I spent my entire evening yesterday combing back through Understanding by Design. My principal gave me his copy of the workbook that goes with it, and today I made a "Unit Planning" kit out of the templates that I liked and found useful.
It's so amazing how different the unit already is after one template.
I found out that my unit on "Identity" isn't actually about Identity at all, but self and social acceptance. The film that inspired me to attack this unit is "Ma Vie en Rose", about a seven-year-old boy who is transgender. I picked it because it's rather benign compared to most French films (no nudity! no sex! no cussing!) except that it is rated R. We can't have little boys wearing dresses, now can we? Let's examine that! I also picked it because it reviews simple vocabulary. Locations in the community, house, family, clothing, adjectives, but with a twist.
As I write this, I think... are there French men who choose to use feminine forms of adjectives, and vice-versa? I've heard about japanese girls using "boku" which is the masculine casual form of "I", while girls are are supposed to stick with the long "watashi". I'll have to ask Didier what the implications of adjective switching are.
Four templates later, and the bell rings for my final exams. My students finish, turn them in, give me solid fives (outstanding!) for the teaching and course review, and then reluctantly leave. They promise to return and visit as often as they can. In a school of 150 kids, it's not like I won't see them every minute of every day regardless of which classes they have, but it's good to be loved.
One area where they scored me low (4 for above average) was "Encouraged students to express their views and opinions." I completely agree, because this almost always related to off-topic tangent voyages. But as I plan my lessons for Semester 2, I find myself trying to cram as many opportunities for this as possible.
The lower-level immersion course was great preparation. I have so many rubrics that I love, that make sense, and that will hopefully encourage the students to take a more active role from day one.
My biggest concern: I have big classes, 23, 23, and 14. Because of these class sizes, the way I assess them will have to be different, although I'm not sure how I will do this.
I've added a daily journal for the 3 and 4 class, where they identify objectives each week that they want to work on, such as "actively participating in class discussion" or "writing better quality" or "listening comprehension" and they pick and build from a list of verbs and nouns to build thigs like "I will listen to my classmates carefully" or "I will take notes during discussions". This journal will be pretty central. They will start each morning with a brief free-write on a picture that I display (first block juniors will be certainly groggy), they can take notes during class, and at the end of class they will write a daily reflection on the day's conversation based on a prompt, and then assess their participation. In 90 minutes, I think that's doable. I just have to structure the class right.
Structure, structure, structure.
Small pieces, start smaller than small. That's what I tell myself. Build from pairs to three, threes to fours, fours to sixes, and then back to the whole class.
I wish I didn't have such stupid individual desks. Where are the tables and chairs of social interaction? Bah.
It's almost 6 pm and I'm in my classroom writing this, listening to music, avoiding going home to work on my research project. I want to bury my arms elbow-deep in UBD, but I have nothing to do all day tomorrow until 12:15 for my semester 1 classes... so I should leave it here at school.
oh look.... somehow the books all got into my bag.
Oh look... the computer is logging off and the lights are turning out.
Looks like UBD and I will be sharing dinner.
Note to self: After grad school, get a social life.
