Rationale:  As a beginning teacher, you’ll be expected to prepare writing units and lessons for your students, and this assignment will give you practice for that.  Analyzing the unit and lessons in terms of the teaching and learning theories we’ve been studying will help you understand why a particular lesson works (or doesn’t) and will demonstrate your familiarity with the theories we’ve been discussing.  Reflection is an essential part of becoming an active teacher-researcher, and again this assignments gives you practice to that end.

The Assignment

You and your group will design and teach a writing unit that does not involve writing about literature.  Once you  have designed your unit, you will utilize 2 class periods for teaching us and doing activities that will help us complete the assignment.  You may use the class periods in any way you see fit--doing pre-writing activities, revision activities, writing activities, reading/research--whatever we might be doing in your classroom.  You may also assign homework between the 2 periods.  The paper will be due up to a week after your 2 days in the classroom.  We'll be discussing this assignment more in class, so come in with good questions to ask.  You are limited only by your imagination and time allotment.

After you have collected and responded to these papers in the manner that your group chooses, you will present your findings/results to the class.

The Unit/Lesson Plans

There are lots of forms out there that you might use for a lesson plan.  Use this template as a guide for your plans.  Also, see the sample unit plan.