Teacher(s) Sarah Beck Martin Subject group and discipline Language Acquisition/ELA

Unit title World Holidays MYP year/phase 1 Unit duration (hrs) 8

Inquiry: Establishing the purpose of the unit

Key concept Related concept(s) Global context

Connections Patterns Orientation in time and space

Statement of inquiry

Holidays worldwide center around similar universal themes, like family, community, and faith.

Inquiry questions

Factual— What are specific activities people do when celebrating their holidays? (Chinese New Year, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Seollal?)
Conceptual— What activities are similar through all the holidays? How are they similar to Korean holidays?
Debatable— Is identity something that can change?

Objectives Summative assessment

B: Reading Outline of summative assessment task(s) including
assessment criteria:
iii. Analyze connections in a wide variety of simple
authentic texts. G: Your goal is to demonstrate how people around the
world celebrate different holidays, and what universal
Strand: use spoken language to communicate and
themes are found in these holidays.
interact with others.
R: You are creating a presentation that demonstrates
how you connect holidays in your country to one or
D: Writing: more holidays we learned about.
i. use a wide range of vocabulary A: Your audience is made up of students who are in
your class and the teachers.
iii. organize information effectively and coherently in
an appropriate format using a wide variety of simple S: This challenge involves researching new English
cohesive devices words, taking notes on what different holiday
Relationship between summative assessment task(s)
and statement of inquiry:
The relationship between the summative assessment
task and the SOI is that you will be looking at the
similarities between the different world holidays we have
read about. How are they similar? What themes are
universal?
The final presentation will be a written introduction to a
Korean/Religious holiday celebrated by the student and
comparing it to one or more of the holidays learned

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 iv. communicate all or almost all the required
information with a clear sense of audience and
purpose to suit the context.
traditional there are, comparing and contrasting about in the unit. Students’ written presentations will be
different holiday traditions, and connecting these between 100-150 words.
traditions to your own.
S: Your written presentation must include.
1. Two comparisons to at least one learned world
holidays (Chinese New Year, Diwali, Ramadan,
Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah).
2. Detail at least three traditions from your own
selected holiday (Seollal, Chuseok, Buddha’s
Birthday, Christmas, etc).
3. Give explanations as to why these traditions are
comparable (ex. Like Seollal, families meet and have
a feast during Chinese New Year).
Your written performance will be judged using
criterion D(Writing)

Approaches to learning (ATL)

In order for students to demonstrate understanding of relationships between the various components of the multimodal text; they must learn to identify explicit
and implicit information (facts and/or opinions, supporting details) and analyse connections in a wide variety of simple authentic texts. (ATL Thinking Skills,
Cluster: creative thinking).
In order for students to use spoken language to communicate and interact with others; they must use a wide range of vocabulary and communicate all or almost all
the required information clearly and effectively. (ATL Communication, Cluster: communication).

Action: Teaching and learning through inquiry

Content Learning process

Week 1: Learning experiences and teaching strategies
Topic introduction. 1.Glossaries- Building vocabulary in the L2
Connections
using a glossary in L1 and L2 gives students a
discussions. way to be able to refer to new terms in a given
context. Students are able to add to the
glossaries as they encounter new words.
(Guided personal dictionaries).
Formative Assessment
1. Formative assessment: Morning
Bookmate Glossary:
Students fill out their Morning Bookmate
(part of the reading initiative at school)
with a minimum of three new or
Differentiation
1. Differentiation-
Based on the students reading
comprehension skills, students have the
option to follow along to the audio book,
versus individualized reading. For

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Students watch related
video and read Chinese
New Year book.
Students find their own
new words and are
encouraged to practice
independent reading
skills (using audio read-
along, context clues for
new vocabulary.
Students respond to
questions on Padlet.
Week 2:
Review from prior week.
Connections to Korean
holidays and review of
final project.
Students begin their 2nd
book (Diwali). Students
look at images from
Diwali (realia). What do
they see? What do they
think they will learn about
the holiday? What is
similar between Diwali
and Chinese New Year.
Students respond to
questions on Padlet.
Week 3:
Students learn about
Ramadan and Kwanza.
Students are show
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2. Students are asked questions: How are these
holidays similar to each other? How are they
different? How are they similar or different to
Korean holidays?
The students will brainstorm, use examples
from the books, and use new vocabulary from
their glossaries to begin drawing connections
between the global holidays they learned about
and the holidays they celebrate in Korea.
2. Discussion- How are holidays around the
world celebrated? How can I make a connection
to them? Family related events, food, religion?
3. Making connections: Students learn how to
use a Venn Diagram. As a class we choose one
global holiday and one Korean holiday to
compare and contrast. Then, students choose
their own and compare and contrast those
holidays.
4. Develop a presentation using the
expressions you have learned, and connect
them to the themes of the unit: holidays.
Students will develop a short presentation for
the summative assessment, decide how they
will write their presentation and what kind
language they will use. Students focus on using
sentence expressions like “_______ holiday is
similar to _______ holiday, because ________.”
interesting words they learned from the
book read or introductions (e.g., dreidel,
fasting). Teachers will check the book
glossaries for the English definition, the
Korean translation, and example
sentences (from text or authentic use
of).
2. Formative assessment:
Padlet questionnaires- content
comprehension checks. Students
respond in real-time to questions about
the material, and how they are making
connections to it. The responses are
anonymous and are discussed as a
class.
3. Formative assessment:
CCQs- using content and
comprehension questions to gauge what
vocabulary and content students
understood in the stories and how they
relate it to themselves.
especially low-level students, the
teacher guides them to read through,
gives translations when needed, and
simplifies the texts as available.
2. Differentiation-
Students are able to give their
presentations either in front of class or
privately to the teacher.
3. Differentiation- students are
given sentence supports
depending on their level of
language proficiency (prompts
for high level, full sentences with
key information blank for low
level). Students are also allowed
to use L1 in their Venn
Diagrams, so long as they
include the L2 in the diagram as
well.
3
images from each
holiday. What do they
see? How does it relate
to what they knew about
the holidays (if
anything)? What looks
similar to other holidays
we learned about?
Students respond to
questions on Padlet.
Week 4:
Students review the
previous 4 holidays.
What do they
remember about each
of them (rituals, new
vocabulary, similarities
between the holidays
(religious, secular,
season).
Students learn about
Hannukah. Students
view images, discuss,
and learn key words
(not in the book).
Students read the book,
and answer discussion
questions on Padlet.

Week 5:
Students
Week 6:

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( Week 8) Summative
Assessment:
Students present a
poster that describes
their identity.
Students use new
words from the Unit
Glossary to describe
themselves (i.e. I
express myself by…)

Resources

Books: found on www.myon.com

Chinese New Year

Diwali
Ramadan
Kwanzaa
Hanukkah

Video:
8 lucky Chinese foods, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7V75stdvQ&ab_channel=ABCEveryday

Diwali Photos, provided by Poonam Jajoo

www.padlet.com – 4-6 questions for open ended responses from students (new words, what people do, relating to own experiences).

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Reflection: Considering the planning, process and impact of the inquiry

Prior to teaching the unit
Students have had some exposure to
global holidays through elementary social
studies and English classes.
Students have not had experience
comparing and contrasting global holidays
to their own and finding common ground.
Students have not had the opportunity to
work on visual thinking and drawing their
own conclusions.
During teaching
Students were engaged with the topic of global
holidays but struggled to draw connections between
the holidays and Korean holidays. Few had difficulty
drawing connections between the holidays
themselves (many found similarities between
Ramadan, Kwanza, and Hannukah, as they were all
religious holidays).
Students also struggled to start the Venn Diagrams
even after modelling the assignment as a class
(students chose topics and as a class found
similarities and differences). This did not seem to be
a language issue, as they struggled even when
instructed in L1.
After teaching the unit
While the connections aspect of the unit was more
difficult, the students informed the instructors that
they enjoyed learning more about the world around
them. They also found the comparisons projects
engaging and challenging.
Students also found that using the digital books
instead of hard copies easier, as they could use
audio options, easily find translations and change the
size of the texts (better for some readers with letter
recognition problems).

Technology was a challenge. The students had not

worked much with Google Slides before, so the unit
was extended another week to give students time to
practice how to use the program.

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