2. Two Types of EQs
Open: Challenges students Teachers pose Open EQs as
to think more deeply and a means of engaging
creatively about important students in thinking like
recurring and unsettled experts in the field. No
issues definitive answer expected.
Guiding: Guides student Teachers pose Guiding EQs
inquiry toward a deeper as a means of uncovering
understanding of a big idea. desired understandings.
Students construct meaning
as they wrestle with the
question.
3. Examples
Open
What is a true friend?
Guiding
What are the signs of a fair weather friend?
4. Further breakdown
Overarching
Point toward general, transferrable understandings
Topical
Related to the discipline
5. Topical or Overarching?
Is blood thicker than water?
To be or not to be?
“Frenemies”: Friends, enemies, both, or neither?
Should Frog have lied to Toad?
How do authors manipulate me to like or dislike a
character?
6.
7. Project-Based Unit Plan
Anchored in Literature
Unit Title/Guiding Question: Overarching & Open
Meant to promote debate, food for thought
Should be relevant to students’ interests or made
engaging to them
Based in principal theme of the novel (leads to EU)
8. Topical EQs in Project-Based Unit
Based in Literature (PUBLIT)
Topical EQs derive from skills needed to complete
the culminating project: Guiding EQs
For example, if I am writing a memoir about family
for my culminating project, topical EQs might be:
Why are memoirs interesting to read?
How do memoirists show narrators’ views of
characters (rather than tell us about them)?
How do memoirists organize their narratives?
9.
10. Steps to planning a PUBLIT
unit: EU EQ
STEP ONE
1. Generate the EU. Answer the question: why do
we read this text? What is the message or moral
that we walk away from this text with?
Essential Understanding
2. Turn EU into EQ . Remember EQs and EUs are
opposite sides of the same coin.
11. Devise a culminating
project
STEP TWO
1. Think about ways in which the theme or
overarching EQ/EU transfers beyond the literary
text (as it should).
Consider applications of the EU outside of
classroom – in local community (from school to
neighborhood to town/city; expand to national
context only if absolutely necessary).
Devise a project that addresses this local issue by
engaging students in using expressive literacies
(ie., speaking, writing, and/or composing).
12. Task Analysis
STEP THREE
Break down the culminating project into its component
pieces:
For example, if I’m planning to have students make video public
service announcements, component skills might include
1. Script-writing
2. Persuasion (how it’s done in film)
3. PSA genre study (elements of the PSA)
4. Identifying the purpose of message and linking it with
audience
5. Linking audience, purpose and tone; identifying how to
create tone in video
6. Filming and editing techniques
7. How to use editing software and camera
NOTE that all but #7 can be linked to ELA standards
13. Layer in ELA Standards
STEP FOUR
Attach corresponding ELA standard to culminating
project and to component parts
Make sure that each component is essentially
teachable in one 40 minute class period
For example, you wouldn’t teach “the essay” in one day,
so this would need to be broken down to components
teachable in one day:
Introductions
Conclusions
The thesis
Transitions
Etc.
14. Sequence
STEP FIVE
Place these component items in what you think is a
logical order so as to lead up to the culminating
project.
Make sure to include (at least) one day for
introducing the culminating project.
Don’t worry about “teaching the book” at the moment.
We will work that in in future “passes” at this plan.
Devote at most 3-4 weeks of lessons (i.e., 15-20
component pieces, meaning that you can’t teach
everything and should be willing to cut some stuff)
15. Layer in Topical Essential
Understandings & Questions
STEP SIX
For the final expressive literary product (i.e.,
culminating project), and for each day’s
component skill as possible, identify
corresponding:
A) Topical Understandings; and
B) Guiding Questions
16. Schedule
STEP SEVEN
Finally, commit the sequence (including EUs&EQs) that you developed
to a M-F calendar. Label weeks with “Week 1,” “Week 2,” etc.
Example:
• Week 1
• Monday
• Tuesday
• Etc.
Only one component skill per day!
Again, make sure that you have no more than 15 (i.e., 3 weeks worth
of) component skills represented at this point (We will use up more
days/weeks when we layering in the reading of anchor and ancillary texts).
17. Assignment
In a document divided into seven separate
sections corresponding to each of the seven steps,
show your work for the above for a PUBLIT that is
anchored in one of the summer reading texts.
Submit completed document online (to BB)
next Thursday, November 1
Also bring a hard copy to class with you for
workshopping in class
