The Best Laid Plans (what a predictable title.)

The different passages from Bomer, Christenbury, and Smagorinsky on unit planning all noted the relationship between reading and writing; students not only consume texts about a specific topic/genre during a unit, but they also create their own texts related to that unit.  Now, this isn't exactly groundbreaking.  I know that it makes logical sense, but in my high school experience, I don't remember a lot of reading and writing being tied together.  Mostly, we read books or passages, and we responded in the form of academic essays that explored themes and symbolism.  We wrote some poetry, but it was presented as following a prescribed set of rules for a certain type of poem.  And I'm pretty certain that we didn't produce creative texts that were longer than poems.  There was no sense of immersion within a genre in order to produce text to add to that genre.  But by looking at these unit plan chapters, this makes perfect sense!  If we don't give students space to produce texts during units, we're essentially telling them that they can only be consumers and we don't have enough faith in them to allow them time and space to be creators.

I think that planning a year around the "immersion in a genre" idea is really exciting.  My CT does this, and they do memoir earlier in the year, then poetry, then short stories.  Right now, we're beginning a unit on nonfiction (such as editorials and feature articles), so she explained to me that she'll gather lots of accessible examples, put them in various folders around the room, and spend a few days with students in groups as they explore that genre.  They also have class time with more explicit instruction on the nuts and bolts of a specific genre, and the ultimate goal is to produce a piece of writing that belongs to that genre.  I'm not sure that there is a specific overarching theme, but I guess I didn't actually know how to ask about that.  As far as yearly planning goes, the ELAR teachers from the district get together (there are only three middle schools in the district) and plan out large units that are supposed to touch on the standards.  These units are about six weeks long.  For more specific planning, my CT and the teacher across the hall get together and work out what they want to do on a week to week basis.  There's a lot of flexibility available as well as plenty of space for creativity.  And since my CT is the head of the department, she obviously has a lot of leeway to be able to switch stuff up when she wants to.  This past week, she decided that she wants to do away with a 10 minute warm-up at the beginning of class, since classes are only 50 minutes long.  Apparently, the warm-up time is a school-wide policy, but my CT expressed confidence that she would be able to get away without it.  (Obviously, this has a lot to do with the school climate--the principal is really involved and supportive of the teachers.  But also, "mandating" a warm-up seems a little too intrusive and controlling.)

Another "duh" point that Christenbury and Smagorinsky made was that you should create lesson plans that you're interested in.  I say that it's a "duh" point because again, it seems really obvious, but I guess I haven't given myself the freedom to consider that.  I mean, I enjoy and am interested in when students are really connecting to material, but it makes sense to also try to include parts that you find interesting. I think that students really notice when you're into something or not into something--I know that my facial expressions make that pretty obvious.  We want students to see that learning can be interesting and exciting, and we want to model that behavior for them, so why not make sure to include that in the lesson plans?  My CT also keeps a book list along with her students, and she reads YA literature regularly and has conversations with them about what she's reading.  She's interested in what they're reading, and when she gets really excited about a YA book, they are interested in it as well.

Anyway, all of this learning about planning has gotten me pretty excited to think about planning out my own school year!  It is rather daunting, though...I feel like it's something that I should start thinking about now, but I know that in part, it's something that I'd have to tailor to specific classes of students.  So I'm sure that a carefully planned year would constantly shift.  Teaching is hard.

ALSO, if you ever need YA recommendations, check out my friend Kara's youtube vlog:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ReaderoftheAwesome?feature=watch

Her top ten of 2012 is a great post, and she covers a pretty diverse range of books.  (She's an aspiring English major at ACC, and we'd all better get to know her vlog now before she goes all YA superstar reviewer on us.)