide adequate focus for the entire unit by supplementing the unit with enough lessons and context to provide students with enough inquiry into these questions and finding solutions for them. The lessons throughout the unit provided enough material to hook the student’s attention and require them to think critically in terms of the context of the bigger picture. Students started off learning the basic fundamentals of rights, how they differ in different countries and what censorship and free speech really mean. With these basics they are able to then apply them throughout more complex ideas presented later on in the unit.
 * Lesson Planning: **

Bloom’s Taxonomy was used within the unit through a variety of ways. From having students remember certain material to ensure they understand basic elements needed to evaluate and create during lessons later on. I made sure that there was an even amount of each level within the lessons themselves to make sure that I am hitting all of the important levels of cognitive thinking. Factual knowledge is introduced within the lessons by having simple concepts that are relevant to the lesson, then later on conceptual knowledge is used to further thinking in terms of applying the relationships among basic elements within a larger picture and how they function together and finally having students use procedural knowledge to create a product using all knowledge’s gained at the same time within the lesson.

The most important thing for planning lessons through this unit was to make sure that students were actively interested and participating within the lesson. By having lectures over and over again can make students mentally turn off. With incorporating interesting lessons that get the students to get out of their seats, research, and use their critical thinking skills is important to incorporate within learning activities. In doing so I used the learning styles or true colors, and Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences to ensure students are using all of their senses and abilities through their lessons.

One of my lessons incorporated students being able to use collaborative problem-solving skills, choice, reflection, and technology. The inquiry lesson required students to be put into groups that were made up of diverse students where they learn how to work collaboratively together on the project and learn from one another new ideas and ways in which to investigate the problem. They were given certain roles within those groups where they decided on which role they were most interesting in being and chose. By the end of the project the students were given the choice whether they were going to use a PowerPoint, poster, or other approved means to present their findings and solutions to their problem. A notebook from the group was due at the end of the project as well where students included their reflection papers of the process they went through during the formation of the project and end product as well as peer and individual evaluations. Some ways in which I strategized students to have learning communities and support one another is through group activities where they create mini communities of Egyptian civilians. By creating this group they must agree on the information they would like to present to the class and whether or not they are going to dress up for the extra credit, also create fundamentals within their society. These types of assessments always are relevant to the overall question and connect with the ending product.

Looking at James Banks’ Transformation Level of Multicultural Education is interesting by the fact that taking a completely new approach to the overall essential questions and leading students down a new and unexplored path makes the unit that much more enticing. With this unit I was able to take a look at social media and its role within the United States and consider the facts of how government might play a role with censorship and blocking certain types of social media and I wanted to explore the issues going on in the middle east but to look at the unit in a new way might include looking at countries who do not have social media at all. By looking at a country without social media or censorship it would be interesting to see how they handle their communications throughout their country and how businesses thrive and what kinds of communications they use instead to make connections across the country and even the world.
 * Multicultural Education: **

Throughout the unit students are exposed to several countries and their use of government rights and censorship. They also are give perspectives of American politicians and look at videos of people from the Middle East and how they actually are handling the democratic freedoms they desire and the crises going on over there. Within the curriculum I ensure that with my instruction that gender and racial background do not factor into any bias, but play a role within the classrooms learning environment. I feel that the students who may be from a different culture or country will be able to teach the class about how they may perceive social medias role within their country, and if they do have the rights Americans have in terms of free speech, and if not how they handle their role within their certain culture or country. By ensuring students teach other students about their backgrounds if they do come from very diverse cultures, students are given a new look at what really is perceived among other students and people from their culture or country.

With the end of the unit being a performance assessment where the students ultimately take a stand and debate I have found that it might be really interesting to involve the community within the debate by having experts and families come in to either be the audience or participate as a judge. I find that communication with parents and the community is essential when it comes to leading a classroom. With this communication I plan on using weekly newsletters, phone calls and a website as a main mean of communication with these community and family members. Without different forms of communication outlets and taking the time to reach out and tell the members what is going on within the classroom, the teaching environment can fail and will be limited with its resources and growth.
 * Community: **

By creating this unit and being able to play the teacher role within a real classroom, with real students has shown me that I can be successful in this career and will be successful. I have learned that I am capable of doing the proper lessons and engaging students with the lessons I have created. That student’s will actually walk away from the class learning something that I have taught. With English I have found that I know more than I seem to think I know. I underestimate myself in terms of knowledge of certain subjects, but I found that being within the classroom and participating that I would be very well able to produce assignments, answer questions, and help students ultimately learn the lesson. I find myself being very professional within the classroom and will ensure that my students are treated fairly, will respect each other and everyone within the class, and that they will go out into the world being knowledgeable democratic citizens in a democratic society. I know with English many texts and literature are integrated throughout the school year. In order for my students to understand the text I will establish social or civic issues into the curriculum. I plan on starting with the major points and themes within the required texts and use those themes to delve into other areas of the world, issues going on within our country or community and apply the text’s main themes and key points to the world outside the classroom. By just reading books and answering questions about what happens in the books I plan on making students active by producing lessons that reach to main themes and topics those books hold and let students think critically about problems that may arise from those books.
 * Reflection: **