MYP unit planner

Unit title
/
Unit 2: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”
Teacher(s) / Abts, Courington, Ehrlich, Williams
Subject and grade level / Language A Year 2
Time frame and duration / November 7-January 13
Stage 1: Integrate significant concept, area of interaction and unit question
Area of interaction focus
Which area of interaction will be our focus?
Why have we chosen this? / /
Significant concept(s)
What are the big ideas? What do we want our students to retain for years into the future?
Health & Social Education – What do I need to consider so I can make the right choices? What are the consequences of making poor choices? / Life is full of influences which empower me to make informed choices and impact the lives of others.
MYP unit question
When do I have the right to choose?
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?
2011-2012
Task: Students will write One essay (literary, argumentative, persuasive or analytical piece of writing) of 500–1,000 words.
Prompt: Write an essay in which you argue your position on whether the U.S. government should require cigarette companies to put the large, graphic labels the FDA has developed on all cigarettes sold in the United States? Use strong evidence from your reading to support your argument and address the concerns readers that disagree with you might have.
2012-2013
Task: Students will write one essay (literary, argumentative, persuasive or analytical piece of writing) of 500–1,000 words.
Prompt: Write an essay in which you argue your position on a topic of your choice. You may want to consider the topic you have selected for your community and service plan at the beginning of the year. Please choose an issue on Health and Social Education. Use strong evidence from your reading to support your argument and address the concerns readers that disagree with you might have.
Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit? Which MYP assessment criteria will be used?
Criterion
A: Content
q Understand and analyze language, content, structure, meaning and significance of both
familiar and previously unseen oral, written and visual texts
q Compare and contrast works, and connect themes across and within genres
q Analyze the effects of the author’s choices on an audience
q Express an informed and independent response to literary and non-literary texts
q Compose pieces that apply appropriate literary and/or non-literary features to serve the context
and intention
B: Organization
q Create work that employs organizational structures and language-specific conventions
throughout a variety of text types.
q Organize ideas and arguments in a sustained, coherent and logical manner.
q Employ appropriate critical Apparatus; use of quotations, italicizing, underlining, citations,
bibliographies, text features, footnotes, references, table of contents, etc…
Stage 2: Backward planning: from the assessment to the learning activities through inquiry
ContentWhat 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, provincial, district, or local standards/skills are to be addressed? How can they be unpacked to develop the significant concept(s) for stage 1?
Reading to learn about real world issues, gather information, develop an opinion to write persuasive compositions. Write persuasive compositions to convince their intended audience to take action.
See SDUSD Moodle Page http://moodle.sandi.net/course/view.php?id=19658
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?
Organization- using graphic organizers to support reading for information and to develop writing that is organized and effective.
Communication – using reading strategies to effectively decipher familiar and unfamiliar texts.
Information Literacy – using a variety of sources to gather relevant information, which will be appropriately referenced in student work.
Thinking – brainstorm ideas that will be developed into research questions that progress to logical arguments and result in evaluating possible solutions.
Learning experiencesHow 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 strategiesHow 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?
Student expectations will be made clear through teacher modelling, student samples and rubrics.
Students will acquire the skills and knowledge for completing this prescribed minimum via shared reading, read alouds and direct instruction. They will apply these skills through independent practice in individual work, partner work and group work.
Schema building will be attained via media, realia and a variety of age-appropriate texts. / View advertisements, PSA’s, commercials a variety of social issues.
Read about social issues taken from reliable online sources, feature articles, editorials, newspapers, etc…
Consider how and what others in the media are doing to promote their cause.
Use graphic organizers to collect information from reading and research.
Scaffolded instruction will be provided based on the needs of students, ranging from appropriately levelled texts to student led discussions, such as Socratic seminar and debates, gradually releasing responsibility as needed.
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?
Photos, Articles, Essays
Video Clips
Graphic organizers
See SDUSD Moodle Page http://moodle.sandi.net/course/view.php?id=19658
To be completed after the summative task has been assessed.
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 teachersWhat 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?