The three sample unit plans that I looked at were, R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Finding Out What it

Means to Me by Pheadra Adu, #TEENPROBLEMS- Romeo & Juliet: How the lives of todays
youth are found in Shakespeare by Sarah Antonucci, and The Youth Perspective: A Study of
Literature from Young Adults by Young Adults by Badia Askari. I chose these three lesson
plans because they all address not just the important themes and topics covered in certain pieces
of literature, but they also address how these themes and issues discussed in literature are
relevant and prominent in their students everyday lives.

Which Unit Plan Did I like best?
The unit plan that I liked best was Youth Perspective: A Study of Literature from Young
Adults by Young Adults. I liked this unit plan best because I really liked the concept of students
reading literature that was written by authors in their youth. As Askari states in her unit plan, she
believes that as young adults her students can better relate to works created by authors during
their youth (Askari 3).This statement particularly stood out to me because it is a concept that I
also agree with. As a young adult, I often found that the most meaningful and easiest material to
relate to were often books or written works that were produced by people around the same age as
myself. I also found the concept of having student work read as literature among their peers as a
great idea! By doing this, students will be able to receive feedback on their written work and
share experiences among themselves. Reading and sharing their own pieces of writing will, as
the author states, force students to break away from the idea that only works by authors such as
Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson qualify as literature. I also liked the activities that Askari
designed for her Unit plan. The creative writing assignment will allow students to self-explore
topics and issues that are prominent among themselves and other young adults. This assignment
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allows students to reflect on and share their own experiences as an adolescent with their peers. I
think that by having students do this, it will ultimately make their writing experience more
meaningful to not only their peers and their teacher, but also to themselves. I also liked that this
unit plan included the use of weekly journal entries that students are required to write in every
week. These journal entries are used for the purpose of having students reflect on their own
experiences, while also forcing them to think critically about the texts that they are reading while
making connections between the two. The use of the Multimedia project will allow students to
interact with other creative writers in order to read others writing pieces, while sharing their own.
This will give students a sense of ownership and pride in their writing pieces and will allow them
to make comparisons and connections among other young adult writers works as well.
Interaction among peers is an important component of education and this unit plan definitely
provides plenty of opportunities for self reflection and interaction among students.
Which unit plan would I change?
In #TEENPROBLEMS- Romeo & Juliet: How the lives of todays youth are found in
Shakespeare, although I really liked that Antonuccio gave multiple weighted assignments for
students to chose from when deciding what assignments they feel are most interesting or best
suited for them, I felt that many of these assignments was lacking in relevance when pertaining
to the students own lives. For example; one of the assignments requires students to memorize
and recite lines from Romeo and Juliet. Although I see why it is beneficial for students to
become familiar with the language of Shakespeare, I think that students might have a difficult
time understanding why exactly memorizing lines from the play are relevant to their own lives.
This may make students disengaged in the lesson because they will not be making connections
between the text and their own lives. So, if I were to change this unit plan I would try to make
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activities that essentially forced the students to not only reflect on the language of Shakespeares
writing, but also on what message Shakespeares writing is trying to convey to the reader and
why it is important to understand this message. This way, students will be becoming familiar
with both the language Shakespeare uses throughout his plays and the message and relevance
that this language conveys throughout the story.
What structural characteristics do all three have in common? How are they different?
1. All three unit plans provide a detailed rationale that explains what lessons and activities
they have selected and why.
2. All three unit plans provided an overview of clearly defined goals, and rubrics.
3. All three unit plans provide a list of materials and texts required for the unit
4. All three unit plans provide Daily lessons/ Activities.
Differences:
1. The Youth Perspective: A Study of Literature from Young Adults by Young Adults
begins with a section labeled, Background Information and Inventory in which the
author provides an overview of her classes and the students that reside in these classes.
The author also describes how her classes are structured each day, and how she gets to
know her students. I liked that the author provided this classroom inventory and
background information because it provides a nice segue into her rationale. By giving us
a glimpse of the structure of her classroom she allows us to understand why she chose the
lessons and activities that she did for the unit.
2. #TEENPROBLEMS - Romeo & Juliet: How the lives of todays youth are found in
Shakespeare provides a table of contents in the beginning of the unit plan which I really
appreciated. It made everything much easier to locate. I think that all unit plans should
begin with a table of contents because it will help both students, and other observers of
your unit plan navigate around the many pages found within a unit plan.
3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Finding Out What it Means to Me provided the actual templates
throughout her unit plan that will be used for her activities. I really found this to be
helpful because providing the actual visual template made it easier for me to understand
the descriptions that she provided for each of her activities and assignments.
Criteria:
1. Organization: Does this unit plan contain: a Table of Contents at the beginning of each
unit plan? Headers for each individual section? A rationale presented before any of the
lessons, activities, or materials are discussed? The use of Italics/Bolding when necessary?
2. Relevance: Are your lessons and activities in some way relevant to students lives? Will
students be able to find meaningful learning out of their readings? Will they be able to
make connections from your lessons to their own lives? Do your lessons reflect and
correlate with what you are reading to what you are teaching? Lessons should encourage
and require students to think critically, does your lesson plan accomplish this?
3. Teach ability- Will these lessons actually be able to be taught in the allotted time frame
that you are given? Is this a lesson that would actually be able to be taught in a real life
classroom setting?
4. Grading/Evaluation: Will you be able to effectively grade students work based on the
lessons and activities that you have assigned? Will this actually evaluate what the
students have learned from your provided lessons/activities? Are your rubrics clear and
directly state what it is that you expect from the student?
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Looking at these three unit plans all three implied that one of the main aspects of teaching
literature to students is to make sure that students are able to make connections between major
concepts and themes addressed in literature and their own lives. Teachers should be teaching
material that will essentially prove to be meaningful, relevant, and educational to their students
lives. Good instructional practices involve those which require interaction among students
whether it is through sharing journal entries, or small discussion groups. Good instructional
practices should also encourage critical thinking and the ability to make comparisons and
connections among texts and real life situations. Lessons should force students to acknowledge
how their own personal experiences reflect those being read throughout a text. All English
language arts students should be capable of drawing on their own experiences in order to better
understand a text, along with recognizing the role that these texts have in all aspects of the world.
As I compared the attitudes represented in all three of these unit plans I noticed that the central
idea of all of these unit plans was to make reading literature relative to students lives. I
completely agree with these attitudes. So often in English classes students often find or believe
that what they are reading holds no relevance to their own lives. As future educators, it is
important that we make sure that what we are teaching somehow connects to the students that we
are teaching. Otherwise, students will be disengaged and uninterested in the material that we are
teaching. It is our job to encourage reading and discussion rather than to discourage it. R-E-S-P-
E-C-T: Finding Out What it Means to Me, uses literature in order to help students understand
what exactly respect is, and what it means to them personally. #TEENPROBLEMS in Romeo
and Juliet is structured in a way that helps students make connections between the issues
addressed throughout Romeo and Juliet to the issues faced in the lives of young adults. Youth
Perspective forces readers to reflect on their own experiences and connect these experiences to
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the literature they are reading along with to their own classmates experiences. I think that all
three of these Unit Plans emphasize the most important aspect of teaching literature which is to
make it meaningful and relevant to students lives. Comment [12]: !"

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