1. Influences Past or Present in the 21st Century
Unit Portfolio Presentation
Pamela Johnson-Mouallem

2. Unit Summary
Students read a biography of a famous person and relate that person’s childhood experiences to their own. They research that person’s accomplishments to see how these accomplishments effect the betterment of the world around them. They will create a publication or presentation about their famous person and share it with an audience.

3. CFQs Essential Question:
Can anyone be an influence on the world around us ?
Unit Question:
What makes someone famous and not infamous?
Content Questions:
What is the difference between fact and opinion?
Why is the person you chose famous?
How does/did their fame influence the betterment of the world around us?

4. Vision for Unit By creating this unit, I want to
Try out new methods to make informational text relevant to my students’ lives
Think of ways to involve my students more in the community
During this unit, I want my students to
Learn ways to connect other’s experiences to their daily lives
Use technology to communicate with different audiences

5. Project Approaches As my students work on this project, they
Connect the biography to the real world and self
Collaborate with peers and community members
Create a product that shows what they’ve learned
Share their learning with a real audience

6. 21st Century Learning
Students will develop higher-order and 21st century skills in this unit as they
Use the Essential and Unit Questions to guide their research on the subject they chose.
Communicate their ideas to a community audience
Reflect on their reading, writing, research, and thinking strategies, and modify and adapt them as necessary
Use project assessments to self-assess their work and give feedback to their peers

7. Gauging Student Needs Assessments
Use CFQs to learn
Students’ ideas about what a biography is and how the subject influenced the world
Background knowledge of fact, opinion, and expository writing
Assess 21st Century skills
Ability to see common elements among subjects and themselves

8. Gauging Student Needs Assessments
I can use the information from these assessments to:
Focus on student’s understanding of what is fact and what is opinion
Plan activities in which they will distinguish between fact and opinion
Students can use the information from these assessments to:
To self evaluate their own knowledge of what is fact and what is opinion
Use this knowledge as they read their biographies to recognize the author’s elements of persuasive writing

9. Requests for Feedback
Need ways to help students understand how to write a biography using factual information and their own words.
Need help assessing students’ higher-order thinking skills