The big idea for this unit is “Relationships and Identity” or “Relationships and Choices”. It is based on the fantastic Fourth R curriculum that is a joint project by TVDSB, CAMH Centre for Prevention Science, and The Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (UWO). They have created curriculum for a number of different courses including a book club for ENG4C that explores issues such as eating disorders, mental health, sexual identity, bullying, violence, peer pressure, and substance abuse. I have supplemented the book club lessons with lessons on reading strategies and media connections. The culminating task is a reading portfolio where students select evidence from the unit to demonstrate their mastery of (I hope!) a variety of reading strategies, speaking and listening strategies, understanding of content, ability to make connections, etc. They will explain their choices in an informal report that will serve as practice for the report the write in the next unit.
In the next unit, students will be completing a research report connected to one of the themes in their novels.
The overall focus for this unit will be the Reading and Literature Studies strand of the Ontario ENG4C curriculum.
Again I invite your questions, comments and suggestions!
One more thing: When looking at this on the blog, you can choose toggle full screen by clicking on the square in the right hand corner of the document below. It will make it much easier to read.
This looks awesome – I really can’t see anything wrong with it – what sorts of evidence will kids be putting into the portfolio report? Will these products have a media connection at all? (script of a scene of novel? trailer storyboard? All kinds of potential for differentiation here. It might take quite a while to teach the 8 key concepts – most of the media assessment is blogging – what will you have them do? Great stuff.
Thanks for the ideas, Wendy! I hadn’t really thought of focusing on the media text creation part in this unit because I was going to do it later, but the more opportunities they get, the better. I think you may be right about the 8 key concepts. I have a feeling that when I actually create the lesson plans, I’ll discover all kinds of tweaking that I’ll have to do. I can’t remember off hand what specific evidence I wanted included in the portfolio but I think there will be room for more. The third unit is the research report and it will be much heavier. Thanks again! You’re the best!
Good job with this Barker. You rock.