Kerri Koch

CEE 588- Methods I

Professor Dunn

Unit Plan # 2

November 11, 2004

I. Long-term objectives

First and foremost, I want my students to love reading and writing. This may sound idealistic, but if students enjoy what they are doing they are more apt to do more of it and ultimately learn the "ins and outs" of the process of both reading and writing. They will become more functional in the world around them by acquiring a taste for reading and writing. English, as a subject, plays such a pivotal role in the way students learn about diversity and the world. Therefore, I hope to incorporate many different genres, current issues, what some would call “dead” issues, articles from journals and newspapers, movies, nonprint texts, and the canon to show my students a glimpse of the world they will soon be a part of. I want my students to be independent thinkers; I want them to have minds and thoughts that are their own. My class will be an open forum for discussion of issues in literature and the world. I will be a part of the class, not the head of the class. We are not only taking up everyone’s time because we have to, but also because the issues are important and will help on the road ahead of my students. I believe that my goals use PEP’s performance outcome to “integrate their (students) understanding of human development to design diverse learning experiences that promote intellectual, social, and personal development.” NCTE’s standard number twelve that “students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes” is the most important standard for my teaching philosophy. Students should decide what and how they learn best. It should not be about the system, parents, or the teacher; the classroom should be about them. I want my students to be able to understand language in reference to different rhetorical situations in writing, as well as learn and understand the different modes of interpretation in reference to print and nonprint texts.

II. Objectives for this unit plan

My objectives for this plan have a lot to do with the New York State Standards for English Language Arts in that “students will listen, speak, read, and write” to understand the materials and will socially interact with both classmates and me. Gertrude Stein is a fiction/non fiction writer that uses interesting techniques in her writing to make her language artistic. I will use this to allow students will use many modes of interpretation to express themselves and have lessons on artistic creation in this unit. NCTE standard number six states that “students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions, media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.” There is a sense, among the communities of English teachers, parents, and school administrators, that visual learning is not something students need to know. I would disagree because not all students learn the same. Some students may find activities such as portrait drawing a way into the text that they could not obtain with only words, while others may be uncomfortable with it (just as I was) thus broadening their learning horizons. There is not one “right” answer to any question about literature and the arts, and this unit plan is to teach students just that.

III. Time unit

This plan addresses two consecutive weeks of forty minute classes.

IV. Context

This is for a high school in Upstate New York. At this school twelfth grade English is made up of half year elective classes chosen by the students. The class is Non-Fiction/Fiction Writing and Literature. The twelve students in the class are middle class, white, and native English speakers. The school is well funded, small, and very absorbed in technological advances brought about by a new set of Administrators recently. The classroom is cluttered with literary and non-literary posters, bookshelves, and books, and there is a rug on the floor. It looks more like an inviting home library full of students who all know one another because of the size of the school. Everyone in the room wants to be there, which makes a difference to a teacher trying to actually teach.

V. Materials, Activities, Methods

The materials I will need for this unit are as follows: a copy of Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, an overhead of an example of the writing assignment (4), an overhead of the Picasso painting of Stein (3), colored pencils and blank paper, a worksheet of discussion questions on the novel (1), and a worksheet of discussion questions for Picasso’s painting (2).

v For homework during the previous week, students will have read Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

Week One, Day One:

First I will start by asking everyone what they thought of the book (5 minutes)
Then I will give a quick 5 minute lecture on the life of Stein and Alice and explain why we read the novel

Then I will divide the class into four groups of three and hand out the discussion worksheet; students will have 20 minutes to work on these sheets collectively
The last ten minutes of class will be spent talking as a large group about what the small groups came up with in conversation
Lastly, I will remind them to bring their text back to class tomorrow because we will be using them again

Week One, Day Two:

With a sense that everyone is comfortable with the text I will explain what the assignment for today’s class is (if I feel like there needs to be more conversation I will modify today’s class to accommodate for more conversation time about the novel)
I will give the students a blank piece of paper and provide colored pencils for everyone and explain that they will be drawing a portrait of the person the text is about
I will explain that they will not be graded on artistic capabilities and explain the importance of visual literacy, namely that there is not one mode of interpretation and/or learning (10 minutes)
The rest of the period (30 minutes) the students will work alone on their portrait
I am sure there will be many questions about the assignment, so I will walk around the room answering the various questions and asking what they think of the assignment
They will be allowed to be completely creative with this project, drawing anything they want in the background of the portrait as long as it remains a portrait
For homework they will be asked to write a 1-2 paragraph explanation of their drawing and will have to present the drawing to the class tomorrow with an oral description

Week One, Day Three:

I will start today’s class by showing my portrait drawing; I will orally explain what I drew and why I made the choices I made in my drawing
For the rest of the period we will be hearing the oral descriptions of the students’ drawings
Each student will only have 2-3 minutes to talk about their drawings
Students will hand in both the drawing and the written description
If we have time left over we will discuss what the students thought about other students drawings and the assignment as a whole
I will again remind them to bring their texts to class tomorrow for another project

Week One, Day Four:

First I will put an overhead of Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude Stein up
I will explain that we are doing the exact opposite of what we did with the last assignment; we will look at the portrait together and will discuss it for about 5 minutes (who it’s by, why he drew it, his explanation of the painting)
Then we will break off into the same three person groups from the novel discussions
I will hand out a discussion worksheet of questions about the painting
The groups will work on this sheet collectively for about 20 minutes
Then we will reconvene to a larger discussion of what the groups talked about
I will stress again the reason we are doing these activities: the importance of learning to be visual and textual interpreters (Gertrude Stein as a writer was very connected to artists in Paris, as students will know from the novel)
I will conclude the class by talking about what we are doing in tomorrow’s class: we will be learning the techniques of writing an autobiography
I will again remind them to bring their texts to class tomorrow

Week One, Day Five:

I will lecture for about 30 minutes of the class about what an autobiography is and how one is written
I will outline the differences between autobiographies and biographies and why this novel is deemed an autobiography although it is really a biography about Toklas and an autobiography of Stein
For the last 10 minutes of class I will discuss what the homework for Monday is: students will be presenting again in front of the class but this time they will write a 1-2 paragraph biography about Gertrude Stein using only Picasso’s portrait as their outside source into her life; they will be informed that the grade will be a combination of the presentation and of the paragraphs that will be handed in after the presentation

Week Two, Day One:

I will start by reading my two paragraphs about the portrait
For the rest of the period the students will have 3-4 minutes to read their paragraphs to the rest of the class
To end the class I will discuss what we are doing in tomorrow’s class; students will write a three to five page, double spaced paper mimicking the language and style of Stein’s novel. They will choose someone they are close to and know a lot about and pretend (just as Stein did) that they are writing the autobiography of that person. They will really be talking about themselves. I will have an example of a paper for them tomorrow

Week Two, Day Two:

To start the class I will ask if anyone has general questions about the assignment
Next I will put the overhead up and ask for volunteers to read it to the class (if they will not participate I will read it to them) (15-20 minutes)
I will explain that they will be handing in rough drafts and revised (final) drafts of this paper
Students will work on their rough drafts for the rest of class
For homework students will finish their rough drafts

Week Two, Day Three:

Today students give pair off into groups of two; they will be able to chose their partners
I will ask them to read their partners paper and write a response
The response will use the guidelines I write on the board (I really like how you…, I want to hear more about…, the way you did…was very effective, pick one sentence that you feel is the most Stein-like and discuss why that is)
I will be walking around the room to answer questions and listen to the discussions
For homework they will make revisions and have a revised copy of the paper for tomorrow’s class

Week Two, Day Four:

Today students will choose a new partner and read the paper solely for spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes
Students will be asked to read the paper backwards (from the last page to the first page, starting at the last sentence) (20 minutes)
After they have completed this task they will be asked to take the most common problem from the paper and write it on the board (5 minutes)
After they write the problem on the board, they will go to the handbooks in the back of the room and find out “the rules” about the problem
For the last 5 minutes we will discuss the most common problems and the rules of those problems
My homework will be to make a copy of this list including the rules and hand it to the students tomorrow
The students will be revising and proofreading their papers one more time for homework and handing in the final copy tomorrow

Week Two, Day Five:

Students will hand in their final drafts of the essay
We will form a circle and talk for a good portion of the class about the novel and if opinions have changed based on all the activities of the past two weeks (25 minutes)
I will start by saying what has changed my thoughts of the novel in reference to the discussions, presentations, portraits, and papers using the students performance to assess my understanding of what they got from these numerous activities
I will reiterate the emphasis of language (as used by Stein) and the ways in which there is cognitive differences by using visual literacy as opposed to only the text (5 minutes)
For the last ten minutes I will pass out the Dear Abby column on “Good Grammar” and read it to the students (this is correlated to the grammar rules assignment they did during the revision process). I will begin to discuss why some rules are not necessarily rules but things that people in society deem rules and get quite angry with their misusage; this discussion will be a introduction to next weeks lesson plan of rhetorical situations in writing

VI. Assessment or evaluation

I will know that my students accomplished the objectives in part two of this plan by both assessing their writing assignments, drawings, and presentations. The visual representation will not be judged by the artwork but by the concept behind the drawing. Visual learners use metaphors, and they often come to conclusions based on these metaphors about the text. They will make short presentations to the class verbally explaining the drawing, because for those who cannot make a metaphor visually, speaking may achieve a similar effect. The presentation about Picasso’s portrait will be assessed by both how the student was able to dive into the portrait and explain it in words and the paragraphs will be graded with a check system (they will get a check if they do the assignment). The paper will be judged by whether or not the student is able to mimic Stein's language and writing techniques and effectively write about themselves instead of the person the autobiography is meant to be about. I will also be observing the small group discussions in reference to the novel and the portrait. If the discussion is lively and engaging, I will be able to assess their comfort level with the text.

VII. Reflection

N/A: One day I might have something to say about this. Until I am a teacher this plan will go unused. I would hope that my reflection would be positive, but also point out ways to improve and/or change the plan for future use with students.

VIII. Teacher Candidate Proficiencies

I believe this plan would show that I am knowledgeable in the discipline and pedagogy by engaging students in visual, oral, and written learning. I am integrating an understanding of human development to promote intellectual, social, and personal development by using small group work and having them give small presentations to the class. I am using multiple instructional strategies creatively by using both small and large group discussions, by assigning visual representations of the text, giving small presentations about their drawing, and writing creative papers. I understand group dynamics and know that it is a very effective way to engage the normally reluctant students in conversation. As well, I understand and apply multiple modes of assessment to evaluate students and improve instruction by having students read, discuss, write, draw, and present projects during this unit.