Teachers Teaching Teachers

Last week, we had a group of teachers who went through the English Education Program at UIC when they were in college. It was so refreshing hearing professional wisdoms from people that were sitting in our seats not so long ago. It's easy to get caught up in what our methods professors are saying and taking it without much questioning, because they know what they're doing. But is that really fair to them or to us? Probably not.

We had a great group come in and work in small groups with the current cohort going through the EE program. All of us, excited to learn and ready to student teach next semester sat on the edge of our seats like little yellow-green sponges and eagerly asked questions. But this time it was different (because we all know we've done this a thousand times when we've been able to corner our instructors and spout questions and demand answers and encouragements to our worries. 

This session was really fun though, maybe even the most fun I've had in a class in a while. The still-new teachers were honest and that's exactly what we need. I don't need to hear "oh you'll be fine, just be prepared to be stressed out" any more! Really! I know I'm going to be stressed out, I've been preparing for it my entire life by being anally organized and a worry-wart. What I do need to hear at this point is that I'm unprepared. And what I mean by this is that there are so many situations that I just need to be thrown into while student teaching. No amount of fieldwork will prepare us for the time that a student comes up to us crying or shouting. Sure, maybe you've seen a student cry in class before, and maybe you were even the one to hand them a tissue, but there is no way that when we sit in the back of a class for a couple of hours a week that a real bond is forged. No way. And there is no way that any of us have the experience built up to write up five lesson plans in one day because the prior day completely bombed and we didn't teach the whole lesson because there was a fire drill. Nope, that comes with us being torn away from the comfort of our concrete walls here at UIC and being thrown into the florescent lights of a ninth-grade classroom.

I value honesty. And that's exactly what these teachers gave me. Jason Rising and Rich Farrell are both teachers at TEAM Englewood, and they seem to be completely different in their teaching styles. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I think I picked up on some different vibes from them. The similarity that I did see from them was their dedication. Similarly, Ryan Dolan, a teacher at Foreman High School was just great to listen to. I had a chance to talk to him more one-on-one after class, and he was wonderful! We talked about books, and his passion for the subject was so clear. I love that! 

I'm so grateful that UIC has such an amazing English Education program. Not only have I learned a lot over my years going through it, but I also know that there are really amazing teachers who have gone through the program and are successful now. We all complain about where we come from, but I can honestly say I'm glad I come from a school that's prepared me to teach in CPS and I am more than happy to be working with this amazing group that I've come to call my friends.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah to all.

-Alexandra K. Wiesyk

Panal Appreciation

First of all, let me just say I thought the panel was great.  I know a couple of people already said that, but I really enjoyed it.  Obviously, it gave us a chance to ask questions and hear from new teachers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it had to be such a friendly, optimistic event, which it was!  I left feeling actually positive and excited about teaching, and I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I feel that a lot of teacher training tends to be more depressing.  It really meant a lot how optimistic each of the visitors was to talk about their job and share with future teachers.

           That being said, there were couple of things that stood out to me from the panel discussions that I think complimented some of the learning we’ve been doing this semester.  During the smaller group discussion, my group asked Ryan Dolan and Cynthia White about curriculum planning and how they start/go about it.  Ryan then gave us his spin on backwards planning: boomerang planning.  Similar to backwards planning, it considers first what the final product will be, but then you start jump back to the beginning of the unit because the semester is probably starting in a few days and you have to know what your doing!  Ryan also emphasized that while he would plan for the final product, he would often need to be reconsidering and adjusting it based on how things actually were completed during the unit.  I really appreciated his reinterpretation of the backward planning design because it was meant to be realistic, for how much a teacher can really do at a time, and also placed the importance on being flexible for your students.  (wow between boomerang design and Aaron’s vocab basketball, I can see a lot of methods texts coming from our ranks!)

           From the whole class discussion one of my favorite things to hear, honestly, was when they had different opinions about the same point.  For some reason I found this strangely reassuring.  Something about hearing the good and bad of each place makes me think that no matter what we can make each environment work for us.  There will be trade offs, but you just figure out how to function in each environment.  And we will use what we learned in EE and adjust it as necessary(although maybe the first couple times will be horrendous) for our context.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! See you next week for our last classes before student teaching! 

Professional Wisdom

It's amazing how different an individual is based on context. There we were, a bunch of English loving people, some training to be teachers and others currently employed by public schools. Yet, all of us share that classroom (or at least class) in common. The difference, of course, is that they have finished the program, gotten hired, and now have teaching experience under their belts. And what a difference that makes. If one were to study the basic physical behaviors, let alone the experiential differences, they would see one group nervous, anxious, unsure, and a bit frustrated. The other group is relaxed, confident, content, and thankful. This is just the nature of our situation. I would bet each and every one of those teachers on our panel displayed similar types of psychological imbalances that we are all currently experiencing.

One statement in particular really stood out to me. I don't remember the exact phrase, but it came from Ryan Dolan. He was asked about what in EE has turned out to be wrong. This is the question I was hoping for and, honestly, was too afraid to ask myself for fears of sounding like I don't like or believe in the program (I do). But all of us have certainly experienced dozens of moments where we feel like what we are doing is a waste of time, that we just need to start teaching already, and that practical experience is the only experience that matters. But Ryan did not say the things I wanted him to say. He did not say, "Yeah, at times, what you are learning will not help you in any way in the future." What he did say, however, was even more illuminating and eye-opening. In some shape or form, he said the following: "Its a difference in epistemology. Being a teacher has taught me that I knew nothing when I was a student, and that it is impossible to know anything until you actually become a teacher."

In effect, we, as students, exist in a completely separate realm of knowledge. What we 'know' has its applications on a very general level, but they do not correspond to the classroom we will teach. The classroom that we end up teaching cannot be predicted or reproduced. Furthermore, even that classroom will change day to day, class to class, student to student.

Thus, what I got from Ryan's words were: be humble. We talk about process in EE all the time. Becoming a teacher is a process in itself, and one that will never end. Really, in addition to epistemology, we can throw in some ontology here as well. A teacher never 'is.' Rather, all teachers are constantly 'becoming.' And as all of these teachers displayed, 'becoming' a teacher is nothing to be ashamed of. One has to think of Socrates' famous dictum that true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing. Perhaps the modification here is: dedication toward 'becoming' a great teacher results in a great teacher.

They Were Me?

I LOVE (and I mean LOVE) panels of many different forms.  I specifically love listening to panels in which the people who are part of them are sort of the future "me."  You know?  There was a sense of hope, and lots of calming, reassuring, unspoken "it's ok"s, and it makes the control freak in me very, very happy.
Last week's panel, for me, was incredibly helpful in many ways.  First, I absolutely appreciate that the teachers who came to talk with us were relatively newer teachers.  And although they were rather new to the field, to me, it seemed as though they had been teaching for many, many years.  They were rather confident in the way in which they spoke, but were also very knowledgeable (and when they didn't know something, they weren't afraid to say so, instead of trying to BS things).  
I especially liked the Foreman teachers, and here's why:  I often don't like working with people.  I'm really good at it, though, but I don't like it.  Sorry?  But I think there's a lot of you who are in this category, too :)  Anyway, they seemed like a really great team!  I found myself wondering as to what factors can contribute to a great relationship with fellow teachers, especially teachers who are on the same team.  It seems, to me, that often times rather than working for a common cause and outcome, some teachers fight one another.  I wish I had asked them how they make things "work" because I'm sure that it's not all sunshine and rainbows 100% of the time, right?
The interview tips! Awesome :)  I think so many of the tips really stood with me.  I especially liked that they all were in agreement as to "you're in the longest interview of your life" when talking about student teaching.  Tips that will linger in my head and I will refuse to forget: "find the best dressed person in the school, and then dress better than him or her."  This just makes me gitty for Friday (if I wake up early or stay up late for the sales) to buy, and buy, and buy all these awesome outfits to look the part!  As Deion Sanders would say, "If you look good, you feel good.  If you feel good, you play good.  If you play good, they pay good." And if you speak good . . . you are not ready to be an English teacher ;)  But seriously, dressing the part is important.  For me, at least.  
Putting in extra hours when no one asks or expects you to do so is something I had thought about doing, and actually hearing these teachers encouraging to do it was nice to hear.  It was also kind of a push and a "shut up" to the voice inside me that was doubting it a little bit.
Smile, don't say anything bad about anyone and stay out of the teacher's lounge (except for using the microwave).  Definitely will do!  I try to do that now.  I try to keep my eye on the prize . . . whoa! I just had a Rachel Berry moment.  But seriously . . . I truly believe that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself (whether it's in relation to your career or personal life) is to simply nod and smile and shut the hell up.  If you have nothing nice to say . . . 
Anyway, I'm really appreciative for the opportunity to have heard these teachers.  It was a great learning experience.  And as I look out my window, and think about this being our last entry here, I want to leave you with this (brace yourself because it's going to be awfully corny):
It's snowing.  I'm not too fond of the cold weather, but I am incredibly grateful for the chance to see the beautiful flurries (all of which are unique in their own way, like us, right?).  They fall onto the ground, softly.  And I think, "I'm so happy to be home."  My journey into teaching has been a rather long one, but alas, I am near the end of the program and ready to actually begin my career.  A year ago, I was away from home, getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving in Camp Buehring Kuwait's Dining Facility 1 with my Soldier friends.  A year can do so much.  I hope you spend your Thanksgiving with people you love.  I cannot wait to hear about your student teaching placement.  Happy Thanksgiving!  May you have plenty to be grateful for :)
B.  

And again...

I'm starting my lesson plans this week! I'm continuing to edit my other unit chunks; it has actually been helpful doing them at the same time. Ultimately, I'm not going to be too worried about it. While making the plans, I need to remember to keep them detailed (so a sub could pick them up and know what needs to be done). Also while planning, I need to note which strategies I will be integrating. I have been trying to challenge myself with my unit; from changing the final assessment, to the activities within the unit. I have been integrating things that I really wouldn't have thought of on my own. It wasn't the case in the beginning of the planning, but I am getting more and more confident about my abilities to plan a successful lesson and ultimately a unit.  I think that this is slowly but surely preparing me for student teaching. I'm not sure how much I'll be expected to plan on my own and to what extent, but it is nice to know won't be completely clueless if this happens.

Another huge revision for me to work on is the teacher journal. I need to look back at the books and take careful note of where I wrote things down and what I thought about them, by using the double entry journal method. I was told that I didn't write down enough about the readings in my journal. I've noticed that a lot of others are also struggling with this piece as well. In all honesty, I've been slacking on it lately since we have been focusing on the unit chunks.

Good luck, everyone! Have a great Thanksgiving :)

Sam

Breaking News! - Unit Continues to Develop!!!

For this week, I had to do a little bit of backtracking on my unit development. I have “completed” several of my pieces for the unit (the final project, the assessment plan, the annotated bibliography, the map, objectives, and my description), but needed to go back and edit them to make adjustments and revisions. This proved to take more time than I originally thought, since I kept trying to add more to each piece. I think the effort was worth it in the long run, since I found (what I consider to be) a few key flaws in part of the planning. The other major revision I have been working on (and am still in the process of) has been to my teacher’s journal. I had a lot of in-text notes and comments in nearly a dozen of my texts that I need to enter into my teacher’s journal to meet the criteria for the piece. I feel like this portion of the unit development process is the one I am struggling with the most. The double-entry style journal is not something that I like to use when I take notes for other classes, and the extensive amount of notes that we are being required to make has been a painstaking process. I feel as if this is a bit much on the side of reflectiveness. Not that I do not see the value of the note taking and reflection processes, but I think this effort is exhaustive for me as a student. Just a thought.

 Along with my revisions, I am working on my lesson plans and my methods overview. These pieces seem much more manageable to me, but I am going to be working very hard on trying to integrate different strategies and techniques into my plans to reflect my depth of knowledge in these categories. I am going to be expected to mix it up strategically when I begin my student teaching (maybe not as much right away, but definitely as the semester goes on) and I hope that by challenging myself in this exercise, it will benefit me and my students in my student teaching. I am relying on my notes, handouts, and methods texts to help generate appropriate and obtainable exercises for my particular students. I’m glad I saved so much of my materials and texts from other classes so that I can always go back to them for instructional purposes and to generate ideas.

My methods overview is the one thing I am yet to start. I think once I am done using sources to find additional strategies and ideas, then I will write about all the methods and the texts that influenced them from my lesson plans and unit. That’s all I have for now, good luck everyone and have a wonderful break!

Lessons!

This week I’ve been working on completing three of the six lesson plans. Doing this after the calendar was the best idea because having the whole unit mapped out gives me a ton of day lessons to pick and expand on. This week I’m working on the sequence lesson (2) and a reciprocal learning lesson (1).

The reciprocal learning lesson will be a modification of the lesson I did for my EdTPA lesson at Curie. For that lesson, the day was spent reading excerpts from banned books and doing the traditional lit circle roles. For this class in particular, it was their first time doing reciprocal learning, which is why the roles were done in class as opposed to the traditional sequence where students complete roles at home and bring them to class for discussion-based groupwork. I liked doing this because it worked out to be a very good format for workshopping lit circles, and also it was just a good day activity that can easily be used and modified for any lesson/unit/subject. This is why I’ve chosen to include it in my unit! Since we’re using our real classrooms, I will treat this reciprocal learning lesson as a second-time workshop that responds to the necessary modifications students need as evidenced by the artifacts they produced the first time around. It will also be the last time lit circles and reciprocal learning are workshopped before it is implemented in the schedule as a regular activity/homework. The lit circles will also be different in this case because instead of using a variety of banned books, students will have read a few chapters of “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green.

The sequence lesson will be closer to the end of the unit. The lessons will be preps for the “transitions” section of their portfolio, a pretty large chunk of their final project and grade. The first prep will consist of a lesson (a bit longer than a mini-lesson) and model (teacher-led). The second will consist of workshopping the previous days lesson and modeling. I’m struggling a bit with this sequence because I haven’t created many lecture-based lessons, so it’s just taking some extra time to make sure that my prezi a) isn’t boring the hell out of them and b) is engaging and informative. This means spending a lot of time creating a guided worksheet and tweaking the colors and fonts to make it look fun!

Hope everyone’s unit chunks are coming along smoothly!

Aaron's Unit Update for November 18th

I’m catching up slowly with my unit. I’m still working on the preliminary calendar and the relationship between the calendar and the content. During my observation this semester, I found that a serious problem the class faced was the vicissitudes of student attendance. Many students missed chunks of school at a time and then reappeared far behind the rest of the class. Students entered at random times throughout the semester (having been expelled from the charter system). My cooperating teacher’s class had a big influx after an English teacher was reassigned as the dean of freshman (the school did not have the funds to fill her teaching vacancy). A loss of an English teacher is a relatively rare event (at least per school, per year), but the volatility of student attendance seems to be a serious and ongoing issue.  The reason I focus on it here is that students who were new additions (or those who had been gone long enough function in that niche of the classroom system) often disconnected from the task at hand when they felt lost and realized how far behind they were.  I don’t agree with some of the values embedded in its methodology, but I was reminded of the field of time and motion study.  The attendance issue raised the following question in my mind, which (again) builds off of Lillian Moller Gilbreth and her husband: how might we as urban educators minimize the interconnected losses of time and engagement caused by inconsistent attendance? It seems to me that one potential solution is to begin with the end in mind (or, as we’ve been calling a related concept in class, backward design) when it comes to selecting reading content. It seems to me that those of us in urban education (especially in neighborhood schools) may do our students a service by choosing readings (when we are allowed to choose readings) and lessons that are as self-contained as possible. These would include short essays, flash fiction, poetry, novels with self-contained chapters, etc­—anything that a student who has not been to class for weeks can drop in and contribute to a discussion about. Longer texts (though obviously very beneficial in schools without volatile attendance) seemed to me (in the class I observed)  to result in increasing levels of disengagement from students who found themselves dropped into a class (a disconcerting social experience for many students regardless of the class’s texts) and lost. Likewise, I’m trying to modify the time span spent covering the content/skill-practice/activity/assessment chronology into single class periods (with stand alone readings).

The first problem I’ve run into on this task regards the difficulty I’ve had to coming up with readings that are simultaneously 1) relevant to student interests, 2) intellectually rigorous, 3) a Flesch reading ease of around the mid-sixties (i.e. what would be called a seventh grade reading level—this is an approximation of the standard normative literacy of the class I observed), and 4) self contained. 

To end on a positive note, a strategy I’ve come up with to connect these four issues (with some limited success) is what I’ve been calling the grafted intro. I borrow the term grafting from horticulture. Grafting is when a gardener cuts off a branch of one plant and (for lack of a better word) surgically attaches it to the trunk of another plant. If the two species are close enough, the two pieces heal together, creating one plant. You see this a lot in roses because growers can use a stronger rootstock from a hardy species (one that’s tough but doesn’t have bright blooms) and the upper portion of the species with the brighter blooms. The resulting plant has the attributes of each species the gardener wanted.  (Some trivia: a pest killed the wine rootstock of the old European vineyards a little over a hundred years ago. Europeans replanted new, hardier imported American rootstock and grafted their vines onto it. Since many people believe the roots of the vines, and whether or not vines are grafted, can influence the taste of the wine, the extremely few vineyards that had old roots survive raised their prices.  But the pest never hit Chile—where emigrants had brought that now-coveted old European rootstock years earlier. So if you want a cheap bottle of wine from that fancy old European rootstock that Europe couldn’t keep, grab some Chilean wine next time you’re heading to your friend's dinner party.) The reason I’m going on about grafting here is it’s my way to connect relevancy, intellectual rigor, normative reading ease and self-containment. I take a student interest and a relatively academically rigorous article and then graft them together. Then (here’s the hardest part), I manually reduce the readability to the range of most students in the class.  For example, here’s the reading I made for an exercise on summarizing (which worked well when I used it in my taught lesson for 432):

Was Brian Right?

            In a Family Guy show from this year, Peter joined a fancy club for rich men. Brain saw that Peter started being mean to people after he joined the club. Brian shrugged and said, “It’s just human nature to crap on those beneath you.” 

            Does Brain have a point?  Teachers at the University of California and the University of Toronto have studied what being very rich can do to people. They made experiments to try to find out if the rich are worse than the poor at knowing what other people are feeling. 

            In the experiment, people were asked to look at pictures of faces and try to guess what the people in the photos were feeling. The rich people got the answer wrong more than the poor people.

            The researchers say they know why: earlier studies have found that poor people (who cannot afford cars or babysitters) rely more on neighbors and family for things like a ride to work or child care. So they have to develop better social skills—ones that will create good will.

            “Upper-class people, in spite of all their advantages, suffer empathy deficits,” Dr. Keltner (a teacher at the University of California) said. “And there are enormous consequences.”

That reading is Brian’s observation (from the No Country Club for Old Men Family Guy episode, which aired this year) grafted onto this article from The New York Times.

Needless, to say, this is pretty time consuming. But if we follow Smagorinsky's reasoning about the test (where he was critical of his colleague's use of a predesigned test on a group of students the test was not designed for), it seems reasonable that we not limit the scope of his point to that test. The scope of that point (at least it seems to me) includes every element of every class.  

More Like a Marathon . . . ?

As Ramina and I work on the next section of our Unit Chunk, and after my conference with Sarah, I feel very happy with the way my unit is turning out.
You may not know this about me, but I doubt myself A LOT.  Earlier today, I was listening to a song by Kendrick Lamar (and some other guys), "Control."  Not sure if you're into hip-hop, but it's am-AH-zing! Anyway, Big Sean, one of the guys on the track says, "No matter how far ahead I get, I always feel behind," that's me.  It's funny, ironic, or what have you, but when that part of the song came on, I was actually working on (typing out) some stuff for my unit chunk.  Awesome.
Anyway, yeah, my unit is coming together.  I feel that last week's workshop helped me to clearly see where I was on my overall unit progress.  As we turn in our unit chunks, the little pieces of work we turn in weekly are merely fragments of the overall masterpiece, and that's pretty cool.  My little "mediocre" pieces are tiny little rough drafts that get worked on by someone else in class.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to have a peer read my drafts and then tell me her thoughts on how to make it better.  I listen, so I know the second and final drafts will be pretty ok.
As far as my progress goes, for this week, Ramina and I focused on creating and working on Unit objectives, the Overview of Methods and Strategies, and working on at least two or three detailed lesson plans.  It might seem like a lot, but I think we did well in planning out for this week's unit chunk.  After all, we only have two more class meetings to work on the Unit.  Right?
I think it's important to "tackle" these next parts of the Unit now so that the home stretch is not too tiresome.
Hope you are staying cozy!
:) 

Final Project

Hello again!

The last week and half has seen the clouds begin to part and sun shine in planning for the unit. The next hurdle, and perhaps the biggest at this point, is putting together the final project prompt, which I have decided will be a portfolio. Our good friend, Peter Smagorinsky's, insights on portfolios seem well aligned with what students would be expected to produce throughout the unit I have planned, and how they might synthesize their writing projects to create newer, more in depth understandings of relationships between the individual and society. Although Smagorinsky notes that portfolios for individual units would require more frequent selections of exhibits gathered from a more limited pool of possible items, I feel that this unit still would still offer a fair compilation of writing pieces from which students could pick for the project.


First, students would choose 2 of their projects from the following 3 prompts assigned:

-Comparative analysis essay, noting how the narrator from Bartleby and Andrew Carnegie align or conflict in the experiences they write about communication and relationship building, and how this informs students' own understandings of the concepts.

-Interview report for Tyler Miller (Twisted) five years after his high school graduation.

-Business letter, speech, and persuasive essay projects based on Romeo & Juliet (students would choose one of these).


Next, students would choose 3-4 journal responses they have written throughout the unit. These include (to name a few):

-Views by Carnegie students might agree and/or disagree with.
-Discussing how Tyler goes against his own personal desires to get along with society.
-Identifying how fathers, or parents in general, are depicted in Holmes' poem, "The Fathers" (Poetry 180), how this relates to Tyler's relationship with his own father, and students' own perceptions of "a father's role."
-Picking an advertisement (commercial, print, or billboard) and discussing how it seeks to draw consumer interest.
-How mundane experiences can have significant meanings, based on Sirowitz's poem, "I Finally Managed to Speak to Her." (Poetry 180)
-How Grease depicts the differences between our individual selves and who we are among peers.


Based on what they choose, students would write a reflective essay in addition, exploring how specifically these writings, in unison, have influenced their understandings of managing one's individuality to connect with and relate to society. Plus, I would like to have them create an artistic representation of these ideas (such as in the form of an interpretive dance, artistic collage, poem song, comic strip, skit, or video) and present for the class. I am trying to think outside of the box for the latter portion, and would welcome ideas!


Hope the sun is shining down on you all in your unit planning also, despite the inclement weather we have had, and see you Wednesday.


-W

Smagorinsky Saves the day!!!

For this week Sam and I have been working on our final project assessment. While constructing my unit chunk for this week I found myself revisiting Smagorinsky. One chapter that was helpful was chapter 5, “Goals for Conventional Writing Assignments” because for my final projects I want the students to write an essay about power and personal responsibility. There are other opportunities throughout the unit where students can express themselves in more creative mediums (presentations, speeches, journals, and propaganda project).  In this chapter Smagorinsky discusses five key elements for assessments:

• To provide students with a clear set of parameters for producing their texts
•  To provide students with an understanding of how their work will be evaluated
• T provide the teacher with a set of goals to guide his teaching
• To identify for the teaches what he needs to teach students how to do  
• To provide the teacher with criteria to guide his assessment

“The assessments do more than simply tell students what to do. They also outline responsibilities for you in your teaching” (Smagorinsky, 76).

I feel that these ideas have made me rethink parts of my unit calendar; I am collecting ideas for revisions but will wait to adjust my calendar when I get feedback on it.

As I mentioned above, I will be incorporating “unconventional writing assignments,” many of which are discussed in chapter 6. I will be using journals that students will maintain throughout the unit (answer prompts and reflecting on the course material). In my original calendar I allowed time for writing workshops where students could peer-edit drafts of their final paper. After reading Smagorinksy’s chapter 7, “Responding to Student Writing,” I decided to incorporate writing conferences during that period as well. I realize that the students may need more time to work on this final assignment therefore, I will be reworking my calendar and extending workshop days.

Final Summation: When in doubt, read Smagorinsky!!!

  

Hope everyone’s unit planning is going well!

~Estela 

Everything Matters

Have you ever tried to give someone a haircut or make anything uniformly level? There's this tendency that when you try to fix something that you see a bit off balance that then causes something else to be a bit off balance too. Let's take the hair cut example: you see that one part of hair is half a centimeter longer than the rest, so you try to level it. Oops, a little too much. Now you have to level the rest of it with what you just cut and repeat ad infinitum, or until they're bald.

This is what creating my unit feels like at this point. It's not so much that I'm cutting things away, but I do feel like I keep modifying little bits ever so slightly that I then realize requires another slight modification somewhere else. For this week, I completed my objectives, overview of methods, and assessment plan. All of these are ridiculously intertwined with each other and the rest of the unit. When I write that I will assess X, well, I better make sure X was taught earlier in the unit. But now that I added X, Y no longer has space. Does that mean I should take Y off of the assessment plan or reorganize more to include both X and Y? Also, do X+Y = my stated objectives? But I think you get the point.

I'm so glad I didn't write my rationale at the beginning like I had originally planned. That would've been like deciding on a hair style before ever seeing what type of hair the person has or what types of scissors and clippers would be at my disposal, or, like solving an equation I never saw. In this way, the rationale does become much more of an explanation, as its name implies. To explain something, you need to know what it is first. I'm still not there, but I'm getting close.

Book-trailers

Sarah told me about a readwritethink.org lesson plan involving literature circles through the lens of a filmmaker. I decided to use this idea and well as the regular literature circle roles to build up to my final project; creating book trailers for the young adult novel, "The List."

I would designate two days out of the week to do the literature circles. Tuesdays will be the regular literature circle roles, and Fridays will be the filmmaker roles. Using the regular literature circle roles will help students build on their reading comprehension skills, while doing literature circles through the lens of film is a way to get students familiar and comfortable with elements of film so that they can successfully create a book trailer for the novel. I would also have to front load on components of trailers and mood and its influence on an audience. After having all this information, they can create a book trailer on the novel which would have to include text, dialogue, music, costumes, settings, acting, and rolling credits.

**Each group will contain 5 students; these groups will be the same groups for the final project**

The second part of this project is to write a rationale for the book trailer. The students are to pretend that the rest of their peers as well as the teacher have not read the book, so their book trailer is the first resource that they will see that will inform them about the book. They must begin by giving a summary of the book, and come up with a central theme that will be explicit in their trailer. Then they have to explain how the book trailer does a great job of representing this central theme, and explain why they chose what they chose for the above mentioned cinematic elements and how those choices influence the mood of the trailer and what they wanted their audience to feel. Each group will turn in one rationale, but they must designate certain sections of the rationale amongst each other and explain the reasoning behind the designation. Finally, I will ask from each student in the group to give themselves a grade for the project and a group grade, and explain the reasoning behind the grades (what worked for them, what didn't). These self and group grades will help me so that I can see what each student brought to the group, and what the strengths and weaknesses of this project are so that I can make the necessary changes for the future.

I would have to teach the students how to do a Rationale. Also, to scaffold on mood and manipulation of cinematic elements to portray certain themes to an audience, I would show the students two trailers of one movie... Have you guys ever seen a trailer of a movie and thought it was a movie about identity, but then see another trailer of that same movie, and all of a sudden we think it's a movie about love?

Here's a link to a bunch of these trailers...it's pretty clever!
http://www.nerdist.com/2013/09/the-top-10-best-recut-movie-trailers/


Here's the link to the readwritethink.org lesson:
http://www.readwritethink.org/resources/resource-print.html?id=877

If anyone has any suggestions of more scaffolding that I could include to make sure that students have what they need to successfully complete this project, feel free to chime in. Thanks!

-Ramina Odicho