Written June 2011

 

Portfolio Writing:

Connecting Content

 

Write a 2-3 page paper in which you reference appropriate sections of your unit plans in the appendix. Specifically, point out those areas in the unit plan which:

·      Connect the content area to other content areas

·      Connect the content area to practical situations encountered outside school.

·      Demonstrate your knowledge of the structure of the curriculum.

·      Demonstrate your knowledge of the tools of inquiry.

 

 

My “Cultures at a Crossroads” Unit makes connections between English and social studies content areas and provides students with social skills and letter-writing skills useful, if not crucial, in their everyday lives.

 

In this unit, we used To Kill a Mockingbird as a jumping-off point for discussing the civil rights movement in the American South. We then used the American civil rights movement as a jumping-off point for exploring the Alaskan Civil Rights movement.

The students learned valuable social skills in how to interact with Elders and how to participate in a storytelling when visiting speaker “Grandma Jane” came to visit. Jane Phillips Cason, age 83, is the grandmother of six West High graduates, and three future West High graduates. She lived in the Jim Crow South, and moved to Alaska long enough ago to have voted in Alaska’s first state election, raising three sons in Homer. She taught school for over 30 years before retiring. Before she arrived, we reviewed specific skills surrounding the proper etiquette for having speakers, including how to politely and audibly ask questions, respecting the views of our speakers and our Elders, proper listening behavior, and when to ask a new question. They were informed that, depending on the direction that Grandma Jane went in her conversation, they might or might not get the opportunity to ask questions.

 

This unit places heavy emphasis on the skill of letter writing. The students first learned the proper structure of thank you notes after Grandma Jane’s talk. In their letters, students were charged with noting one story, fact, or anecdote that resonated with them, and telling Grandma Jane a little bit about themselves. Writing thank you letters is an invaluable skill in the professional world, and many of my students had never composed one before! They did an excellent job – so excellent, in fact, that I photocopied all of their notes to save – as, of course, the originals were bound, with pictures of the students, and given to Grandma Jane in thanks.

 

The culminating project of this unit asks students to compose a letter, as if they were Alberta Adams (a famous figure in Alaskan Civil Rights), to the then-territorial governor. This task emphasizes the role that protest letters can play in a democracy, an important lesson in civics. It also teaches students the real-life skills that they need to write a letter to the editor or to their congressperson.

 

Similarly, the “Uniquely Alaskan Unit” also makes cross-curricular connections, tying in with Alaskan studies and physical education. The unit also builds directly on information students need to know to be safe in their Alaskan environment. I used a hypothermia facts multiple-choice test as a “hook”, drawing students into the dark Alaskan tale of “To Build a Fire” (Jack London). At the end of the tale, they learn the message of the Naturalist literary movement, a lesson learned each year by unfortunate travelers of the Alaskan wilderness: Nature overpowers man. By having students go outside and become cold as the topic for their descriptive writing assignment, I am giving them the opportunity to write about something that they have lived, rather than just writing about experiences in books. After completing the assignments, we review the hypothermia quiz again, to make sure students understand the correct answers before leaving the portable to sprint back to the warm school.

 

As a teacher, I review the content being covered in social studies classes at my students’ grade levels to check for unifying themes across content curriculums. When I can draw parallels between the knowledge they are learning in other classes, they can better scaffold the knowledge.

 

I also construct my units to allow for “scaffolding” within my class, teaching basic information and skills first, and then building more complex connections from there. A great example of this in action comes from my House on Mango Street Unit.

 

Abstract concepts such as figurative language, including similes and metaphors, were a big challenge for many of my 10th-graders at the start of the school year. In their Reading Guide workbooks, the exercises I have written have students start to identify, interpret, and write figurative language before I even introduce the concept and terminology surrounding similes and metaphors. Step by step, we work up to writing “literary device analyses” in which students identify similes and metaphors and explain how they contribute to the passage using evidence. The learning culminates in the production of acrostic “Name Poems”, in which students describe the meaning of their own names using the five senses and figurative language. By scaffolding each new task upon the last, I can help students construct knowledge and skills with a solid, interconnected foundation, better ensuring that they can remember, use, and build upon the knowledge and skills in the future.

 

Another important factor built into my units that assists students in constructing and retaining knowledge is involving students in the process of inquiry. Inquiry is the essential academic tool whereby all new knowledge is created and organized. Scientific discoveries occur when a scientist asks “how”? Great authors ask “why?” and “what if?” in writing their classics. In asking my students to come up with questions for Grandma Jane in the “Cultures at a Crossroads” Unit, I was engaging them in inquiry.

 

A more powerful example comes from the “Name Poems” culminating projects for the House on Mango Street Unit. To start, students described their names using similes and metaphors from all five senses. In this process, students had to ask many questions, many of which they asked me aloud: “How can a name smell?” “What does my name smell like?” “What adjectives describe my name?” “Should I base my choice of adjectives on the sound, the word/letter shapes, or [qualities of my identity]?” In answering the questions (with a some modeling on my part), they created a bank of poetic, descriptive, figurative statements about their names such as “my name feels cold, like the underbelly of a fish”. From this bank, the students selected at least one simile and one metaphor to create wonderfully successful acrostic poems, which were displayed proudly as artwork in my classroom for the remainder of the school year.
3. Scaffolding and building

4. Teaching through questions – bellringer. Hooks. Forming questions. Asking students to infer…  Context Cues in Vocabulary Building