Curriculum Map UNIT OF STUDY: RESPECT YOURSELF Students will analyze texts and statistics that focus on topics related to having respect for oneself. Students will choose a topic in order to conduct a research project that will include an informative pamphlet, argumentative letter and an analysis of statistics. Students will be able to determine author s purpose, supportive details and how evidence adds to an author s argument in order to attain information about the issues they are struggling with in their lives. This unit is for 6th grade math and reading students. This will take 2 3 weeks. If students are also reading the suggested novel or short stories, unit could last up to 8 weeks. Essential Learnings (Alignment to Rigor and Larger Understandings) Essential Understandings: Good citizens reflect on and learn from their choices. Good citizens research to find solutions to their problems. Good communicators are able to present information in a creative, written, or oral format. Working in groups is a critical component to college and career readiness. Good readers are critical of text and closely read for understanding before jumping to conclusions. Good readers read to learn. Essential Questions: How do my decisions now affect my future? What does it mean to respect myself? What does it mean to respect others? What resources are available to help me make positive choices or help me when I make a mistake? Standards addressed in this unit of study (Skills, Standards, Instructional Shifts)
6th Grade Reading Students will discuss text features and how they affect the comprehension and organization of information texts. Students will conduct short research projects, citing textual evidence to support their analysis of a topic. While researching, students will determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text. Students will analyze models of argumentative and informative writing in order to determine what techniques they should use in their own writing. Students will go through each step of the writing process with teacher modeling each step. Students will write collaboratively to increase comprehension and analysis of texts. Students will peer edit each others papers to ensure each student has incorporated the required information and organization. Math: The students will report the number of observations by conducting a survey and display results using an appropriate graphical representation. The students will summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context by giving quantitative measures of center (mean, median) and variability (interquartile range) as well as describing overall patterns and any striking deviations from an overall pattern. Focus on Learning: What do you want students to learn as a result of this unit? At the end of this unit of study, students will KNOW... 6th Grade Reading: Students will know how to research and build their knowledge around a topic that deals with issues that are relevant to them. Students will know how to present this information to others so that other students can learn how to take care o themselves when they are struggling with things such as eating disorders, low self esteem and issues with bullying. Students will know how to write collaboratively with others to increase comprehension and analysis. Math: Students will learn how to read, interpret, and create a variety of graphical representations of data. Students will learn how to find measures of central tendency and variability. At the end of this unit of study, students will be able to... 6th Grade Reading: Students will be able to demonstrate their learning of how to write an argumentative essay using an authen audience and purpose. Students will be able to complete small research projects based on answering a question. Students will also be able to write informatively about a topic related to having self respect. Students will be able to write collaboratively to complete a pamphlet that includes information learned in both reading and math.
Math: Students will understand how to create a graphical representations of data, which will include bar graphs, circle graphs, stem and leaf plots, and box and whisker plots. Students will be able to find the mean, median, mode, and range of sets of data. Students will be able to analyze data and understand how an outlier can affect the variability of data. Resources utilized using Text Complexity Lens: (Aligning Content and Resources) Anchor Text and Resources: Potential Anchor Literary Texts could include: Novels: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor; The Uglies by Scott Westerfield Both novels deal with making better choices and being proud of who you are. Short Stories: Eleven by Sandra Cisneros This short story tells the story of a little girl that did not know how to speak up for herself. Students will discuss how you learn to speak up for yourself while reading this story. All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury This short story also discusses learning to speak up for yourself and others. This story is about bullying and can tie into the theme of treating others how you want to be treated and not standing by while you know someone is being mistreated. Supporting Texts and Resources along with Text Complexity Summary: The below texts are considered appropriate content and language wise for readers between a 6th and 8th grade level with a mid high language aspect. Readers may struggle with syntax and vocabulary. The content is more advanced and coupled with other nonfiction research, students may need some additional support analyzing the topics. The purpose is middle low. Students will be able to assess the author s purpose for writing relatively easily. The texts are medium high based on structure due to the use of graphics that may complicate the information in the text. Math teachers will scaffold how to read graphs. Knowledge demands ar medium low. Students will need some content knowledge of how to read argumentative writing to search for reasons, evidence and facts versus opinions. They will also require knowledge of graphs and other text features of informational texts. All articles ca be found in the Issues book by Scholastic.
The Ugly Effects of Beauty by Marcos Cano A Teen Anorexic Fights Back by Ali Tate The Image Artist by Pedro Gutierrez The below texts are at the instructional level. Middle school students may be intimidated by the length of the article, however the syntax and vocabulary is very contemporary and there is a lot of kid friendly language. The articles use statistics and source citations that may cause comprehension complications for some of the students. The topics and issues are relatable to students everyday life, so there is not much need for background knowledge. The engagement in the text might be enhanced by video, images, and/or props. Sports Drink Role Often Overplayed Chris Woolston, Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2012 (Kelly Gallagher Article of the Wee http://kellygallagher.org/resources/articles.html) Just How Many Facebook Friends Do You Need? Robin Marantz Henig, Samantha Henig, Newsweek October 15, 2012. (Kelly Gallagher Article of the Week http://kellygallagher.org/resources/articles.html) www.mathisfun.com Data Section. Students will be guided to read the vast amount of information on this website by completing an information scavenger hunt. Instructional Strategies utilized during this unit of study (Fill the Gaps) Strategies for instruction you will utilize consistently: Literature Circles for Novels and Short Stories: Students will be a part of a reading circles where they are assigned a specific job. Students will complete their jobs and meet with their groups to discuss the reading for the day. The reading for literature circles comes from the suggested novels or short stories Discussion Director Develops open ended questions for the group to discuss. At least 3 questions should relate back to the
themes of the unit, respecting yourself. Inference Maker Uses text and schema to make inferences Word Wizard Chooses words to teach to group from text Summarizer Writes summary of text read for the day to share with their group The below strategies will be used with the nonfiction articles. Teacher will use the Scholastic articles to model the below strategies while students follow along. Then students will work with a partner to complete the higher level articles using the below strategies. Annotating the Text Strategies: Multiple read throughs for comprehension, then reflection. DEEP Readers! D Discoveries ("This explains why...") Disagreements ("I disagree because...") E Extensions ("This also applies to...") E Exceptions ("This is not true for...") P Personal Connections ("Based on my own experiences...")! "I find this interesting because... or I agree..."? "I wonder if..." While reading students will: 1. Summarize in small sections. 2.? Ask questions. 3. Circle words and find synonyms or definitions. 4.! Underline interesting facts and tell why you found them interesting. Text Based Student led Discussion: The purpose of the student led discussion is to get students to discuss the text and make connections to their own knowledge an experiences. The teach crafts thought provoking and specific questions targeting varying levels of Bloom s to guide the students
discussion. At first, the teacher might need to step in to model how to keep the conversation moving forward and focused on the text, but the teacher should allow wait time to give students the opportunity to engage others in the conversation. Norms 1. Read the text carefully. Your opinions are important, but these opinions are your thoughts about the selected text. 2. Listen to what others say and don t interrupt. A discussion cannot occur if you don t listen carefully to what other people say. 3. Speak clearly. For others to respond to your opinions, everyone must be able to hear and understand you. 4. Give others your respect. A philosophical discussion is a cooperative exchange of ideas and not an argument or a debate. You may become excited and wish to share your ideas, but don t talk privately to your neighbor. You will talk publicly for the who class. Violating the Norms Inner Circle: Warning Move to outer circle. Safe Seat out of both circles Outer Circle: Warning Move seats within outer circle Safe seat out of both circles ***Remember if you are not in the circles then you cannot participate in the conversation, which affects your points and your grade.*** Protocol: Teacher created guided questions are posted or given to the students. Inner Circle Hot Seat: 8 students are assigned to an inner circle to hold a discussion. There is one empty seat to function as a ho seat. The rest of the students sit a circle around the inner circle. If students in the outer circle have a contribution to the inner circle s discussion, they move to the hot seat. Listening and Speaking Accountability: Talking chips, thinking cups with comment strips, 3 stars and a wish, other guided notes. Dialetical Journal: Students will choose a passage to focus their daily journal entry on after reading their excerpt from the literar
text. Teacher can determine a set of questions students must address in their journals. Teachers can also use this for the fiction texts as well. Collaborative Writing: Students will individually complete graphic organizers while reading. Then, students will work together using their graphic organizers to write a summary for an article. Students will post reflections using their annotations of the articles on their blogs and respond to three other students reflections Analyzing models of argumentative writing: Students will analyze student, teacher and professional models of argumentative writing in order to discuss and utilize in their own writing the techniques of the writers. Teacher will model how to analyze a mode using a document camera and the Scholastic articles. Using graphic organizers and paragraph structures. The completion and use of these tools will need to be modeled. Examples of graphic organizer concepts: author s purpose, developing thesis statements, making inferences, fact v. opinion, mai idea and supporting details, crafting an argument. Reflective Quick Writes based on viewing videos (public service announcements, commercials http://djacademe.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/megapost stay in school public service announcements psas 1980s 2010s/, print advertisements, songs, quotations.) Math: Students will utilize technology to conduct surveys (poll anywhere) and create graphical representations on Excel. These surveys and graphs will be included in the information pamphlet creating for reading. Students will learn about data analysis by reading text from www.mathisfun.com by completing a website scavenger hunt. Students will analyze measures of central tendency and variability by completing a variety of performance assessments an utilize argumentative writing strategies. If applicable students will analyze their graphs for their reading project for measures of central tendency and variability. Assessment (Monitor Progress/Check for Understanding)
How will you know if students know and can do the above? How will you know if students are progressing towards the goal? What are the performance tasks that will be the summative and formative assessments? Possible issues: depression, eating disorders, healthy eating, staying in school, cyberbullying Writing Assessment Students will choose an issue to write an argumentative essay in the form of a letter. Instructions: Choose one of the above issues. You are going to complete research that will allow you to write a letter that includ the below information. You are writing to someone that has this issue in order to convince them to seek help. State your Claim about this issue 3 Transition Words 3 Reasons why you believe what you believe Where do you go to get help with this issue? 3 Facts about this issue Group Project Assessment (Collaborative Writing) Students will create information to include in an information pamphlet they will write jointly with their group. Instructions: Each student will choose an issue. They will research to find information about their topic to put together their porti of the group pamphlet. Students must include visuals, facts and information on where to seek help if you are struggling with this issue. Math Assessment: Students will be graded on their completion of the www.mathisfun.com scavenger hunt. The survey and graphical representation created for students reading project will be assessed and should be included in t information pamphlet by utilizing technology. Students will be graded on a variety of performance assessments that will analyze statistics, graphs, and measures of central tendency. A rubric will be provided for the performance assessment. If applicable students will find measures of central tendency and analyze variability for their project.
Differentiation for students Students above grade level: 6th Grade Reading: Students will complete close readings of multiple sources of information for their topic. They will work collaboratively to turn their pamphlet into a video service announcement. The last two articles in the Texts sections may be use for advanced students instead of the whole class. Students at grade level: 6th Grade Reading: Students will have a set amount of sources to reference and work with a peer editor to ensure that they have included all necessary information. ELL students: 6th Grade Reading: Students will be able to discuss their topics and the assignment in small groups or with the teacher or ESL a in order to ensure understanding and completion of assessments. Sped Students: 6th Grade Reading: Students will have graphic organizers to outline each assignment into smaller segments. Students will have peer, para and teacher support through conferencing. Math: Students above grade level will be assigned more difficult performance tasks, such as creating a stem and leaf plot or a box and whisker plot. Students at grade level will be able to choose the graphical representation that they feel best fits their project. ELL and Sped students will have para support and extra time to complete their project. Response to Assessment (Differentiation) How will you provide opportunities for timely feedback for students who get it? For students who don t get it? Math: Students who are able to complete the performance task easily will have a choice of doing a more difficult task or be a pe tutor for students who are struggling. Students who don t get it will get assigned a peer tutor to help them complete the project.
6th Grade Reading: Students will conference multiple times a week with the teacher, para or peer editors. Conferences will consist mostly of one on one feedback. Students that demonstrate an advanced understanding of the project will have additional layers of complexity added with more difficult literature and the creation of a video based on their assessments. Students struggling will be able to continue to practice skills with an additional assignment using different, less complex texts. Teacher will choose websites for students that are struggling where they can obtain information for their topic. Teacher can also print off articles for students to use as their research to decrease the level of researching from online resources to print resources. Endurance of Learning (Synthesis) How will these skills transcend your classrooms and be able to be able to prepare students to be College and Career Ready? Math: Students will need to be able to analyze statistics to make life decisions. By studying a variety of graphical representation and measures of central tendency and variability issues, students are preparing to be analytical thinkers and problem solvers. 6th Grade Reading: Students will be college and career ready by practicing the skills of collaboration, researching and establishing skills in writing and peer editing. Students will be able to analyze an argumentative text for purpose. They will be abl to use evidence to support their analysis of the text.