Introduction Structure

TKAM

Day 1:
-Unit Plan: read components, answer questions, and answer why Harper Lee wrote the book
(read for homework)

Day 2: The 1930s
-Question: Look at Pinterest pics - What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Watch TKAM historical context video & Scotsboro, Great Depression(John Green)
-Read about the author
Product:  Compare and contrast Harper Lee's time with our own: Great Depression, Class/Segregation, Scotsboro, Predicted Themes, Harper Lee
 Day 3: Community I
Present ProductsDo Now: How would you describe our town? What history do you know of it?
Who are the outsiders of our community? What kind of class system exists?

Homework: Would you want to live in Maycomb? 

Begin novel

The Great Gatsby

Day 1: The 1920s
-Look at Pinterest pics -  What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Watch Introduction to the 1920s
-Read about the author, look at Powerpoints
Product: Create a mindmap or a mural of the book's historical context and purpose. Must have these labels: Prohibition, Automobiles, WWI, Fitzgerald, Predicted Themes, Economy, Women, Immigration

Day 2: Old money
Present products
Question:
Begin novel
Homework: Who is old and who is new money?

Romeo and Juliet

Day 1: The Bard
-Look at Pinterest -  What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Watch Intro to Shakespeare (iambic), Shakespeare in Pop Culture, William Shakespeare.ppt Bio
Product: Create a mindmap or a mural of the book's historical context and purpose. Must have these labels: Shakespeare's schooling, Shakespeare's language/style, Shakespeare's influence, Predicted Themes

Day 2:
Question:
Begin play

Death of a Salesman

Day 1: Dreams
-Look at collected images - What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Watch Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller and the American Dream
-Author Bio
Product: Create a mindmap or a mural of the book's historical context and purpose. Must have these labels: American Dream, Tragic Hero, Predicted Themes, Arthur Miller

Day 2:
Question:
Begin play

Of Mice and Men

Day 1: Dreams
-Look at collected images -  What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Watch Of Mice and Men Context, Salinas Valley, John Steinbeck (Short Biography), Controversy, Introduction - OMM Background Information
Product: Create a mindmap or a mural of the book's historical context and purpose. Must have these labels: Great Depression/Black Tuesday, John Steinbeck,  Migrant Workers, Title, Predicted Themes, Social Divides

Day 2: Solitude/Setting
Question:
Begin novel


Huck Finn

Day 1: Breaking the Mold/N Word
-Look at Pinterest -  What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Read Bloom intro, The River, Fishkin the N word, Dialect
-Watch Huckleberry Finn "The N Word", Mark Twain's Story of Huck Finn, Huck Finn-context & background
Must have these labels: River, Predicted Themes, Controversy, Mark Twain, Slavery, Dialect

Day 2:
Question:
Begin novel


Odyssey

Day 1: The Bard
-Look at Pinterest -  What do you think the book will be about, based on the pictures?
-Watch
Product: Create a mindmap or a mural of the book's historical context and purpose. Must have these labels:

Day 2:
Question:
Begin novel

Why do we read and write

Why do we read and write? John Green, bestselling teen fiction author, states that reading develops empathy for others' experiences. And the act of writing communicates those experiences and historical moments vividly. Therefore all activities in English need to facilitate these outcomes: remembering, connecting, deciphering meaning.

**students also need to be able to respond to literary criticism: no point in developing empathy if we don't fully know what we understand - reading others' interpretations and comparing to our own will help us know ourselves better and fully get the most out of our reading**

This is where to begin lesson plans and the first day of school - establish purpose and importance. So other subject at area teachers ought to discuss and align plans to:

1.) Why learn science? Teaches us to ask questions and detect patterns in life's organization. Understanding past research allows us to discover more mysteries. 

2.) Why learn math? Teaches us to 

3.) Why learn history?

4.) Why learn music? 

5.) Why learn art?

Sequences

TKAM Sequence:
Look at Pinterest 

Great Depression newspaper

Anticipation - are you a victim or witnessed one? Historical examples?

How would you describe our town? What history do you know of it?

Who are the outsiders of our community?

Scotsboro - how and why were they victims?
Harper Lee bio - why did she write it?
[Harold Bloom narrator - no qs, just prime]
What are values you have that you've been taught? 

What do you know about the South? Or what are your perceptions of it as an outsider? 

Theme of tradition vs. new

Would you want to live in Maycomb? 

Consequences to everyone of discrimination and exclusion (perhaps bc we are all outsiders at some point)"

Ch 1 - Say-Mean-Meaning and Narrator
Read Ch 2-3 and summarize
Write fr Miss Caroline's POV or about an adult you don't like or opinion about education/has a teacher ever not allowed you to be ahead?
See from the perspective of Jem, Atticus, Walter and Calpurnia. Speculate why they behave that way (social influence)
Do children have a greater sense of justice than adults? 

Great Gatsby/Death of a Salesman

Create a mural or a Mindmap of the 1920s.watch another inteoductory video

Pinterest

What is the American dream? Who has fulfilled it? Look at images.

Look at PowerPoint of introduction to the times and jigsaw 

Huck Finn
Pinterest 

Watch Mark Twain video

Anticipation - what kind of books should not be allowed in school?
Subquestion - reasons might be racism, bad writing, inaccurate
http://www.takepart.com/photos/10-most-commonly-banned-books
1840s readings/topics
Shirley Fisher - N-word and Twain (Key & Steele - now blacks themselves author the satire, 28 Reasons - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHXwY1_n_cY,
Das Negro - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1bLXk6UVts&index=39&list=PLlFEm2SbRZaX16zt3fwh6WgAnAD41tA_R,
Auction Block (after 30 sec)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB7MichlL1k&list=PLlFEm2SbRZaX16zt3fwh6WgAnAD41tA_R&index=49
You Can Do Anything - http://youtu.be/nlD9JYP8u5E?list=PLlFEm2SbRZaX16zt3fwh6WgAnAD41tA_R based on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezmsGnZPsn4 - does comedy make racism excusable?)
River reading - what are your associations with rivers? what kind of person likes river-rafting? (connect to identity)

River Journals
Ch 1 - What strikes you about the language of the book and how do you feel? Begin char. chart as you read, with focus on language. Answer multiple-choice comprehension questions as you read.

Of Mice and Men
Look at images

Anticipation - when have your plans gone awry?
What do you know about the Great Depression?

Looking for symbols of light and dark, mood, inferring

Point of tragedy?

Romeo and Juliet

Mindmap of Shakespeare and mural 

Odyssey

Pinterest

Deconstructing Unit Plans

***The Takeaway***
If I were to teach someone how to teach, I would frame the stages of a lesson as
1.) activate prior knowledge to increase investment and prime opinion-formation
2.) Have various activities that generate ideas for opinion formation and draw attention to pieces of evidence to support the answer (a bit analogous to the I Do and We Do stages of lessons)
3.) Explicitly ask for the students' opinion and creativity (still some We Do, You Do)

Help kids think about and remember what they read.

Figure out what's being communicated and what it feels to be someone else. 

---

From Ready to Use Activities for Teaching Romeo and Juliet

Pre-reading (REMEMBER, UNDERSTAND, activate prior knowledge to increase investment and prime opinions): Speculation Journals, Small Group Discussions that put you in the situation about to occur in the reading [Personal/Themes]

Vocabulary

Plot Summaries [Summarize] OR another way to check for comprehension (give them quiz questions as they read in class, verbal summaries)

Read-Alouds

Sentence Starters
1. If you were... what would you do?
2. How would you feel if...?
3. Imagine...
4. What happened when...?

During-Reading (APPLY, ANALYZE, scaffold opinion formation) Activity: Response journals- Respond emotionally, make associations with your personal experience, look at the language, record any questions or problems [Talking to Text]

Character Diary & Chart [Character]

Introducing the Play with Videotape/Draw [Visualize]

Vocabulary in Context

[Analyze: Facts, Structure, Narrator, Purpose, Theme, Symbols, Create]

Language lesson [Language]

Sentence Starters

Post Reading (EVALUATE, CREATE, state your opinion with evidence)
Comprehension Check (Quiz or discuss)

Critical Thinking Questions/Focus Questions/Big Idea (ex: Ask some version of the EQ

R&J: "Evaluate actions. How does society feel about the idea of people falling in love instantly? Why do you think people feel this way? When you react with strong emotions to a situation, how do others around respond to you?"

OMM: "Evaluate George, Lennie, and foreshadowing. What is indirectly suggested in Steinbeck's language?"

Great Gatsby: "What do we learn about Nick? What are the conflicts in the lives of the people he watches?"

TKAM: "What do we learn about Maycomb? What are its values?"

Huck: "What are the various voices you hear?"

Vocabulary Quiz

Sentence Starters
1. Evaluate
2. What do you think of..
3. Create
4. Compare to a current event/issue

Returning to the ol wheel

Today I... Found complete units of all the core texts I'm teaching. They were pretty darn good. I now understand:

1.) keep it as simple as you can the first year. Creativity can be a cost for energy, confidence, and ironically, finding yourself in the way you implement existing plans

2.) relatedly, don't reinvent that freaking wheel. I'm not more special than others before me... In fact those others before me wrote some amazing, engaging, personalized plans. I just have to concentrate on executing... Which is a feat sufficient and noble enough the first year! 

Thank you to Plenaries, Sharelesson, and Phil Beadle!

First Weeks (Expose them to the Structure)

Day One - [Transparency - being clear, open, and straightforward. Give an example of someone you think is transparent, according to this definition. Is this a quality you like? Why or why not?] Rules/Course Requirements/Quotes and Happiness Project/Syllabus
Curiosity, the engine of readers: students will note observations about me and about the classroom.
[Exit - How did I model transparency today? Is there such thing as too much transparency?]
HW: Book questionnaire

Day Two [Curiosity - how would you define curiosity? What makes people curious about something and not curious about other things?] -
Why take English class?/What would you like to do in English? (see First Day post)
What do you like to read?/How do you decide what to read?/What energizes you?

They will report out findings about curiosity. They will write questions they have. Then, they will interview each other, using questions they come up with. Takeaway: books are like real life and we need to be aware of how curious we are about them. Every student must answer: What are you good at? How do you decide what to read? What do you like to read (including websites)? What interests you/favorite subjects? [ask WHY after every question you ask]

[Exit - What did you learn as a result of the questions you asked today? What did you learn about curiosity?]

Day Three [Recall - What does it mean to recall something? Recall what we did in class yesterday. What helped you do it?] - Anticipation/Connection and Summarization practice: I will begin the year providing students with questions and background information to stimulate their curiosity about a book. Then I will ask them to summarize some short stories, perhaps Thank You Ma'am by Langston Hughes and a tougher one is A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury - collect their summaries; SSR Books. I will collect the summaries for assessment.
[Exit- What are strategies for plot recall of stories? How do your disposition/emotions play a part in recall?]
--

In the next week, we will have an introduction to critical reading. There will be two parts:

[Annotate - to add notes to, gloss, interpret, comment, mark up. Annotate this Facebook post. Then try to categorize what you're interested in. Ex: underlining an unfamiliar word]
1.) simply talk to the text. Make notes about what stands out to you (do a demo - Facebook feed, Huffington post, movie review)
[Exit - How is annotation a reflection of your interests? How is it influenced by background knowledge/schema?]

[Strategies - what is a strategy? What are strategies you know in areas besides English like - math, sports, science, chess, and nail painting?]
2.) I will ask analysis questions of the short stories that are reading strategies, which the students will name.  They will try to label which strategy best matched their natural interests.
[Exit ticket: what strategy did you use most naturally?  why? use it to reflect a little deeper on the reading.]

[Evaluate - did you like the stories we read yesterday? Why or why not?]
The next day, we will return to summarizing and focus on EVALUATING. Having assessed their skills, we will go over summarization tips, perhaps play a game.
[Exit ticket: what makes you like or dislike a story? What did you learn about your preferences?]

First Day of School [Transparency]

I'm probably gonna make up my own classroom rules. But I'll ask students to explain the rationale.  Or, I will ask students "What ensures a safe, smoothly running classroom? (what should students do? what should the teacher do?)" Go over materials they need, other logistics, blah blah blah.

After we share out the rationale, we'll discuss them. The fun part will be the second half of the day - asking students Why Learn English? [Students brainstorm] - Scaffolds: Have you ever read fiction and learned more about something, like it was a how-to book? For example, reading Hunger Games teaches you a little bit about survival skills. Reading All Quiet on the Western Front teaches you about soldier life. Reading The Da Vinci Code teaches you some detective skills and French monuments. List those books. And, do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction? Have you ever been emotionally invested in fiction? List those books and explain. What does the word empathy mean to you? What do you associate with Point of View? Write what you associate with it.

I'll also have a prepared answer:
1.) Reading to Gain World-Knowledge/Self-Knowledge
2.) Reading to Feel More --> Writing with Feeling

These lead to some ELA Truths:
1.) The meaning of books depends on YOU, the reader
2.) Make the books come to life by imagining the characters, the story, and the author are people you're meeting and interacting with. It's ok to ask yourself "how do I feel about this?" or "what does this say about my world?". Invest in book-worlds the way you invest in your real world.

Script:
So this sounds like the stereotypical English class touchy feely stuff. But this isn't fluff. What I'm telling you is that what you do in English - in any good class - will actually IMPACT your life [show picture of wind]. Like, it will make a difference in your lives. Ok, let me define what I mean and illustrate with examples.

1.) Reading to gain world-knowledge means that you literally just learn about what writers older and very observant decided to write books about: love, childhood, school, competition, war, justice, geography. Ok, World Knowledge is easier to recognize perhaps in other subject matters - Science, History, Math - which seem pretty factual. But... who thought of a time that what they read from a novel added to your knowledge of the world? Ok, so some of you might say, but novels aren't as reliable as a research paper - the Da Vinci Code perpetuated some lies. True, that's why people don't use novels as a major sources of truth. But more people are likely to read novels, especially children, than non-fiction. Why?? [Turn and Talk] It's because fiction is usually more imaginative, exciting, emotional. Which leads to self-knowledge.  Self-knowledge comes when you turn into yourself when you read and you start having feelings. Like who's been emotionally impacted by a book - not intellectually but emotions? For example, romances often have you rooting for a doomed couple or hero books have you HATING the evil guy. [so what do you learn about yourself when you have FEELINGS] You learn about yourself, your values, your fears, your maturity, your weaknesses even. Like in Divergent every time Tris made a fearless decision I knew I would not be that brave. [read a sample?]

The books we'll read also tell you about origins. These books are the "original" - love story = Romeo & Juliet; coming-of-age = To Kill a Mockingbird; American Dream = Of Mice and Men; Hero's Journey = Odyssey.

The books touch on the biggest philosophical questions that IMPACT your actual life - what is happiness? = Great Gatsby/Death of a Salesman; what is the right thing to do?/who am I? = Huck Finn/Crucible

2.) Ok reading to feel more. The key word here is Point of View. [Turn and share associations. Show Atticus quote. Give an example?] But... what I care about is not third person omniscient or first person limited but more what Atticus says:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

 Who can explain? Give an example? What about when you watch those reality shows and then they're in the "confession room" and they detail their feelings. You gain more insight into what it is like to be them. Other ways you can walk in someone's shoes is to learn more facts about their lives. In the Miracle Worker we know Helen Keller's teacher Anne Sullivan suffered blindness and went to a insane house. So knowing this about Ms. Sullivan helps us better understand why she understood Helen. Or even when you go on Facebook and you flip through someone's pictures and learn they changed schools 3x and have a big family. Here's another exercise to illustrate the point. Answer these questions, or answer the ones you feel comfortable answering:
1. Who lives in your house?
2. What do you eat for breakfast?
3. How do you get to school?
4. What time do you wake up on weekdays?
Now, write a paragraph about What did you do this morning? Include detail.

Ok, now imagine what this person's day may have been like:
Name: Lena
1. Who lives in your house? 6 brothers, 5 sisters, mom (passed away when 11), dad (away in war)
2. What do you eat for breakfast? rice and soy sauce
3. How do you get to school? bicycle
4. What time do you wake up on weekdays? 5 am
Now, write a paragraph about What did you do this morning? Include detail.

Wrap up:
1. Exit Ticket: What did you learn about rules?
What do you think about the reasons to learn English? Why didn't you get to say about Reading to learn more about world, self, and to be better able to see from different points of views.
2. What would you want to do in this class?
What do you do in your free time?
What do you do after school?
What is your favorite book?
Favorite movie?

Any other questions/concerns?

Also turn in your other answers. You'll just get participation points.

Unexpected productivity

I've been writing Essay, Discussion and Quiz questions for the core texts I will be teaching. It took me forever to do half of Romeo and Juliet, but that was when I was unfocused, still forming a clear plan of action as to how I would shape my units plans. Now that I had those discrete categories I breezed through the rest: finished 3.5 acts of R&J and 2.5 sections of Of Mice and Men with lots of questions. Of course I need to make full plans and there are 4 more core texts to go - including lengthier texts like Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. But at this rate, with all of July and half of August, I am in good shape to finish... Are there details I forgot to think about? I guess there is good ol' grammar - but I'm glad I won't start T1 (year one of teaching, analogous to Med schools' M1) in a panicked rush :)

I'll post some of my work soon. Multiple choice questions writing - because all on the factual recall level - is pretty effortless and even creative in the necessity for clever distractors!