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English I—Unit 1

TEKS RESOURCE SYSTEM ROLL OUT

English I—Unit 1TEKS RESOURCE SYSTEM ROLL OUT

LESSON PLANNING FOR THE FIRST SIX WEEKS

When we begin to lesson plan, we must first start with our curriculum or our standards. In your Instructional Focus Document, you will find the standards for your first unit. By reading the standards and the TEKS specificity, you will see the depth and rigor of the content you will be teaching in this unit.


Once we have unpacked our standards, we are ready to build our assessments for the units. The PAs are already created for you. These Performance Assessments break the material into manageable chunks, allowing students time to process and demonstrate their learning. By implementing the PAs, students will be better prepared for the multiple choice unit assessment (if your district has given you access, you will create using the assessment creator).


When our standards are unpacked and our assessments are created, then we can begin planning lesson activities. Conversely, if we had started this step of lesson planning, our instruction will most likely not be aligned to the rigor and depth of the standards.


See the ELAR Planning with the IFD Module for more information about the planning process.

LESSON PLANNING TEMPLATES

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1 PA View

Focus on one PA at a time.

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3 PA View

Focus on "Sister" PAs. See the ELAR Planning with the IFD Module for more information.

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Multi-PA View

Break those eggs and plan instruction in a logical order for reading and writing integration, while keeping all PAs in mind. See the ELAR Planning with the IFD Module for more information.

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BACKWARDS PLANNING FROM YOUR PAs

How to use the Lesson Plan Template


  1. Read and dissect PAs
  2. Summarize and prioritize your TEKS Specificity
  3. Brainstorm instructional ideas and activities

What Does This Look Like in English 1, Unit 1?

1st Page of IFD Planning Guide: Breaking Eggs to Make an Omelette

Breaking the eggs to make an omelette refers to an ELAR teacher's need to process the purpose of each PA as a reading or writing PA, and then re-sequence, or prioritize the PAs in the unit, as needed, to best support integrated reading and writing.


We break the eggs, or the order of the PAs in the unit, to make an omelette, the best sequence of teaching to PAs so that the reading instruction toward reading-focused PAs informs the writing instruction toward writing-focused PAs and vice versa. See the ELAR Planning with the IFD Module for more information.

English 1, Unit 1: First Page of Unit Planning Guide
The order the TEKS Resource System Team would place the PAs, and an example of one PA processed for its standards' specificity and possible instructional topics.

Looking Closely at this processed PA#1 as an example.

2nd pg. of IFD Planning Guide: Plan backwards from PAs!
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THE LESSON CYCLE

Now that you have your unit mapped out, you will focus on individual lesson plans. The lesson cycle should be followed every day, for every lesson.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

REMEMBER

Write learning objectives for each lesson in your unit before planning activities. The activities you plan will then be aligned to your objective!

DO NOW:

Take the time to break down the rest of the PAs for English 1, Unit 1. Summarize and prioritize your standards, using the TEKS Specificity. Even if you know the content, re-read the TEKS specificity and look for concepts that might be challenging for students. We will get to the fun part on the second page: what engaging activities will you plan so students will master the content and be successful on the PA?

Activities and Resources for Unit 1, PA#1

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Texas Gateway: Plot Development Lesson

Lesson. Students might use these definitions and examples for creating short notes/examples. Ultimately, we want our students independently reading fiction and analyzing the elements described in this lesson.

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Texas Gateway: Development of Characters

Lesson. Students might use these definitions and examples for creating short notes/examples. Ultimately, we want our students independently reading fiction and analyzing the elements described in this lesson.
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Texas Gateway: Narrator's Point of View

Lesson. Students might use these definitions and examples for creating short notes/examples. Ultimately, we want our students independently reading fiction and analyzing the elements described in this lesson.
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Signposts from Kylene Beers and Bob Probst

Strategy. The text Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading has invigorated the reading of fiction for so many teachers and students. This powerpoint from teacher Sandy Scott Skutt collapses the "signposts" students look for in literary texts in engaging slides. Think about teaching one signpost at a time, and then asking students to hold themselves accountable for thinking through the anchor questions once they recognize a signpost. Use this Signpost Chart to support students' transition to deeper thinking through fiction.
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Levels of Meaning

Strategy. Levels of Meaning is another strategy teachers might teach to deepen thinking through fiction. With modeling and practice, students become autonomous in moving from one level to another when using this tool and its prompts.
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Every Day Fiction

Resource. Website of "bite-sized stories for a busy world." Find an engaging, appropriate text (content- and readability-wise), and use as a mentor text for class. Students should read other texts independently to practice the analysis modeled as mentor text.