Early Planning

Wow! Do I ever feel overwhelmed! There is so much to think about with this unit that it feels like I don't even know where to begin. It seems like it has been a slow start, especially compared to my other classmates and what they have already posted on their wiki's. So far we have established that we will use the school district that Stacey works in for our demographics portion. This will be helpful since she is familiar with the school and students there. She also will have the other teachers there to gain insight on what the grade expectations are.

We are planning on focusing our unit on 8th grade language arts. The focus of our unit will be historical fiction. I have looked into the 8th grade level expectations and have found writing and reading expectations that we may want to focus on. The unit will be centered around one book with activities that will enhance their understanding of the time in history and their reading and writing abilities. The tasks surrounding the unit will be shared. We will both collaborate to create the lessons. With having the media specialist role, I will incorporate activities for students to be involved in at the library.

Some essential questions that I think should be asked are "How has history shaped our society today?" "What differences are there from the way people lived back then in comparison to present day?" "Are things better today or were they better back then?"

It feels as though this collaboration has been slow moving, but there are many factors that come into play. Busy schedules and finding time to fit everything in that needs to be done for starters. I find it is difficult to collaborate with someone when it is all done virtually. Especially for a collaboration such as this where in "real life" it would be done face to face. I feel that I am missing that aspect. I originally had a teacher that was willing help me who lived a few miles away, so that collaboration would have been much different than the one now. Hopefully we can get this project on its way!