Challenges:<\/p>\n
a) I want students to be able to show their understanding in a form that will best illustrate their strengths.<\/p>\n
b) I want students to ask themselves how literature\u00a0can challenge our understanding of ourselves, our community, and our world.<\/p>\n
c) I want to focus on skill development and get away from being chained to content. The content of the novels is the means by which students do two things: make authentic connections AND develop and refine skills.<\/p>\n
So, with the help of Erica Chellew (Derek Doucet’s better half), and during dedicated collaborative time (thanks LCS for giving teachers this protected time), I worked to brainstorm what mattered to me for this unit, starting with my Essential Question, Thinking about the Skills I wanted the students to develop, then moving on to how we integrate student choice in order to promote authentic engagement. Here’s a photo of that brainstorm session:<\/p>\n Here is my action plan:<\/p>\n a) Allow students to choose from one of four texts: The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, or The Beach<\/em> (question: why am I limiting them? Can I just let them choose whatever fiction book they want and then clear it with me?)<\/p>\n b) Students will be focussing on skills development vs content understanding for this unit. Three key skills that will be evaluated: 1. Close Reading skills (using tech or no tech), 2. Pastiche writing (identification of style, rhetorical devices), and 3. Authentic Connection between Poetry and Text. Students will find a poem that they feel reflects the EQ and their chosen text. (Question: why did I choose these skills? How will they connect to the EQ through these assignments? Does that matter?)<\/p>\n c) Students will use reflection journals to discuss what they are reading, what they are learning, and questions they have about their learning. I will create a Google Form that will be tied to a DocAppender App. These forms will act as an Entry and Exit ticket for each of our lessons, and I will give students a minor grade for the quality and thoughtfulness of their reflections. (Question: is this the only place where students will show their content understanding? I need to get a dialogue going in these journals (google docs) so students know I”m reading and engaging with them outside of class; promote reading!)<\/p>\n d) Harkness Discussions: rather than having the teacher create the question or prompt for discussion, students will prepare for the Harkness Discussion by creating questions that will promote a better understanding of how a text answers the essential question: how does literature challenge our understandings of self, community and world?<\/p>\n e) Students can choose one of two summative evaluation choices at the end: a close reading + poetry connection OR writing a pastiche and then annotating that writing. All students will participate in an interview with their teacher, using student-created questions that they can prepare for in advance. Example ideas for questions: What did you learn as a result of this unit? How does your book challenge your understanding of yourself and your role in this world? How might your ability to be a good close reader improve your life? (question: do all students HAVE to do the interview? Does this disadvantage non-native speakers? How can I address that?)<\/p>\n This action plan looks a lot like a unit plan. Sorry about that! But ultimately, this is a plan to create a student-focussed learning environment that promotes critical thinking and holds students accountable for their learning. I welcome your thoughts, ideas, criticisms, feedback, and recipes for success. Thanks!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have struggled for weeks to identify in a coherent manner what I want to focus on for my Cohort Action Plan. Selfishly, I have used a challenge I’m facing in preparing for an upcoming unit as the foundation for my action plan. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further delay, here is the 2015 Spring … Continue reading “Action Plan: Skills vs Content in the Multi-Text English Classroom”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,6],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century-learning","category-action-plan","category-student-directed-learning","tag-action-plan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Brainstorming](\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brenthurley\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/39\/files\/2015\/03\/IMG_4521.jpg\")
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