1 School, Class, and Student Profiles Sutherland Middle School, located in the suburbs of Charlottesville, serves roughly 600

students in grades six through eight. The school tends to be highly structured in terms of its physical layout, grade and class divisions, and policies. Physically, the school is divided into wings by grade so that each wing has classrooms and a teacher workroom for that grade. Classes at Sutherland are either standard-collaborative or honors/advanced level, but most students are in honors/advanced level classes. The sixth grade is further divided into two teams. Each team has one designated teacher of each core subject and students take their classes with their teams teachers and the other students in their team. For example, the class for whom I created this unit is a part of the sixth grade Megaladon team. The Megaladon team has three honors level classes and only one standard level class. The eighth grade does not employ the team method, but the grade is fairly small and appears close-knit. There are two teachers per each eighth grade subject, and generally teachers have three classes a day and a planning period. The school also has several spaces that all students use, such as the gymnasium and cafeteria. However, students in different grades use these spaces at different times and these times are generally highly structured. This is exemplified in their lunch-time routines. On the way to and from lunch, sixth grade students are silenced when they are walking in the hallways and must remain in single file at all times. Once they reach the cafeteria, a large and barren room, they are not allowed to leave without explicit teacher permission. They can only sit ten students per table. If they speak too loudly, they are forced to eat in silence for the next few days. Recently, the teachers became angered that students were not stacking their chairs after lunch (no more than four in a stack) and cleaning up the area around where they ate, so students were forced to sit with their first block classmates instead of their friends and were not allowed to leave the cafeteria until a teacher had approved of their chair-stacking and area-cleaning. Releasing the tables individually like this was extremely inefficient. The eighth grade teachers tend to be a bit more lenient during lunch-time, but students are expected to ask permission to use the bathroom and are quickly chastised for

misbehavior. Closely monitored and highly regulated, the free time Sutherland students have during lunch and recess is not particularly free. The schools authoritarian structure is reflected in student-teacher interactions. Classes tend to be teacher-focused and traditional. Some teachers even seem to dislike and distrust their students, often discussing them or complaining about them with their colleagues. The school represents very little diversity. Caucasian students make up 73.5% of Sutherlands student population. There appears to be little racial assimilation, as demonstrated by the groupings of students in the lunch room and during recess. Black students often sit and talk together, and they interact sparingly with the white students. 8.7% of the students have some form of disability. Based off of several conversations with teachers, it appears that the special education program at Sutherland is new but growing. Students are recommended for standard or honors/advanced level classes by their fifth grade English Language Arts teacher. Parents are able to override this recommendation and many choose to do so if their child is recommended for a standard level class. My class is technically labeled advanced/honors; however, the students in this class are not as homogenous as one might imagine. Three quarters of the sixth grade English classes at Sutherland are labeled advanced. In actuality, there is a wide range of ability in reading and writing in these classes. The students of fourth block are racially and culturally rather homogenous. There is one African American student and four Asian American students. The other twenty students are Caucasian. Almost all of the students are from middle class families. Despite these similarities, the students vary widely in abilities and interests. Focus Students Aveni immigrated to America when she was in fourth grade. She is an only child and her parents are very supportive but not particularly fluent in English. She is eleven years old. In class, she is occasionally withdrawn and is always relatively quiet. She does not seem to connect with

many of her peers and prefers to work independently. She is interested in drawing, butterflies, American history, and fantasy. Louise is repeating the sixth grade, but still reads at a fourth grade level. She is twelve years old and is physically taller and more mature looking than many of her classmates. She interacts fluidly with many of her classmates, but seems to portray herself as silly and unserious. She is interested in sports, particularly swimming and soccer. She prefers to work in groups and enjoys thinking of practical solutions to issues. Mark is a very talented reader and a proficient writer. At eleven years old, he loves reading comic books and is also very interested in music. Because he is used to not being challenged in school, he tends to rush through his work and put in minimal effort. He also prefers to work alone, so that he can complete his work quickly and return to his free reading book. He seems to get along with a few of the other boys in the class when they talk about videogames, but does not frequently seek out social attention.

The Big Idea, Targeted Skill, and Rationale The primary focus for this unit is surprise! In their writing, sixth graders often repeat overdone tropes and clichs. This unit is intended to harness the genius of sixth graders: their unique mix of creativity, humor, world knowledge, and lack of self-consciousness. Throughout this unit, students will explore link between creativity and surprise. We will also explore the idea that surprise is dependent on context. This is implicit in the phrase expect the unexpected, which will serve as a motto for this unit. In order to help students learn to build contexts that the reader can follow without feeling confused, overwhelmed, or betrayed, we will also practice the skill of balancing surprise with cause and effect. If I had to boil the essence of sixth graders down to one word, I think I would have to choose wacky. Throughout their eleven or twelve years of life, sixth graders have accumulated quite a lot of knowledge about the world. However, many still have the unbridled curiosity and creativity of childhood mostly intact. This unit is built around the concept of surprise in order to capitalize on sixth graders creative proclivities. I want to teach my students how to use this natural skill to their advantage. Because it leans into students strengths, this unit will be naturally engaging to many of them. This unit will also be engaging for students because my students really enjoy studying and sharing parts of their own identities. For instance, they were extremely engaged when they got the chance to examine themselves through the lenses of their horoscopes last fall. Throughout the unit, my students should enjoy harnessing their creativity to tell stories about themselves. The main English Language Arts (ELA) skill for this unit will be writing memoirs. Writing will be one of the main focus skills of this entire year, since it is an essential 21st Century skill, as well as a requirement for SOLs, SATs, and many other gate-keeping tests my students will have to pass in the future. Students will study and practice writing through the genre of memoir, which I chose because it allows students to express their identities and experiences. I wanted to begin the year with this for two reasons: because reading my students memoirs will help me learn a lot about them in a short amount of time and because I have not had a lot of time to assess or build my students background knowledge so I do not yet know what other genres or topics they have experience in or might be interested in. As the year progresses and I get to know my students better, I will be taking their prior knowledge and proclivities into account in my unit planning. Though reading will not be as large of a focus in this unit, students will be analyzing texts on a daily basis. Our focus on finding and analyzing cause-and-effect structures in texts will lay the foundation for more nuanced textual analysis as this year continues.

ENDURING UNIVERSAL UNDERSTANDINGS Students will understand that... 1. Creativity is rooted in the unexpected CRITICAL CONCEPTS

1. Surprise 2. Memoir

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS 1. How did this text set up an unexpected moment? 2. What is the nature of surprise? 3. How do cause-and-effect and timing impact the surprise effect of texts? 4. What is the nature of memoir? 5. What are the component parts of a good memoir?

CRITICAL STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES cognitive (to know and understand) affective (to feel/value) & non-cognitive

performative (to do)

COGNITIVE (to know and understand) 1. The student will understand that surprise is rooted in the unexpected AFFECTIVE (to feel/value) & NON-COGNITIVE 2. The student will cultivate a level of comfort with uncertainty PERFORMATIVE (to do) 3. The student will be able to use a variety of prewriting strategies 4. The student will be able to analyze and evaluate cause and effect relationships and their impact on surprise 5. The student will be able to write a memoir incorporating cause and effect and surprise 6. The student will be able to read, analyze, and discuss a variety of texts SOL# SOL Objective

1. 6.4 The student will read and learn the meanings of unfamiliar words and phrases within authentic texts. c) Use context and sentence structure to determine meanings and differentiate among multiple meanings of words. e) Use word-reference materials. 2. The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of fictional texts, narrative nonfiction, and poetry. b) Make, confirm, and revise predictions. d) Describe cause and effect relationships and their impact on plot. 3. 6.7 The student will write narration, description, exposition, and persuasion. b) Use a variety of prewriting strategies including graphic organizers to generate and organize ideas. d) Establish a central idea and organization. i) Revise sentences for clarity of content including specific vocabulary and information. j) Use computer technology to plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish writing. CCS# CCS Objective

1. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. (Lesson 11) 2. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3.A Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically. (Lesson 11) 3. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3.D Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to convey experiences and events. (Lessons 6, 10, 11)

Texts Eleven by Sandra Cisneros (primary) A Mistake That Should Last a Lifetime Excerpts from: o Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris o Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls o Please Dont Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope

The Importance of Creativity & Its Role in this Unit Creativity is the essence of empowerment. This unit will work to show students the importance of their individual empowerment and how thinking creatively can enable them to take control of their world and their lives. I once heard creativity defined as the juxtaposition of things that had never previously been put together. This definition perfectly describes the act of teaching. We must balance and pull together students needs and understandings with the standards, skills, and understandings we think are most important. In this unit, students will practice writing memoirs to express themselves and their experiences. Students will learn skills of self-expression, such as how to structure a story effectively and how to choose impactful words. This self-expression, paired with the understanding that literature is other peoples self-expression and can connect us across time, is the heart of English Language Arts curriculum.

10

Technology Tools/ Resources and Rationale This unit will not focus on or feature the use of technology very strongly. While I do believe that being able to use technology efficiently and wisely is essential skill in the 21st century, I also recognize that my sixth graders are not used to using it in the classroom. Since this is the first unit of the year, I have to intensively scaffold not only the content aspects of this unit, but also the procedural aspects that will allow us all to work together in this classroom all year. For this unit, I have chosen to focus on building teamwork skills and other basic procedural classroom knowledge. However, I will be incorporating technology as a main focus in the next unit. Technology will be present through the use of GoogleDocs to write and revise memoirs and to write and revise statements on memoirs, surprise, and unexpected moments in texts. We will be using laptops for this so that the students and teacher can easily track the progress of their growth and revisions. This will be essential to assessing student progress at the end of the unit.

11

Unit Working Title Expect the Unexpected: The interaction of cause-and-effect and surprise in reading and writing I chose this title because it not only expresses the interaction of cause-and-effect and surprise, and the interdependency of these elements; but also because it gets at the main affective skill of this unit: students will cultivate a level of comfort with uncertainty.

12