Reflection

I believe this unit is learning-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, community-centered, and provides for elements of transfer.

Learner-centered: This unit actively involves the learner, and it is interesting to the learner. I have used a variety of activities such as: group work, art, public presentation, interview, computer use, and individual writing in an attempt to interest many types of learners. Students must actively participate as well as provide two self-assessments of their participation during the unit.

Knowlwdge-centered: This unit includes a problem which causes students to seek content knowledge in order to solve it. Ultimately, each student must write a poem about their personal work experience. In order to complete this problem, they must study and explore poetry about work. Students must also study and explore the work of others, and then reflect on their own work experience. The knowledge they gain through these experiences will help students to write a poem and better understand poetry.

Assessment-centered: This unit allows students to think metacognitively. Students provide a self-assessment in two of the three activities, allowing them to reflect on their performance. Also, at the end of the unit there is a time of reflection with the entire class. Students are given the opportunity to discuss what they have learned as well as to ask the questions they still have about poetry and work.

Community-centered: This unit tackles the real life problem of poetry. By investigating working class poets, students encounter a different type of poetry. This poetry's emphasis on real life and the obstacles that all people face is easy to relate to, and it provides the necessary framework for more in-depth studies of poetry. Additionally, the problem of how work influences our lives is investigated through interviewing, research, and reflection on the students' own lives.

Elements of transfer: This unit allows students to discuss and research a different genre of poetry. Instead of merely memorizing a formula to write poems, students learn about the meaning of poetry, and emerge equipped with the skills to write a basic poem. Students are encouraged to engage in this unit through group work, class discussions, computer research, interviewing, as well as through artistic projects. This vast array of activities also provides the students a great deal of motivation to participate in the variety of tasks. Finally, the two week time period gives a great deal of time to investigate and reflect upon poetry and what it means to be a poem.