Unit Planning with Big Ideas in Mind
There are many important connections that I have made when thinking about unit planning. For the following sections, I will be referring to the following goal from a lesson in the unit: Students will describe in writing at least 3 different characters in a story and how their needs, feelings, and actions affect the sequence of events and how it relates to their life by the end of the unit. Looking at what I have on my unit plan thus far, I know that the essential questions connect to some of the topics my students have been covering in SEL, including active listening and taking perspective. These particular topics also happen to be growth areas for a majority of the students in the class. Therefore, the goal for this unit is to connect to my students specifically because it focuses on perspective, which they are working on in Social Emotional Learning. In addition, the goals from the lesson also connect to writing growth areas on my context for learning.
Students will need to do some writing in order to assess the previous goal. In order to provide a scaffold for students, they will be provided with a graphic organizer with three spots for characters in each column and their needs, feelings, and actions each in a separate row. Students will fill in each box with evidence as to how each of these aspects impact the sequence of events. After they have finished their graphic organizer, students will answer the question, “How does what the character went through relate to something you have gone through in your life?” in a paragraph. These two pieces- the graphic organizers and the paragraph, will be how I will assess the goal.
The goal connects to language demands because students will be identifying needs, feelings, and actions in writing of different characters in a graphic organizer. It connects to cognitive demands, as it fits onto DOK level 3 on Hess’s Written & Oral Communication Cognitive Rigor Matrix, as students have to apply different point of views to their graphic organizer. It also connects to the standards, as students must “describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described” (CCSSI_ELA5.6), which you can find below.
Throughout unit planning, I believe the most important thing to consider in the backwards plan. It is really important to know the end goal that you want students to know, as well as the standard(s) it is connected to. Backwards planning allows clear learning goals to drive planning. All lessons will need to relate to the end goal, even if there are individual objectives within each lesson. Utilizing backwards design allows teachers to create a cohesive unit.
Backwards design connects to lesson planning, as each individual lesson needs to relate to the end goal. Beginning with the end in mind really allows teachers to make sure everything in each lesson is related. While lesson planning, making sure everything used relates to that goal can help design purposeful lessons.
For example, if I want to create a unit around point of view but want to include an activity about plot mountain, I should be able to recognize that this does not relate to the end goal or big idea. Keeping this in mind will help create a more cohesive unit. I look forward to creating and implementing lessons that work well together.
Becca Mazur