INTEGRATION

Extracted from Chapter 12 in Routman, R (1994) Invitations, Changing as

Teachers and Learners K – 12. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Pp 276-281

GROWING IN THEME
STUDY
Extracted from Chapter 9 Weaver, C (1994) Reading Process and
Practice: From Socio-Psycholinguistics to Whole Language. Portsmouth:
Heinemann pp 429-434

THE GUIDED LANGUAGE

EXPERIENCE PROCESS
(GLEP) MODEL
Extracted from Chapter 3, Bretchel, M (1992) Bringing the Whole Together: An
integrated whole language approach for the multilingual classroom. San Diego:
Dominie Press pp 25-39

GROWING IN THEME
STUDY
Extracted from Chapter 9 Weaver, C (1994) Reading Process and Practice: From Socio-
Psycholinguistics to Whole Language. Portsmouth: Heinemann pp 429-434

Just as teachers often grow into a whole language concept of teaching writing and
reading, so they may grow gradually into an understanding of what it means to adopt a the-
matic approach based upon whole language principles. By “thematic approach,” I mean that
in which a topic or so-called theme provides the focus for study. Typically, these themes
derive from topics in social studies and/or science: themes (topics) like the family, weather,
animal habits and habitats, life cycles. flight. the American Revolution, slavery, the
environment, the effect of technology in society, and so forth. Or the themes may be broader,
inviting multidisciplinary perspectives: change. for example, or conflict. The most interesting
themes, particularly beyond the primary years, are often those that give rise to difficult
questions and issues. such as how to reconcile the needs of the environment with the demands
of technology.

I would like to suggest three progressively sophisticated concepts of theme study, along a
continuum from a transmission to a transactional paradigm, with theme units giving way to
theme exploration and ultimately to theme cycles, as students become increasingly
responsible for making decisions about their own learning. A theme unit is teacher-oriented,
with the topic predetermined, the teacher responsible for planning and organizing, and the
goals reflecting those of the teacher or the curriculum. At the other end of the continuum are
theme cycles, wherein teachers and students together brainstorm to determine topics and
questions to he explored; together plan, organize, and reorganize; and together determine and
redetermine their learning goals. We might call this an inquiry or "quest" (Tchudi, 1987)
approach to theme exploration.

Transmission Transactional

Skills across meaningful broad, teacher- students and

the curriculumteacher-directed chosen topic teacher together
activities on a initiates subsequent
determine topic
topic of study student choices and questions to
pursue
________________________________________ ______________________
__________________
theme unit theme exploration theme cycles

Figure 9.22 – Growing in theme study

THEME UNITS
Potentially more effective than the isolation of each curricular area from the others is
what Altwerger has described as the "theme unit" (Altwerger & Saavedra, 1989). Often, a
theme unit consists of prepackaged materials that include unit objectives and how they can be
evaluated, as well as step-by-step details for daily lesson plans. Examples are the thematic
units published in the 1970s by the National Council of Teachers of English (e.g., Spann &
Culp, 1977), followed by Joy Moss' Focus Units in Literature (1984), which is less detailed in
telling teachers what they might do. A more recent example is the Whole Language
Sourcebook, one for grades K-2, one for grades 3-4, (Baskwill & Whitman, 1986, 1988). and
one for grades 5-6 (Baskwill & Baskwill, 1991) though these offer suggestions and examples
rather than prescriptions.

At the transmission extreme, a theme unit might be nothing more than a topic used as
an excuse for a variety of traditional activities designed to develop skills in reading, writing,
and the oral language arts, as well as to meet specific curricular objectives in other areas. For
example, Bess Altwerger of Towson State University in Baltimore tells of a “bear” unit that
one of her best students prepared a few years ago. Many of the activities had nothing
substantive to do with bears. “Bear math,” for example, consisted of problems like “If papa
bear has three ice cream cones, mama bear has two ice cream cones, and baby bear has one
ice cream cone, how many ice cream cones do they have all together?” (however, the
problems were written in columnar form, not in story form). Similarly, one of my outstanding
students just a few years ago produced a unit on caterpillars, with equally irrelevant “worm
math” problems. Bess and I have both admitted publicly that we were not yet clear enough in
our own minds about the inappropriateness of such a concept of theme study to have led our
students to recognize beforehand how such activities reflect a trivialization of the concept.

The theme unit, then, may involve nothing more revolutionary than a skills curric-
ulum superficially organized around a topic. On the other hand, it may reflect a much more
creative integration of writing, reading, and oral language activities into study of a chosen
topic. For example: in a social studies unit on Japan. one teacher wrote a script for a narrative
pantomime of waking up and starting the day as a Japanese youth, next led her students in
this informal creative drama activity, then had them write as if they were a Japanese child
going through this daily routine. During a study of “Columbus' ‘discovery’ of America,” a
third-grade teacher had her students write from the point of view of one of the reluctant
sailors on Columbus' ship. A pre-service teacher wrote a guided visualization to encourage
her students to experience what it was like to he a slave escaping along the Underground
Railway. then asked them to use their imaginations to continue the journey through writing.
A group of pre-service teachers led students to visualize and experience the despair of the
winter at Valley Forge as if they were Washington's soldiers camped there. then had them
write letters home to their parents - while sitting on the ground (the floor) and writing by
firelight (candlelight).

These, of course, are only a few examples of interactive activities that might be part
of a thematic unit. Ten years ago, two of my students developed and taught to fifth graders,
two mornings a week for eight weeks, a unit on the American Revolution. As a basis for the
unit, they used a core book, Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, about a young man
apprenticed to the silversmith Paul Revere. The two pre-service teachers developed a variety
of activities and engaged their students in a wealth of experiences that would help them
appreciate the novel and understand the Revolution and the period of time in which it took
place. The students made a time-line of pictures depicting major events of the Revolution,
acted out the courtroom scene from Johnny Tremain , wrote letters to the editor either for or
against the Boston Tea Party and related anti-British activities, listened and watched as a
silversmith demonstrated how to pour silver, learned songs and dances from the
Revolutionary period (with the help of the music and physical education teachers),
experienced food prepared according to colonial recipes. and ultimately produced their own
edition of the Boston Observer newspaper. as it might have appeared in the days of Johnny
Tremain and the American Revolution.

Similarly, when Joel Chaston first taught in the public schools. he developed a four--
week unit on Medieval life for his sixth-grade classroom. Drawing upon a number of
children's books, including David Macauly's “Castle” and Aliki's “A Medieval Feast,” his
students designed their own coats of arms, built their own castles, role-played the parts of
kings, knights, serfs, and so forth.

These are examples of theme units at their absolute best. with high teacher input and
often high student involvement.

From a whole language point of view, however, what is typically minimal or missing
from such thematic units is the element of student choice, of ownership. Even though the pre-
service teachers demonstrated flexibility in responding to the demonstrated needs of the
students, and even though the students engaged in a variety of stimulating activities, the
choice of activities was always the teachers', not the students'. The same was true with Joel's
unit on medieval life. Furthermore, “Such pre planning means that the teacher (or the unit
planner) has set the problems, identified the major ideas, organized the material, and found
the resources. the teacher (or unit developer) that is, did most of the problem solving and
therefore the learning” (Edelsky. Altwerger, & Flores, 1991, p. 66).

THEME EXPLORATION
In “Theme Exploration: A Voyage of Discovery” I described an integrative unit on
robots that Joel Chaston and I once started to develop. Our plan was a step beyond theme
units, in terms of student ownership. As teachers, we prepared activities to introduce possible
subtopics for exploration, but then planned to have the students decide what particular
subtopics or issues to pursue. how to pursue them, and how to share what they had learned
(Weaver, Chaston, ~ Peterson, 1993, pp . 7~12).

This intended theme study on robots was similar in process to the actual theme
exploration that Joel Chaston and Nora Wolf undertook in her first-grade class, and that Scott
Peterson and I undertook in his fourth-grade class. On an early visit to the first-grade class,
Joel introduced the topic of weather through Ezra Jack Keats “The Snowy Day”; that is, the
teachers determined the topic beforehand and carried out an initiating activity. But through
the ensuing discussion, which touched on a variety of weather-related topics, it became
apparent that the children were most interested in their own experiences with weather and its
impact on them personally. This discussion, and a brainstorm session in which they chose the
kinds of weather they wanted to study, shaped the rest of the project. With the fourth graders,
Scott and I engaged the class in activities to introduce the topic that we, as teachers, had
chosen: the future. But the major subtopics – the environment, technology, and social
problems of the future were delineated by the students, and they further determined what to
pursue within these subtopics. What we did is similar to the description of how to do theme
study in “Learning and Loving It” (Gamberg et al., 1988). except that our theme explorations
were not quite so controlled by the teacher and were somewhat more responsive, I think, to
the students' ideas.

In the book documenting our experiences, we chose to call these projects “theme
exploration” in an attempt to characterize theme study in which students have a significant
degree of ownership. The term “exploration” is meant to suggest that there is no prepackaged
or predetermined unit: the theme study evolves as teachers and students negotiate the
curriculum. Long-range planning is mostly replaced by re-planning on a day-to-day basis.
Skills are taught as they are needed to carry out the activities chosen by students (Weaver,
Chaston, & Peterson, 1993).
THEME CYCLES
A still further step toward actualizing the whole language principle of ownership is
what Bess Altwerger characterizes as “theme cycles.” Taking into account bottom-line
curricular requirements as well as their own interests, together the teacher and students brain-
storm possible topics for extended study ; together, they determine the questions, locate the
resources, and pursue their line of inquiry. Theme cycles “consist of a chain - one task
grows out of questions raised in the preceding tasks. all connected to an original theme or
initiating question” (Edlelsky. Altwerger, & Flores. 1991, p. 64).

In theme cycles, students do not do science activities; they do science, as a scientist

would (Edelsky, Altwerger, & Flores, 1991, pp. 64-68). They do not do social studies
activities; they investigate social phenomena as a social scientist would. They engage in
artistic experiences for their own sake, not as an adjunct to study in some other curricular
area. In short, theme cycles involve authentic learning experiences that are typically missing
from theme units, though not necessarily from theme exploration. And theme cycles involve
students in deciding what lines of inquiry to pursue and in continually raising new questions
to guide their inquiry. When one line of inquiry or theme is exhausted, the class begins
another in the theme cycle. (For more details, see Harste & Short, with Burke, 1988; Short
and Burke, 1991)

The major difference between theme exploration and theme cycles is that in the latter,
students have an even more significant voice in the topics or themes to be explored, and in
the planning and organizing of their work. The themes may be tentatively planned in advance
for an entire school year, yet in the process of exploring their interests, teachers and students
may find one theme generating new interests, and go with some of those instead of what was
originally planned. Cordeiro's (1992) “generative curriculum” is similar, though the teacher
makes more of the instructional decisions.

An integrative emphasis upon theme study rather than separate subjects like social
studies and science is not necessarily incompatible with traditional curricular goals. For
example, many teachers who arc required to teach American history at their particular grade
level find that it is acceptable to abandon the bird's-eye view of centuries of history in favor
of concentrating upon key events and periods, the people involved, their way of life, their
motivations and actions, and so forth. Prior to the twentieth century, for instance, one
important theme might he the history of Native Americans before Columbus and then
Columbus' “discovery” of America and its consequences, including the consequences for
Native Americans. Other themes might be developed around the American Revolution and
around the Civil War. The point is that what appears in textbooks to be an intimidating
amount of factual information to be memorized can often he replaced by a few topics,
explored extensively during thematic study.

INTEGRATION
Extracted from Chapter 12 in Routman, R (1994) Invitations, Changing as Teachers and Learners K
– 12. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Pp 276-281
 Teachers must function more like orchestra
conductors than like lecturers: getting things
started and keeping them moving along,
providing information and pointing to
resources, coordinating a diverse but harmonious
buzz of activity. (Goodlad and Oakes, 1988, p. 19)

WHAT IS INTEGRATION?
Integration is implicit in whole language teaching. Integration. or integrated language
arts, is an approach to learning and a way of thinking that respects the interrelationship of the
language processes – reading, writing. Speaking, and listening – as integral to meaningful
teaching in any area. Integration refers to integration of the language arts as well as
integration of the language arts across the curriculum. Before the latter can be successfully
accomplished, the former needs to be firmly, in place. Integration also means that major
concepts and larger understandings are being developed in social contexts and that related
activities are in harmony with and important to the major concepts.

My convictions about what is meant by integrated teaching and learning were

confirmed and extended at an IRA conference where I heard Debbie Powell and Dick
Needham of the University of Northern Colorado do an excellent presentation: “Authentic
Reading, Writing and Content Learning in an Integrated Curriculum” (symposium at the
annual meeting of the International Reading Association, Atlanta, Georgia, May 1990). They
stressed that topics of study should be based on the “big understandings” you are trying to
get across from your curriculum and that these topics be of critical importance to what
children need to learn. The “big understandings,” or major concepts to be developed. then
become the root of unit planning. “Planning begins with substantive content and then inte-
grates the processes (reading, writing, math, science, art, and so on) as tools for the
acquisition, organisation, evaluation, and application of knowledge." (Needham, IRA, 1990).

Integration, which can occur on a variety_ of levels, may take place with the study of
just one book or one major concept in mathematics-as long as reading, writing, speaking, and
listening are interrelated and are consistent with a whole language philosophy. It has taken
many of us at least three to five years to feel we are successfully integrating the language arts
through literature. Integration across the curriculum is an area some of us are just beginning
to explore. I have vet to be in a classroom that is totally integrated-that is, where language,
concepts and content are interconnected across the entire curriculum all day every day. That
kind of integration is rare and takes many years to achieve.

I believe literature is the best vehicle to achieve integration of the language arts. One
piece of literature or one literature thematic unit can invite comparison, encourage synthesis
and analysis of the author's and/or the illustrator's styles, expand vocabulary and thinking,
and have an impact on student writing. Quality literature can be a vehicle for meaningful
units such as the following:
- Books with similar themes
- Books by one author
- Books by one illustrator
- Books in the same genre (for example, mysteries, biographies, poetry, short stories)
- Books with similar characters
- Versions of folk/fairy tales
MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THEMATIC UNITS
Somehow, it has become common to equate thematic units with whole language.
Many teachers believe that if they are using thematic units, they are “doing” whole language.
Not necessarily. Unfortunately, many of the thematic units teachers buy and create are
nothing more than suggested activities clustered around a central focus or topic. The units
incorporate some elements of math, science, social studies, art, and music, but there is often
little or no development of important ideas. This is correlation, not integration. With
integration, the relationships among the disciplines or subject areas are meaningful and
natural. Concepts identified are not only related to the topic or subject but are important to
them. With correlation, the connections are superficial and forced, and there is no important
concept development.

Superficial units or themes that focus on such topics as the circus, cars, bears,
animals, monsters, dragons, mice, pigs, and kites are commonly used in the elementary
grades and are good examples of correlations. Teachers gather together all the books they can
find on a subject and plan lots of activities around the topic. Frequently the activities are
creative and interesting. However, while these activities may be fun for kids, often the units
lack substance and are not based on major concepts. We need to begin asking ourselves
whether such units are worth the enormous teacher preparation and class time that they
require and whether they effectively foster the development of important concepts and skills.
I believe that we need to be investing most of our time in conscious, deliberate, thoughtful
topics and themes that go beyond the literal level.

A case in point is a thematic unit on bears, which is often utilised in the early grades.
Teachers and students read lots of books about bears, write stories about bears, make bear
cookies, draw bear pictures, and so on-all very entertaining and delightful. However, such a
unit is not designed to develop important concepts and provide opportunities for transfer of
skills. Even when pretend and real bears are compared, we need to ask, how relevant is this to
the child's life? We need always to be asking ourselves, “What are the educational objectives
and goals of this unit ?”

It is possible to take a theme like bears and make meaningful connections to the
curriculum and children's lives. In developing themes, primary- consideration must be given
to developing attitudes, oral language, perspectives to be covered, opportunities for social
interaction, and the interrelationship of important concepts. Loretta Martin, a second grade
teacher, recently did a thematic unit on bears. The major concepts that she was consciously
developing included “Bears are not the gentle creatures we think they are” and “Bears are a
family unit with definite nurturing patterns.” After brainstorming what they knew and wanted
to find out about bears as a whole class, students chose the topic they wanted to learn about
and worked in groups. Students chose to investigate such topics as habitat, body skeleton,
food, and bears as an endangered species. Students read, w-rote, researched, and used the
library to locate information. Each group eventually gave an optional oral presentation to the
class or conferenced with the teacher. about what they had learned.

Second grade teacher Elaine Weiner took the study of trees and tied it to students'
lives. The major concepts she wanted to develop were “We cannot live on earth without
trees” and “Trees provide shade, beauty, paper, homes for animals, and more.” Students
observed trees at the school throughout the year and noted changes, growth, and animal life
in and around trees through the seasons. The class also identified all the trees on school
property. Each student then adopted one tree and kept a year-long observational record. With
the help of parents. students also counted and identified the trees in their own yards. The class
then did a tally and prepared a group graph that included over ninety different kinds of trees
found in students’ yards. Students read books and poems about trees and did bark and leaf
rubbings of some of the school's trees. A parent who is an arborist also shared what he does
in his work.

A thematic unit is an integrated unit only when the topic or theme is meaningful,
relevant to the curriculum and students' lives. consistent with whole language principles, and
authentic in the interrelationship of the language processes. When planning thematic units,
interdisciplinary connections across the different subject areas are not necessary for
integration to he occurring. “The only reason to include some other discipline is if it
somehow extends and enriches the learning or is beneficial to the student” (Andrea Butler,
conversation, September 1990).

PLANNING FOR INTEGRATION

In planning for integrated instruction, we need to be asking ourselves several
important questions. Even if we feel tied to a single text in a subject area, we need to be
asking these questions – or others like them – to make our unit of study as meaningful as
possible.

 What important concepts do I want students to learn?

 Why should students learn these concepts?
 Are they intellectually rich and important?
 Do they foster critical and creative thinking?
 What learning experiences will help develop these conceptual understandings?
 What skills and strategies am I helping to develop?
 Am I setting up a climate that encourages inquiry and choice?
 Am I putting in place alternative evaluation procedures?
 What student attitudes am I fostering?

The following informal guidelines may be helpful in developing a framework for an

integrated language unit in literature or the content areas. It would be easy to follow the
guidelines and create a superficial unit; integration will occur only if whole language
principles of language learning are respected and adopted.

INFORMAL GUIDELINES
In planning an integrated unit, some teachers prefer to do most of the planning
themselves. Planning may also be done collaboratively with students to ensure that they have
a voice in the curriculum-making process.

PLANNING THE UNIT

 Select an important topic or theme that is both developmentally appropriate and
important to the curriculum and to children's needs and interests.
 Brainstorm possibilities.
 Webbing, mapping, illustrating, listing ideas, jotting down concepts Organise
information into categories. Find out and verify what students already know about the
topic. Separate known information from “What we want to find out.”
 Decide major understandings and concepts to be developed. While this is largely
the teacher's responsibility, try to include questions students want to explore.
 Determine activities that will help develop conceptual understandings. Determine
experiences and activities that can be used to help promote problem solving
strategies.
 Gather resources-duality literature and resources from home, school, and
community to be used for observation, exploration, researching, reading, and
writing.
 Consult the school librarian, media specialist, and art and music teachers.
 If students will be expected to do factual writing, plan for students to become
familiar with this genre.
 Inform parents of the unit study.
 If applicable, arrange speakers, send out letters of inquiry, and arrange field trips.
 Organise the classroom and set up centres, for example, book and resource areas.

IMPLEMENTATION
 Be sure students understand why the topic is being studied.
 Teach note-taking, report-writing, and research skills if they will be needed.
 (For specific information on report writing. see Collerson. l9Sa. and Graves. 1989,
1990. )
 Provide time for reading appropriate resources with questions in mind that were
determined in the planning stage.
 Add new information to categories from brainstorming.
 Correct misconceptions.
 Include individual, partner, small-group, and whole-class activities.
 Promote opportunities for collaboration, choice, and creation of varied formats.
Provide teacher guidance and mini-lessons as needed
 Encourage the unplanned learning – the questions and discoveries that occur as a
result of immersion in an engaging topic.
 Maintain a climate of inquiry: investigating, collecting data. gathering
information, problem solving, revising, rethinking.

EVALUATION
 Organise new information with what is already known.
 Allow students some choice: oral. presentation, debate, written report, published
writing graph, drama, mural, dance, song.
 Provide time for sharing, reporting, speaking, and listening.
 Discuss and evaluate new learning : relate old to new.
 Balance teacher evaluation, peer group evaluation, and self-evaluation
THE GUIDED LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE PROCESS
(GLEP) Model
Extracted from Chapter 3, Bretchel, M (1992) Bringing the Whole Together: An integrated whole
language approach for the multilingual classroom. San Diego: Dominie Press pp 25-39

“My son was really turned on to the joy of learning after his teacher began using this model.
I know it works!” – San Jose parent/teacher

The GLEP model is a generic unit planner that consists of idea pages (What do I
teach?) and unit planning pages (How do I teach it?). It represents the elements of an
integrated instructional program. Integration takes place when listening, speaking, reading,
and writing are taught in a variety of interrelated ways within the context of content areas. An
ongoing flow provides opportunities for students to continuously review, expand, apply, and
transfer concepts, vocabulary, and skills. True to whole-to-part theory, the unit planning
should come before day-to-day lessons. In a whole language unit, it is vital to show clearly
the direction to be followed with a unit before planning lessons. The text will no longer tell
you when to change to the next component. The teacher must have an overall plan to the unit
before beginning. This does not mean that the unit will not vary. It simply implies that each
unit moves with the interest of the students and that the teacher must have a feel for the
overall unit map.
The model begins with carefully planned interactive experiences and direct, comprehensible
teaching. It moves through teacher-guided oral language practice as well as reading and
writing activities and ends with personal explorations. Bear in mind that these components
are fluid and interchangeable. Changing the sequence and emphasis to meet the needs of
limited English proficient (LEP) students is essential.

The GLEP model brings the whole together by

 Integrating curriculum and content areas

 Interrelating listening, speaking or discussion, reading, and writing in a whole
language approach
 Whole-to-part planning that uses components based on current research and
writings in the field

The notion that two heads are better than one is commonly accepted. Excitement,
motivation, and top-notch work are generated when groups of teachers get together to discuss
and expand ideas. As you complete the idea page and the unit planning pages on a specific
theme, you are encouraged to team up and plan cooperatively.

You may ask, “But how do I do it? When do I do cooperative learning, the writing
process, oral practice, and everything else?” There are two basic parts to the GLEP model:
the idea page and the unit planning pages. These are not the same, although they appear to be
similar.
 IDEA PAGE
The idea page will look familiar to every teacher who has planned a unit. But this idea
page is different. It is not only a long-range planning model that our principals and parents
like to see, but also a way for teachers to plan whole to part. The idea and unit planning pages
presented have been done in outline form. They can easily be presented in a graphic
organiser. Two examples are included at the end of this chapter.

By brainstorming each and every idea and recording all the best options, the idea page
allows the individual teacher to know what the unit will look like from beginning to end
(charts, art work, books), what it sounds and tastes like (music, songs and chants, cooking,
role playing), and how it feels (fun!).

The GLEP idea page consists of the following components:

 UNIT THEME
 FOCUSING AND MOTIVATION
 CLOSURE AND EVALUATION
 CONCEPTS
 VOCABULARY
 SKILLS
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS, MATH, SCIENCE, AND SOCIAL STUDIES
 RESOURCES AND MATERIALS

UNIT THEME
LEP students must have access to core curriculum; thus, the unit theme is derived
from identified grade-level core curriculum. The unit theme emphasises a particular content
area such as science, social studies, or literature while also teaching specific ESL content. A
literature-based unit will integrate related core social studies, science, and math whenever
possible. Literature, in turn, is integrated into science and social studies units as well. To
provide 1 & i (taking students where they are and moving them forward), the unit theme
should build upon, reinforce, and transfer knowledge from previous student experiences and
units.

In addition to a content theme, each unit should also have a self-concept/cross-cultural

sensitivity theme. Although this theme has an ongoing focus, it can be emphasized during the
major motivational and closure activities. Daily processing of this cross-cultural sensitivity
theme can be done with personal interaction and other cooperative strategies that involve the
informal sharing of ideas, opinions, and experiences.

Unit theme summary

 Integration is paramount.
 Students must have access to core curriculum and ESL content.
 Self-concept and cross-cultural sensitivity should be a prime consideration in unit planning.
 The unit should be of interest and relevant to students.
FOCUSING AND MOTIVATION
This section serves several purposes. By using interactive experiences, students
activate their own prior knowledge and recall past experiences. Often, it is the teacher's
responsibility to provide direct experiences so that students can begin to build background
information that is essential for reading comprehension. A common base of understanding
about a topic is established among all students. Instruction begins there. Accessing and
valuing all personal and cultural experiences is crucial.

Each unit has one major focusing/motivational activity that begins the unit with
excitement. Several minor daily activities are also developed later in the Unit Planner. These
help keep the unit alive and interesting. Keep those direct experiences coming.

Focusing and motivation summary

 Activate, focus, and start to build background knowledge.

 Spark interest and excitement.
 Set a purpose for learning that relates to the student.
 Diagnose current level of information and students' vocabulary.
 Accept and value personal and cultural experiences.

CLOSURE AND EVALUATION

Closure has important implications beyond assessment or evaluation. Reading and
brain research reinforces the importance of that metacognitive aspect of processing not only
what information has been learned, but how it has been learned or acquired. The most
important aspect of closure is the daily and end-of-the-unit processing of charts and learning
that has occurred so far.

Assessment involves ongoing monitoring with the student. It is best done with
conferences and written comments specifically pointing out growth areas and arriving at a
joint agreement with the student on areas of further growth or interest.
Evaluation is a rapidly expanding area of study. There are many new ideas that may be added
to the wide array of evaluation tools available to teachers. What is important is that teachers
use a wide variety of types of evaluation over time in order to obtain a true picture of growth.

Closure and evaluation summary

 Time should be taken to reflect on what has been learned and how it has been learned.
 Share new knowledge and ideas with others.
 Share ongoing assessment with students.
 Use a variety of evaluation tools over time.
 Portfolios, videos, and personal exploration

CONCEPTS
This segment is familiar to most teachers. It is a focus statement that lists concepts
and understanding to be acquired by the student. Teachers should bear in mind the integrated
nature of each unit and pull in pertinent concepts from relevant content areas. District and
state guidelines should be used.
Concepts summary
 Integration is essential.
 Core curriculum is vital.
 ESL content is indispensable.

VOCABULARY
A listing of core and extended vocabulary helps keep teachers focused on building
vocabulary through contextual clues. This list varies to some extent each year, as responses
from inquiry charts are monitored.

Vocabulary summary
 Focus on acquiring vocabulary in context.
 Use contextual clues.
 Apply nonassumptive teaching.

SKILLS
Emphasis is placed on skills being derived from the content and concepts to be taught
rather than pre-selected by a language workbook and taught in isolation. Skills are an
important part of a whole language unit. They need to be taught and reinforced in meaningful
context. The addition of social studies and science skills are a visual reminder that higher-
level thinking skills are the same regardless of the content area and appear in all skills lists at
that level.

Skills summary
 Practice direct teaching.
 Teach skills in context.
 Integrate content areas.
 Introduce higher-level thinking skills.

RESOURCES AND MATERIALS

Teachers should list all books, films, videos, magazines, core literature, community
resources and speakers, and unusual items needed for this unit. Why rediscover these each
year? List them here and have them available next year.

Resources and materials summary

 Think of community resources.
 Think of a variety of print and media.
 Consider resources and materials as being invaluable.

UNIT PLANNING PAGES

The second part of the GLEP model, the unit planning pages, further breaks down the
whole into specific parts. Teachers must identify activities and strategies that will be used to
meet the instructional needs of the students in a particular content unit.
 The Unit Planner is used as a guide when the teacher later fills in daily lesson plans.
This section explains how you do it.

The GLEP unit planning pages consist of the following components:

 FOCUSING AND MOTIVATION

 INPUT
 GUIDED ORAL PRACTICE
 READING AND WRITING ACTIVITIES
 EXTENDED ACTIVITIES FOR INTEGRATION
 CLOSURE AND EVALUATION

FOCUSING AND MOTIVATION

This component serves several purposes. It is here that the teacher selects from the
idea page those strategies that will be appropriate for this set of students. These include
authentic student-centered experiences that also lead to personal involvement.
During the focusing and motivational activities, students set their own purposes for
learning through the use of inquiry and predicting charts. The read-aloud process also gets
students hooked on books.

Meaningful, interactive experiences that focus on key concepts and vocabulary also
integrate listening, discussion, reading, and writing. This comfortable, low-anxiety language
environment allows the acquisition process to begin. Each unit has one major focusing and
motivational activity that begins the unit with excitement. Several minor, daily activities help
keep the unit alive and interesting;. It is here that you begin to think of your unit with a
beginning, a middle, and an end. Plan for high-interest activities to be interspersed throughout
the unit.

FOCUSING AND MOTIVATION SUMMARY

 Unlike the idea page, daily and smaller motivating activities are planned.
 Activate, focus, and start to build on background, or prior, information.
 Spark interest and excitement.
 Set a purpose for learning that relates to the student.
 Diagnose students' current level of information and vocabulary.

SAMPLE STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR FOCUSING AND MOTIVATION

 Use inquiry charts.
 Use predicting charts.
 Use predicting questions.
 Use read-aloud literature, poetry, chants, content, and a variety of print media.
 Use direct, interactive experiences such as realia, manipulatives, picture files, films,
videos, concert sessions, slides, TV, cooking, tasting, field trips, guest speakers
presentations, art, music, song, dance, drama, role playing, reader's theater, experiments,
visual imagery, relation, and centering activities.
 Use T-graphs.
 Practice personal interaction.
 Use interesting pieces of daily news.
 Use directed reading and thinking activities (DRTA).

INPUT
This component contains the concepts, information, skills, or text patterns that require
direct teaching. Direct teaching can be done in a number of ways. Using pictorial charts is a
favorite way for this teaching to be done with LEP students. Information and concepts are
presented as the teacher draws a visual representation, usually pre-drawn in pencil so that the
teacher does not have to draw while talking. The informative or narrative forms of these
charts are highlighted in the appendices. All lecture input should be broken up by informal
processing by students. Art Costa refers to this as a 10/2 lecture because a teacher should
never lecture for more than ten minutes without allowing at least two minutes of processing
by the students. Guided discussions, or processing, can be done in primary language or
heterogeneous groups. Various types of graphic organizers can be used to present
information. Reading aloud using expository text provides not only information but much
needed expository text patterns.

The teacher decides the strategy that best introduces, organizes, and helps retain new
learning.

INPUT SUMMARY
 Practice direct teaching of skills, using information and text patterns, visuals, graphic organizers, real
items, and patterning to ensure retention.
 Encourage students to participate actively.
 Use the 10/2 lecture style.

SAMPLE STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR INPUT

 Use pictorial and narrative input charts.
 Use graphic organizers of all kinds.
 Practice reading aloud using all kinds of texts and media in various languages, if
possible.
 Practice patterning or chanting information. Use the 10/2 lecture style.
 Use realia.
 Use experiments.
 Use videos, films, and other audio-visual materials.

GUIDED ORAL PRACTICE

This component is most often found missing, even in ESL classes. Guided oral
practice offers an excellent opportunity to use cooperative learning strategies and provides
students with a means of interacting with each other by using the vocabulary and concepts in
guided situations to negotiate for meaning. Situations are set up by the teacher to allow
students to process, problem solve, and develop a positive interdependence. Picture file card
activities and numbered heads together are only a few of the activities that may be used.

GUIDED ORAL PRACTICE SUMMARY

 Give students a chance to negotiate for meaning with each other and interact with the text.
 Allow for processing, internalizing of vocabulary, and flow of information.
 Help extend vocabulary through use of chanting and poetry.
 Develop social and problem-solving skills through the use of cooperative learning and the T-graph.
 Build self-esteem through successful use of language.
 Allow students to bring their own experiences to the meaning of literature.

SAMPLE STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR GUIDED ORAL PRACTICE

 Cooperative activities
 T-graph for social skills
 Numbered heads together
 Expert groups
 Team projects and reports
 Debates and discussions
 Personal interaction
 Picture file card activities
 Classifying and categorizing
 Describing
 Evaluating
 Building stories
 Poetry, chants, songs
 Reader's theater, drama, role playing
 Process grid

READING AND WRITING ACTIVITIES

The activities in this component, although listed separately, are actually used
alternately with those of the guided oral practice. Listening, discussing, reading, and writing
must occur in a natural flow as students study new concepts.

Cooperative learning strategies are strongly recommended in implementing this

component. During the reading and writing choices, there are opportunities for cooperative
and individual work. A balance of both is crucial. Individual expression should also be
encouraged.

The first strategy is the group frame. The teacher models correct text patterns while
taking group dictation from the class. The students supply the information, and the teacher
writes it on a chart. The group frame is then used to model the revising and editing process,
reproduced for reading practice, and becomes a part of the students' reading folders. It is
valuable because it is total class modelling of the writing process. It remains in the students'
words, however, and thus becomes a valuable language experience reading tool that can be
used for all levels of readers in the class. This is a most valuable tool for emerging literacy.
The concepts and vocabulary can be as high as the common base of understanding in the
class. Teachers who use the group frame strategy have found the resulting reading success to
be phenomenal.

This strategy is followed by reading and writing workshops that contain cooperative
and individual choices as well as many activities that should be done on a daily basis, such as
silent sustained reading and writing.

READING AND WRITING SUMMARY

 Use reading and writing interactively with oral activities.

 Emphasize the purpose and joy of reading and writing over the skills.
 Balance cooperative and individual work.
 Accept a variety of developmental levels in students.
 Model and teach text patterns.
 Use a variety of texts, materials, media, and core literature.
 Use reading and writing portfolios, logs, and journals.
 Use conferencing to help guide students through the writing process.
 Have a language-functional environment that is rich in printed materials.

SAMPLE STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR READING AND WRITING

 Group frame strategy
 Reading and writing workshops
 Cooperative choices
 Mind maps, graphic organizers, clustering
 Roundtable
 List, group, label
 Team worksheets
 Ear-to-ear reading
 Jigsaw and expert groups
 Focused reading and partner reading
 Reader's theater and choral reading
 Poetry and song frames
 Where's My Answer? strategy
 Strip books
 Flip charts
 Oral book sharing
 Read-arounds, quickshares
 Writing process
 Editing and revising with group
 Individual choices
 Silent sustained reading and drop-everything-and-read (DEAR) time
 Silent sustained writing
 Interactive journals and clustering
 Quickwrites
 Personal exploration
 Student choice
 Text reading with reading logs
 Reports, tests
 Mind maps and graphic organizers
 Strip books
 Flip charts
 Reading from all media
 Writing conferences with teacher and intermittent and end-of-unit assessment conference
 Learning logs

EXTENDED ACTIVITIES FOR INTEGRATION

This component involves brainstorming of all right brain activities-fine arts,
performing arts, math, and others-that help this unit truly integrate and implement the whole
language approach. Although the activities are listed in one component for ease of
brainstorming, they should be used throughout the unit. All the research from right-brain and
left-brain studies reinforces the use of these kinds of activities for all students during all
segments of a unit.

EXTENDED ACTIVITIES SUMMARY

 Think right brain, or non-linear.
 Pull in hands-on, build things, manipulate objects.
 Use these in all segments of your unit.

SAMPLE ACTIVITIES FOR EXTENDED ACTIVITIES

 Cooking and tasting
 Building models and dioramas
 Workspaces in math for developing and solving content-related word problems
 Visual imagery and guided imagery
 Plays, puppetry, role playing
 Songs, movement, chanting, poetry
 Graphing
 Solving real-life problems
 Directed art
 Personal art
 Collages
 Collecting folders

CLOSURE AND EVALUATION

End the planning of your unit with some specific strategies for processing learning
and assessing growth. Teachers are now encouraged to look at alternative means of
assessment. The personal exploration and use of portfolios are only two examples. Although
personal exploration has been listed under reading and writing activities, since it is usually
written, it is a type of closure for the student. The student chooses the form in which he or she
can self-examine what has been acquired. This can be as simple as drawings and short
sentences to as elaborate as a video presentation. A wonderful group closure activity is team
Big Books . Portfolios are currently used for California Assessment Program-style
evaluation, although it may be preferable to use them for ongoing assessment. Teachers'
written comments and conferences are much more valuable for growth. An end-of-unit
conference, where the teacher and the student each pick one item from the unit portfolio to be
discussed and put in the student's yearlong portfolio, is a natural place for metacognitive
reflection as well as teacher assessment to occur.

CLOSURE AND EVALUATION SUMMARY

 Keep metacognitive aspects in mind.
 Allow for personal exploration of subject.
 Allow for alternative means of assessment.
 Implement informal writing conferences often and an end-of-unit assessment conference.
 Process any discoveries the students have had about their learning.
 End on a positive note.

SAMPLE ACTIVITIES FOR CLOSURE AND EVALUATION

INDIVIDUAL
 Personal exploration
 Language experience pictures and stories
 Poetry and chants
 Reports and oral presentation
 Flip chants and strip books
 Models and projects
 Tests
 Personal evaluations
 Assessment conferences about portfolios

TEAM
 Big Books
 Models
 Projects
 Oral presentations
 Videotapes of above
 Team evaluations