Appendix Implementing District Standards/Suggested Instructional Sequence
There will be several speaking, reading, and writing Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards that will be key for planning this unit. The speaking and reading TEKS included are 3.1C, 3.1E, 3.6A, 3.6B, 3.6E, and 3.10F. These speaking TEKS are critical to the unit in that it specifically calls for students to speak coherently about the topic, make eye contact, enunciate their words, and develop social communication. This will prove beneficial when having in class, whole group discussions over the essays that we will read together (or I read to them). The reading TEKS addressed will prove beneficial when we also have these in depth in class discussions over those same essays. The students will have to establish a purpose for reading an assigned or self-selected text. Students will also have to generate questions to deepen their understanding of the essays, make connections to personal experiences and ideas in the essays and in the world they live in. When discussing the essays, students will also have make note of the author’s use of language and how it contributes to the author’s voice. We will also have in class discussions about the language we use at home versus the language we use at school. I will neither promote, defend, nor negate either of those things. As we get further in our in class discussions, I will ask students which they feel is more appropriate in their writing at school and why they feel that way.
The writing TEKS that will be key for planning this unit are 3.11A, 3.11B, 3.11C, 3.11D, and 3.11E. After reading and discussing various essays, students will begin crafting an essay of their own, a personal narrative essay. This will include planning a first draft, developing that piece of writing into an essay that is focused, structured, and coherent. Students will then revise and edit their work, modeling the peer review we used in seminar, and publish it for an appropriate audience.
This unit will set the tone for how I will teach reading and writing as it will be the expectation of students to read quality work, discuss it whole group, and publish a piece of their own with the help of the teacher and other students peer reviewing their work. I also plan on incorporating games that play with using Standard American English and African American English that will have students discerning between the two dialects.
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