Planning a Unit

Unit Plan Template

Teacher Candidate:  Elisha Rearick

Unit Name: Identifying Point of View

Subject and Grade Level: 7^th Grade Social Studies

Standard: RH.6-8.6: Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

 

Vision for the Unit: What should learning look like? What would you expect for mastery? Will you develop the unit around goals, themes, or projects? Why have you selected this approach?

The main goal of this unit is to give students the tools they need to accurately assess point of view in not only written work, but also in the media. Because this topic is so broad, for the purposes of this unit, it will be applied as a sort of unit within a larger unit on the Civil War. At the end of the unit, students should be critical consumers of information with the ability to identify use of loaded language and inclusion or avoidance of facts. Despite this unit focusing on the Civil War, students will have opportunities to practice applying this skill to more current topics.

Summative Assessment: What evidence or project will students submit to demonstrate that they have met the standard and objectives? How will you assess these products?

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The summative assessment for this unit will be a test in which students are asked to identify in a text written from one of four perspectives on the Civil War loaded language usage and inclusion or avoidance of key facts. Students will use what they find to determine the point of view of the author. Finally, students will write a short one- to two-paragraph response explaining whose point of view the piece is written from and how they know that using textual evidence. I will assess the assessments for understanding of each of the four objectives below, giving credit for each (i.e. if the perspective is incorrectly identified but the student uses evidence to back up their claim, they will receive credit for using evidence, but will lose points under the category of identifying point of view). 

Objectives: Identify the objectives for the unit and a table that shows where they fall on Bloom’s taxonomy. You may refine and extend the objectives that you created in Unit 1.

Objective	Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Students will be able to identify instances of loaded language use.	Understanding
Students will be able to explain why an author included or avoided certain facts.	Analysing
Students will be able to identify an author’s point of view.	Applying
Students will be able to support their claim about an author’s point of view using textual evidence.	Analysing

 

Sequencing and Scaffolding: How will you sequence and scaffold the lessons that you will teach for this unit? In what order will you teach the lessons you developed in Units 2-4? What additional lessons will you need to develop to complete the unit?

Lesson 1: Loaded Language

Students will be able to identify instances of loaded language, both in texts on the topic and in a more general sense. This will be accomplished by using an “I do, we do, you do” approach.

Lesson 2: Inclusion/Avoidance of Facts

Students will be able to 1) identify important facts about a given topic and 2) evaluate the author’s choice to include or avoid those facts. To begin class, a culturally relevant example will be shown (videos about Kanye West) to illustrate how inclusion and avoidance of facts can completely change the perspective. Following that, despite students already having a background on the Civil War, a review of this topic and the most important facts will take place before diving into applying this skill to the Civil War. Then, students will practice this skill in an “I do, we do, you do” set up to help keep continuity in the unit.

Lesson 3: Identifying Point of View

Students will spend the day applying the skills they learned in Lessons 1 and 2 in order to determine point of view. This will allow students a chance to practice drawing their own conclusions based on the evidence that is presented to them. Students will start out by individually identifying loaded language and inclusion/avoidance of facts, after which they will work with a small group to determine the most important instances of loaded language and fact inclusion/avoidance. The groups will then each decide whose point of view the passage is written from. The class will then discuss and come to a conclusion.

Lesson 4: Backing Up Claim (Additional Lesson to be Planned)

Students will learn to back up their claims about point of view using textual evidence. Because this topic is relatively new to students, the lesson may need to be broken up into two days, but because this lesson is not yet planned, that is yet to be determined. Students will learn to appropriately cite texts and use the evidence they find to prove their point to the reader. This will all culminate in the summative assessment detailed above.