Class/grade:
Planning the inquiry
1.
Age group: 10-11 years
School: Sabin World Elementary
And
refer
to thi overall goal? ( UbD Stage 1)
What
is our
purpose/
School code:7515
Title: An Author’s Life
To inquire into the following:
•
5th
transdisciplinary theme: How We Express Ourselves: An inquiry into the ways
in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values;
the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of
the aesthetic.
What part of theme covered?
Teacher(s): Logar, Jimmerson, Hyosaka, Jones, Festi
Date: 4/2011
Proposed duration: number of hours
PYP planner
over number of weeks
•
2. What do we want to learn? What are our extablished goals? (UbDStage 1)
Summative assessment task(s): (UbD Stage 2)
Consider what you want your desired results to be. What
KNOWLEDGE/UNDERSTANDINGS do you want students to walk away with? Content
standards to be addressed? (See complete list in box 9) How parts of author’s lives feed
into the work they do.
central idea: An author’s background, experience and cultural perspectives
influence their writing.
What should the students eventually be able to do as a result of this unit? What are the
possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea? What evidence,
including student-initiated actions, will we look for? How will students REFLECT and
SELF-ASSESS their leThearning? Consider performance tasks and other evidence.
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective,
responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Students will complete a reflection of the stories that they wrote in the activities section of the
planner. They will discuss the parts of their personal lives that they incorporated into the story,
why they feel it makes the story stronger, and who they feel would relate well to their story.
This will show their ability to connect the central idea to the products they have produced.
Related concepts: author’s purpose, author’s perspective
nd
As part of the summative, students will then share their own story with one of their 2 grade
reading buddies. They will discuss with the students how that story relates to their lives.
Key concepts: Perspective, Connection, Reflection
What language functions will support student learning in the scope of the inquiry into the
central idea? Evaluating, Comparing, Inferring
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea? (Students
will understand that…)
•
How authors ethnicities, upbringing and cultural experiences are translated into their
writing
•
How readers can use knowledge of author’s background to better understand an
author’s work
•
The background experiences from our own lives that can influence our writing
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries? (What essential questions
can we ask to spark meaningful connections, provoke deep thought and inquiry,
encourager transfer of knowledge by our students?)
Why do you like particular writers? What draws you to their literature?
How can one author speak so directly to one person and not to another?
Why do author’s select the form/genre of literature they choose?
Are some forms of literature more effective for communicating certain topics?
into
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Provocation:
Teachers will all bring in copies of their favorite book and talk about why they connect to
it, what they know about the author, etc. This will be a model for the kinds of
conversations we want the students to have during the unit.
4. How best might we learn? (UbD Stage 3- Performance Tasks)
Planning the inquiry
3. How might we know what we have learned? (UbD Stage 2)
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What
evidence will we look for?
Students will bring in their own favorite book to share with the class. We will listen to see
if they have a favorite book, if so, why it is their favorite and if they can connect to parts
of it or their knowledge of the author. This way we will know where their conversations/
background knowledge is beginning.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of
inquiry? What evidence will we look for? (We will know students understand/know are
able to do …. by…)
Use the reflections students prepare for their literature circles to see if they are able to
have in depth understandings of a story.
Refer to the class chart that is completed about Roald Dahl’s life to see that students are
able to make connections.
Refer to their brainstorming sheets to see if students are able to draw parallels between
what they have learned about another author’s life to their own.
Use small group peer reflection form like we use for exhibition groups so that students
begin to evaluate their participation in group projects. Complete these in literacy circles.
5. What resources need to be gathered? (UbD Stage 3)
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer
software, etc, will be available?
DPS Literacy Planning Guide, assorted writings by various authors (student or teacher
selected); Roald Dahl literature selections
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to
facilitate the inquiry?
Explore local library storytelling opportunities
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to
encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
(Consider the WHERETO prompting listed in box 10.)
How authors ethnicities, upbringing and cultural experiences are translated into
their writing
How readers can use knowledge of author’s background to better understand an
author’s work
The background experiences from our own lives that can influence our writing
Read Roald Dahl’s book called Boy as a read aloud as a class.(autobiography)
As you read through it, class charts incidents from as a read aloud as a class.
Then students select another book by the same author. A class chart is kept.
As astudents read the new book, they come up and chart elements of the story
that show up from Dahl’s life.
• Students then select another author of their choice to conduct a similar study of
that author.
• Conduct brainstorms in which students explore elements of their own culture,
background, ethnicity, etc. that they could bring into their own writing. In
preparation, students will do a whip around in which they describe traits they see
in each other. Sometimes having insight into what other people see in our lives
gives us curious insight into ourselves.
• Students will then develop their own short story in which they have to use
elements of their personal lives into the story. The students will have to include
all of the elements of fiction.
• Throughout the unit, students participate in literature circles in which they
develop the skills to have discourse about a book and see different
perspectives. In the circle, students complete reflection sheets in which they are
each responsible for preparing and contributing different perspectives to the
conversation.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner profile? What key SKILLS will students
acquire as a result of this unit?
•
Learner Proflie:
• Communication- heavy on this as they work on sharing their responses to other
authro’s work as well as writing their own stories.
• Self-management- managing their contributions to literacy circles.
• Responsibility- having to maintain their own role/responsibility in the
• group
• Open –minded- to hear other perspectives to literature
• Creativity- in creating our own stories
Transdisciplinary Skills:
Attitudes:
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
Reflecting on the inquiry
6.
To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Refer back to Box 1 to answer these questions.
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the
central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the
inquiry should be included.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more
accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
What opportunities were there for student self-assessment/reflection?
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the
transdisciplinary theme?
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
•
develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
•
demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
•
develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
9. Teacher notes (To do list before teaching this unit again):
Reflecting on the inquiry
Next year: Consider having a guest speaker/ local storyteller come and share
stories and talk about where they get their ideas. Who can we find to do this?
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were
incorporated into the teaching and learning.
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and highlight the
teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect,
to choose and to act. How did the students show their transfer of understanding?
Content standards addressed through this inquiry:
10. How will the language functions needed to
understand this unit be developed?
Language function:
Sentence frames:
Grammar/Syntax:
Phrasing:
Vocabulary:
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Language function:
Language function:
Sentence frames:
Sentence frames:
Grammar/Syntax:
Grammar/Syntax:
Phrasing:
Phrasing:
Vocabulary:
Vocabulary: