Agenda Questions from reading? Sharing out: Tell us your thinking about your unit so far… What is the big idea that you think will mean something to students, both now and in the future? And what problem in their “community” will they be able to address with their new learning? Develop EU’s, EQ’s, and KUD’s for unit.

The Steps of Backwards Design Identify your content goals and KUD’s. Determine Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions that hook the student. Determine the summative project/ assessment(s) that a child will do to show that they can apply this knowledge (KUD) in a new way. Plan “backwards” from this assessment. Map out the skills and content knowledge that a child is going to need in order to be successful at this assessment. Then, create your PLAN to teach/ structure learning opportunities that will help all students learn these critical skills. Readiness, interest, learning styles are all part of this planning.

GE’s and Common Core Must address GE’s. In the future (two years), will need to address Common Core. Your choice about which standards you want to address in this unit. What are the standards that you must address/assess? These will inform your knows/do’s. Jot a few ideas down.

PLANNING Enduring Understanding Know Understand Do Start with GE ’ s and/or Common Core SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT - How does he/she apply the learning in an authentic setting? PLANNING What are the skills I need to teach to advance understanding so the child can demonstrate knowledge in an authentic setting:. USE the GE ’ s and/or Common Core FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS How do I make sure everyone is getting it along the way? Teacher Starts with Planning Student Starts with Formative Assessment The Principle of Backward Design

Explorers Unit: Enduring Understanding: Exploration involves risk, success and failure, and brings about change. Can this be applied across settings over time? Is this a big idea?

What is the overarching theme that can be applied to real life? Confucius say: ” Exploration involves risk, success and failure and brings about change. ” Content Knowledge Content Understanding Content Doings The big ideas worth remembering about the subject. What are the facts you want the students to know? (ie: Which specific explorers? What accomplishments? When? Why important? These start with active verbs: Locate, Construct, Read, Use, Define

The process isn’t always linear: For example, some people like to start with their “Do’s.” They want to think about what it is that kids need to be able to do, by the end of their unit. Some people like to think about “Know’s” first. What are the pre-requisite skills/content that students need to know? Some people start with the Understanding.

American Exploration- Content Understandings What do I want the students to Understand about American exploration? Both voluntary and involuntary migration is based upon environmental forces such as climate, the availability of resources, and economic opportunities as well as cultural forces including religious and political factors. Geographical features and the environment shaped the patterns of settlement, land use, and migration in specific regions of the United States Humans adapt to the environments in which they live often causing cultural shifts and broader understanding.

So… Imagine this: Middle School Language Arts: I have GE’s that I have to teach and assess… where do I begin?

GE’s that I know I have to teach : R6:14: Analyze author’s use of craft citing evidence (demonstrating knowledge of literary elements and devices such as simile, metaphor, foreshadowing, imagery, exaggeration). R6:16: Analyze and interpret informational text, citing evidence (distinguish fact vs. opinion, identify possible bias, and determine author’s purpose or intent) W6:4: Structures of language (sentence structures, paragraph structures, proposition and support, using a format and text structure appropriate to the intent). W6:15-16: Persuasive writing; (defining a problem and develop coherently supported solutions).

Unit: The Art of Persuasion Enduring understanding: Persuading others to do something that they might otherwise not do requires an understanding of what matters to them, being clear about what you want, and determining how to bridge the differences.

Essential Questions How do you get people to change their minds about something or do something that they might not otherwise be thinking about? Is the art of persuasion a positive thing or a negative thing?

Content understanding… Students will understand that: The art of persuasion requires knowledge about your subject area and knowledge about others’ perspectives. Persuasion is used daily in many aspects of our life. Effective communicators are usually better at persuasion than ineffective communicators.

Know Three parts of a persuasive essay (intro, body, conclusion). Sentence and paragraph construction basics. How to create a thesis statement that contains a hook. How to locate reliable content knowledge that supports/conflicts with the stance and extract salient information about that content. Literary devices that may help the message (simile/alliteration/humor/personal connection/bandwagon?) Strategies to check in with your audience to gauge effectiveness (survey, observation, effect).

Do… Students will be able to: Write a solid thesis statement, given a variety of posed questions. Write well-constructed sentences and paragraphs. Find basic, reliable information about a topic, including information about the topic from different perspectives (should there be uniforms in school). Add humor, similes, metaphors, personal connections, band-wagon techniques and repetition in writing. Sway an audience to your point of view. Address weaknesses of counter-arguments about the subject.

Think about your unit. See if you can identify the KUD’s of your unit. What GE’s or Common Core would they be addressing? (pick the ones that you plan to assess). What would the Enduring Understanding and Essential Questions be? Spend time with your group to develop these… are they aligned?

Persuading others to do something that they might otherwise not do requires an understanding of what matters to them, being clear about what you want, and determining how to bridge the differences. How do you get people to change their minds about something or do something that they might not otherwise be thinking about? Is the art of persuasion a positive thing or a negative thing? UnderstandKnowDo The art of persuasion requires knowledge about your subject area and knowledge about others’ perspectives. Persuasion is used daily in many aspects of our life. Effective communicators are usually better at persuasion than ineffective communicators. Three parts of a persuasive essay (intro, body, conclusion). Sentence and paragraph construction basics. How to create a thesis statement that contains a hook. How to locate reliable content knowledge that supports/conflicts with the stance and extract salient information about that content. Specific literary devices that may help the message (simile/alliteration/humor/person al connection/bandwagon?) Strategies to check in with your audience to gauge effectiveness (survey, observation, effect). Write a solid thesis statement, given a variety of posed questions. Write well-constructed sentences and paragraphs. Find basic, reliable information about a topic, including information about the topic from different perspectives (should there be uniforms in school). Add humor, similes, metaphors, and repetition in writing for effect. Sway an audience to your point of view. Address weaknesses of counter-arguments about the subject. Analyze the strategies used in effective persuasions.

Take some time as a group: Which GE’s/Common Core standards do you need to address as part of your curriculum? What are your KUD’s? What is your EU and your EQ’s?

Task (20 minutes) You will be put into groups. In your groups, each person will take five minutes to explain at least one K-U-D’s of their unit and/or what they are thinking will be the summative assessment (the BIG DO). The rest of the group will then give feedback about whether or not the DO is clear and relates to the KU part (if YOU had to do it, would you know what you had to do and why?). Once you have feedback about the clarity of your DO, you will list out the specific requisite skills/content that students need to have, in order to be able to be successful at this DO(GRID).