Smagorinsky and Unit Plans

The key advantage that I felt Smagorinsky provided in these chapters is the outline and insight into conceptual unit planning.  I am assuming that we can use his frame as a foundation for the beginnings of our own final units.  Reading what he outlines as the philosophy behind each part of the conceptual unit really helps me to see the full scope of the importance of such planning.  While logically I understood(and agreed with) how a conceptually framed unit would be more cohesive both for the students to make connections and a teacher to link lessons, Smagorinsky very clearly justifies the rewards for such a system of planning.

Conceptual unit plans by giving “sustained attention to a related set of ideas” from a “variety of perspectives,” allow students to “construct a personal interpretation or perspective”(Smagorinsky 111).  This seems obvious.  But when I take a step back from my own lesson plans it is difficult to see how I am really allowing students to bring a “personal interpretation or perspective.”  I am often trying to lead them to a specific academic interpretation that is “better” for it has already been reached and agreed upon.  However, from Smagorinsky’s definition it seems that the student needs to be reaching an interpretation for themselves about the unit.  Sure, we can help guide them initially, “construct” a scaffold if you wish to continue that metaphor, however by the end they are brining their interpretations to the forefront and can apply or discard your examples as they wish(or that’s what I chose to understand from Smagorinsky’s definition anyways!).  A perfect example of this for instance is the literary analysis activity on page 78.  The teacher models literary analysis of a text, but then the students carry out a similar analysis on a different text they read alone for the final project.  In this activity students are applying a skill, but rather than parroting a set interpretation they reach their own conclusions about a text.  Although I am always apt to favor methods that tend toward reader response, Smagorinsky does directly bring in some Rosenblatt as support of these units, for they “enrich understanding of themselves, the literature, and each other”(127). Well, what more could you really ask for?!

Two more things I would like to emphasize about these unit plans that Smagornisky brought to my attention are the advantages for planning and the benefit of the rationale.  Back when I was teaching EFL I designated Sundays for finding activities to fill my week of classes.  While these activities followed the pattern of a semester textbook, they were essentially disjointed.  A conceptual unit allows the teacher to feel confident that they are not just filling extra time between lessons, but that each activity fits into the learning for the unit and is not just extraneously added in.  The rationale then is serving as the justification for this learning.  For me, I think the rationale will allow me to feel so much better about my teaching; I can dissect, and through writing about, better understand any concept.  The rationale provides an academic approach to teaching and a space to know you can defend your unit and decisions.  In addition, the rationale allows for the reflective teaching that has been encouraged by both texts and Sarah this semester.

I did not think I needed to really comment on Beach in this post, since I know I’ve ranted about how appealing I find the theories he deals with in many of my previous entries.  However, I couldn’t close this without giving a shout out to one of the units he outlines on page 146-147.  It’s the one that focuses on migrant workers and human rights using Steinbeck and a Tomas Rivera text.  It includes, a documentary, pictures and bilingual texts.  Besides that I think the topic and texts of this unit are really interesting, I love that it gives students a real issue to deal with.  One of my fears of using some YAL texts is that it underestimates students’ ability to deal with the topics of other texts.  We think if a text is about teenagers(or about certain demographics/cities etc.) students must be able to connect with it even though it is only superficially related to them.  I guess my hope is that if the students are presented with real issues and challenges in their world they will be interested, even if it is not something written about a character (we think is) similar to them.