Unit Plan Template

Note: This is a unit plan that my Collaborative Team started to create about two years ago. We never finished it; therefore, I wanted to make this unit plan something that I would use, so I finished the plan on my own. This was supposed to be an IB/MYP plan, and I have changed some of it to suit my needs. The Holocaust Unit is one of the most important units in 8th grade.

Robinson Middle School -  Unit planner

Unit title	Non-Fiction with focus on Holocaust literature
Teacher(s)	Mosteller
Subject and grade level	English/8th
Time frame and duration	Two Weeks

Stage 1: Integrate important concept, area of focus and unit question

Area of focus Which area of interaction will be our focus? Why have we chosen this?		Important concept(s) What are the big ideas? What do we want our students to retain for years into the future?
Human Ingenuity: Students will reflect upon the impact of people's’ choices and their impact  on other people’s lives.		Humans influence upon others, leads to numerous consequences, whether positive or negative.

Unit question

How are we impacted by the changes around us?

Assessment What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question? What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show what they have understood?

Options include: Students will choose amongst a variety of literature to enhance their knowledge of World War II to create a newspaper article which reflects the human condition of that time. Students will utilize technology to research the plight of German citizens and create a poem from that person’s perspective. Students will visit the Holocaust Museum or visit www.pbs.org/art21 to view various art work of the time period and create a protest poster or issue related art along with a written reflection connecting their finished product to how this impacts their world today.(what issues from the holocaust are we still dealing with today) Students will need to provide several examples of changes during the Holocaust and explain how these changes impacted lives.

Which specific  objectives will be addressed during this unit?

Criteria A: Knowing and Understanding Students should be able to: • use humanities terminology in context • demonstrate knowledge and understanding of subject-specific content and concepts, appropriate to the age level, using descriptions, explanations and examples.

Which assessment criteria will be used?

Level of Achieve-ment Level Descriptor 0 The student does not reach a standard described by any of the descriptors below. 1-2 The student: • makes a limited attempt to use some relevant vocabulary (vocabulary from the unit). Vocabulary used may not be used in the right way. More relevant vocabulary should appear in the written response. • demonstrates basic knowledge and understanding of the impacts of industrialization through some descriptions and/or examples. Descriptions/examples may not be fully explained and/or may be unclear. More descriptions or examples may be needed. 3-4 The student: • uses some vocabulary (from the unit) appropriately. Additional relevant vocabulary may ne needed. • demonstrates knowledge and understanding of the impacts of industrialization through simple descriptions, explanations and examples. Descriptions/examples are clear but need more details. More descriptions and examples may be needed to fully explain how changes affected Americans during Industrialization. 5-6 The student: • uses relevant vocabulary (from the unit) accurately. • demonstrates good knowledge and understanding of the impacts of industrialization through descriptions, explanations and examples. Descriptions, explanations, and examples are clear and show how changes affected Americans during Industrialization. 7-8 The student: • uses a range of vocabulary (from the unit) accurately and appropriately • demonstrates detailed knowledge and understanding of the impacts of industrialization through thorough descriptions, explanations and examples. Several descriptions, explanations, and examples show very clearly how changes affected Americans during Industrialization. Criteria A: Knowing and Understanding

Stage 2: Backward planning: from the assessment to the learning activities through inquiry

Content What knowledge and/or skills (from the course overview) are going to be used to enable the student to respond to the unit question? What (if any) state or local standards/skills are to be addressed? How can they be unpacked to develop the significant concept(s) for stage 1?
POS., VA.7.1.2 Research through various holocaust topics using the list of links that will be provided to the students. The students will read a variety of primary and secondary sources to aid in deepening their knowledge of the time period. Students will evaluate motives of various leaders and the consequences on the general public through their assessment choice.
Approaches to learning How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?
Transfer – Students will connect the generalizations of the significant concept to previous learning and to experiences today. Thinking – Students will generate ideas. Information Literacy – Students will select and organize information in a Google doc. Communication – Students will use reading strategies and inform others. Collaboration – Students will work with shoulder partners and in small groups.
Learning experiences How will students know what is expected of them? Will they see examples, rubrics, templates? How will students acquire the knowledge and practise the skills required? How will they practise applying these? Do the students have enough prior knowledge? How will we know?	Teaching strategies How will we use formative assessment to give students feedback during the unit? What different teaching methodologies will we employ? How are we differentiating teaching and learning for all? How have we made provision for those learning in a language other than their mother tongue? How have we considered those with special educational needs?
Day One – Link: Students re-read the Learner Profile Attributes and think about the attributes they most readily display. Engage and Explain: Teacher defines the word “holocaust” and students talk with a shoulder partner to create a definition in their own words. Students share their own definitions with the class. Active Learning: As students watch the video, they need to choose two learner profile attributes that they see evidence of.. They must justify their choices with examples of the person’s actions/words/etc. This will be handed in as an exit ticket . Reflection: Share observations and attribute choices with the class. Take time to complete the exit ticket. Now and Then: Consider the significant concept and how there was evidence of the generalizations in the video. Day Two –Link: Jot down one concept  that negatively impacted people due to the holocaust . Explain why. Share with a partner. Engage and Explain: Students take notes from a PPT/teacher led dialogue and research about the holocaust in a three-column chart.   Active Learning: Students brainstorm with a partner impacts of each innovation. Impacts may be positive or negative. Student pair join another pair to share what they’ve brainstormed. Students add new ideas to their charts. Student groups share out ideas with the class. Students choose one of the and create an advertisement. Student pairs brainstorm a list of modern innovations that have impacted Americans and decide if the impacts are positive, negative, or both. Reflection: Students silently reflect in writing on impacts of the holocaust during WWII  and today. Now and Then: Students will preview learning coming up in the next class and how it connects to the significant concept and unit question. Students respond as a class to projected eCART multiple choice practice questions. Now and Then: Students think about a problem (ie prejudice) from WWII that is still prevalent in the 21st century. features the men share, which are different, and how they used their wealth for good causes. Engage and Explain/Active Learning: Students complete a Google dot and respond to a question and what another. Student groups complete a Frayer model for the term Holocaust. Student groups complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast holocaust in Europe vs US Reflection: Students talk with a shoulder partner about three changes that affected the lives of Jewish vs non-jewish people. Now and Then: Students complete a study guide. Day Five – Assessment of Learning Students complete the assessment through their choice of project.	Day One – Link: Help students to make connections to themselves. Engage and Explain: Help students to understand new/important vocabulary by pre-teaching. Provide a definition and have students create their own definitions – steps one and two in Marzano/Pickering 6 steps to vocabulary acquisition. Active Learning: Use a during viewing strategy to have students engage with the video and reflect on the attributes Collect an exit ticket to check understanding (formative assessment). Now and Then: Ask students to connect to the significant concept. Remind them that we will continue to connect to the generalizations within the concept of change throughout the unit. Day Two –Link: Students reflect to the last unit and connect to change and the impact on people. Stand up, hand up, and pair up to create a structured way for them to share their reflections. Engage and Explain: Students use the technique: Board =Paper to create a three-column chart in their notebooks to record new learning. Active Learning: Students brainstorm new ideas. Student pairs join with another pair to structure sharing ideas. Students connect with the significant concept as they consider if the impacts of the changes/innovations are positive or negative. Students use a rubric to guide their work in creating an advertisement for one of the human conditions or abuses they see. They also reflect on their choice by writing a paragraph about how this condition had more impact on the world  than the others they learned about. (formative assessment) Students make connections between past and present by examining wars/atrocities in the world today and evaluating if their impacts are positive or negative. Reflection: Use the technique Everybody Writes to have students reflect on their learning in writing. (formative assessment) Now and Then: Preview content to link the next session’s learning to the significant concept and the unit question. Reflection: Students consider others’ perspectives and write for purpose by completing a RAFT activity. (formative assessment) Students answer multiple choice questions and teacher uses the technique Cold Call to have individual students explain their reasoning. Now and Then: Students are asked to compare dissimilar things to make connections in learning. Day Four – Captains of Industry: Link: The students use a during reading strategy to connect with what they are reading and learn more about the Captains of Industry. Students use a class dialogue as an after reading strategy. Engage and Explain/Active Learning: Students use technology to gather information and defend a position using evidence found in online reference sources. (formative assessment) Students use a research-based vocabulary model (the Frayer model) to gain deeper knowledge about a topic. Student groups compare and contrast new learning to previous learning uses a Venn diagram. Reflection: Students process their learning with a partner and then with the class. Now and Then: Students contain their thinking in a study guide. Day Five – Assessment of Learning Students demonstrate their learning in a variety of formats. They complete through a project presenting orally which is assessed with the rubric.
Resources What resources are available to us? How will our classroom environment, local environment and/or the community be used to facilitate students’ experiences during the unit?
Google docs Textbooks Graphic organizers Media center Holocaust survivor speaker (Nessie Godin) Select one of the following Suggested Links, topics, questions, or discuss another option with me. TIMELINE - The Ghettos (1939-1941) URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm Holocaust Timeline: The Camps URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/camps.htm PEOPLE - Victims URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/victims.htm TIMELINE - The Rise of the Nazi Party (1918-1939) URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/time line/nazirise.htm Holocaust Time line: The Nazification of Germany URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/time line/nazifica.htm PEOPLE - Perpetrators URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/perps.htm Discriminatory Decrees Against the Jews URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/DocDec.htm Chronology of the Holocaust: 1930-1945 URL: http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holokron.html TIMELINE - The Ghettos (1939-1941) URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm Holocaust Timeline: The Camps URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/camps.htm PEOPLE - Victims URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/victims.htm Kristallnacht URL http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/knacht.html Destruction of Synagogues on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, November 9, l938 http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/KMap.htm The Holocaust: A Glossary of Terms URL http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/glossary.html Jewish Losses in the Holocaust URL http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/jewvicts.html PEOPLE/Survivors URL: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/survivor.htm , http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/ Excerpts from the testimony of Rabbi Baruch G. URL http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies/excerpts/baruchg.html MEMORIES OF MY CHILDHOOD IN THE HOLOCAUST by Judith Jagermann URL http://remember.org/witness/jagermann.html Kurt Lenkway URL http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/lenkway.htm Other Helpful Links:  http://www.h-net.org/~holoweb/links, http://www.yadvashem.org, http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/tp/holocaust.htm, http://www.ushmm.org Other Possible Topics:  Creation of the State of Israel, Specific Camps (Mauthausen, Terezin, Theresienstadt, Dachau, Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II/Birkenau, Buchenwald), Museums, Consequences of the Holocaust, Genocides (Armenian, Serbia, Rwanda, etc), Eugenics, Joseph Goebbles, Adolph Hitler, Adolf Eichmann, Dr. Joseph Mengele, Rudolf Hess,  Heinrich Himmler, Oscar Schindler, the Role of the Catholic Church in complicity or resistance to the Nazis,    I included this as there will be some students (not many), who need the advanced curriculum as they  showed through pretest assessment that they have the knowledge necessary in this unit and need something additional to challenge them (curriculum compacting).

Ongoing reflections and evaluation

In keeping an ongoing record, consider the following questions. There are further stimulus questions at the end of the “Planning for teaching and learning” section of MYP: From principles into practice. Students and teachers What did we find compelling? Were our disciplinary knowledge/skills challenged in any way? What inquiries arose during the learning? What, if any, extension activities arose? How did we reflect—both on the unit and on our own learning? Which attributes of the learner profile were encouraged through this unit? What opportunities were there for student-initiated action? Possible connections How successful was the collaboration with other teachers within my subject group and from other subject groups? What interdisciplinary understandings were or could be forged through collaboration with other subjects? Assessment Were students able to demonstrate their learning? How did the assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate the learning objectives identified for this unit? How did I make sure students were invited to achieve at all levels of the criteria descriptors? Are we prepared for the next stage? Data collection How did we decide on the data to collect? Was it useful?