Concept Unit Day Seven

Context:
English 9
Ninth Grade
90 minutes
Lesson Plan Type: Summary
Objective
UNDERSTAND
2. Reading and writing are
active processes of meaningmaking.
COGNITIVE
A. All powerful writing is
somehow in dialogue with an
idea, a person or group of
people, or a culture, a
society, a human construct
or a phenomenon (like
death, friendship, etc.)
B. How to incorporate
greater meaning into their
writing through framing.
AFFECTIVE
5. Recognize the value of
peer input/feedback to
develop their skills.
PERFORMATIVE
C. Compose writing that is in
dialogue with a greater idea,
people, or culture.

UNDERSTAND
4. Thinking about thinking
helps us to grow.
COGNITIVE
D. Reflecting on our process
helps us to develop our skills
and be alert for areas of
possible improvement.

SOL
9.6 The
student
will
develop
narrative
,
exposito
ry, and
persuasi
ve
writings
for a
variety
of
audience
s and
purposes
.
b) Plan
and
organize
writing
to
address
a
specific
audience
and
purpose.
9.6 The
student
will
develop
narrative
,
exposito
ry, and

Assessment
DIAGNOSTIC
Students will demonstrate
prior knowledge about how to
make writing more in contact
with some greater idea
through our discussion of the
film and our journal entry. (2,
A, B, C)
FORMATIVE
Students will demonstrate
progress towards building
meaning in their pieces during
independent practice, when
they will try to infuse their
writing with more direct
connections. (2, A, B, C)
SUMMATIVE
Students will demonstrate
attainment of our goals
through their final drafts of
their personal pieces. (2, A, B,
C)

DIAGNOSTIC
Students will show what they
know about metacognition
during our first quick share
before our discussion with the
rubric. This will involve getting
a pulse for the room rather
than every individual student.

E. How to compose a
metacognitive reflection.
AFFECTIVE
6. Value their growth in
writing and reading.
PERFORMATIVE
F. Compose a metacognitive
reflection.

persuasi
ve
writings
for a
variety
of
audience
s and
purposes
.
b) Plan
and
organize
writing
to
address
a
specific
audience
and
purpose.

(4, D, E, F)
FORMATIVE
Students will demonstrate
their growing understanding of
metacognition and the
composition of the reflection
during our whole-class study of
the rubric. (4, D, E, F)
SUMMATIVE
Students will demonstrate
mastery of the metacognitive
reflection with their final
reflection. (4, D, E, F)

Agenda:
1. Do-Now (How do the students in the film use their writing to form
a dialogue? Given an example of a characters struggle to address
an issue in his or her life through their writing.)
2. Movie Debrief: What can we learn from the films writers about
using our writing to reach out to greater ideas? How can we
incorporate that into our writing?
3. Workshop!
a. Model Framing
b. Independent Practice
c. Peer Feedback
4. Mini-Lesson: Final Reflection
a. Go over rubric in detail
b. Independent Work
Homework: Draft for reading!
Beginning Room Arrangement:
Desks will be clustered in groups of four (Workshop Layout).
Instructional Steps:
1. Do-Now [5 min]
As always, I will greet my students at the door. As I greet them I will
ask them to get out their journals, their typewritten draft of their
personal piece, and their notes from their reading guide before

beginning our do-now. The board will read How do the students in
the film use their writing to form a dialogue with big ideas? Give an
example of a character that struggles to address an issue in his or her
life through their writing.
2. Movie Debrief [15 min for discussion, 5 min for writing]
During this time I will [briefly] as them how the drafting process is
going for them and what kinds of struggles they are encountering
before moving on to conversation about the previous class viewing of
the film. During this second section we will address the following
questions:

What kinds of subjects do the students in the film tackle with

their writing? What do you think makes them choose these
topics as opposed to others?
How do their works form a dialogue between their personal
experience and the joint experience? That is to say, how do the
pieces reflect the big ideas or struggles that they treat?
How is revision a part of the writing process for these students?
How is it different from our own revision and drafting?
What kinds of things do their pieces incorporate that make them
somehow powerful?
The film is titled Louder Than A Bomb. How are the pieces
that the students are writing seeking to be louder than a bomb?
How could we do something similar?

Once we have discussed this aspect of the film, I will turn our
attention to our own writing. I will ask students to consider (in a short
reflective entry) what makes their personal piece loud for them, and
in how it could be made to be louder. The guiding question should
be how do we make our writing louder?
3. Workshop!
a. Modeling: Loudness [10 min]
In order to illustrate creating this loud quality in writing, I will
return to my example from previous classes and think aloud what my
big idea is and how I got there. I will then demonstrate how I can
frame my text around this big idea by introducing it at the beginning,
mentioning different aspects in key moments, and wrapping it up at
the end, much like we do in journal entries. Once Im finished, I will
step back and ask students how this has changed the writing, and
whether they feel it has a greater impact now than it did before.
b. Finding Meaning [20 min]

During this time, students will be asked to take their reflection and
make changes to their drafts based on their thinking and the framing
strategy. This new draft should have a clearly defined purpose and a
big idea that it somehow dialogues with. Once both of these are clear,
students should focus on framing their texts with this big idea and
recreating it in this image. These directions will be provided on a
PowerPoint slide for clarity. (For example, a story about the loss of a
pet could deal with mortality, or friendship, or absence.) Because this
is a complex task, I will be available for conferences to help students
who need it.
c. Peer Feedback [5 min]
After thanking them for their hard work, I will ask students to give
their piece to someone in their group for reading. The challenge will
be for this person to be able to articulate what big idea the piece
dialogues with and to describe, in twenty words or less, the
relationship between the piece and this big idea. Students will not be
allowed to help each other with this process. Once students are done,
they should give the paper back; if your peer didnt get it right, think
about why they might have gotten there and make the necessary
changes!
5. Mini-Lesson: Final Reflection [5 min]
After thanking students for their work and reminding that their final
drafts are due next class, I will ask students to put away their work as
I hand out copies of the rubric for our final reflection. I will ask
students to read this by themselves while I write a word on the board:
METACOGNITION. After a couple of minutes of reading, I will ask
students to tell me what they know about metacognition. If no
students have any thoughts, I will ask students to break this word
down with me into two parts: meta, which refers to self-aware, and
cognition, which refers to thinking. I will ask students how often they
think about their journeys, reflect on how theyve grown or what
things have helped them to grow. I will take volunteers, but make sure
to take a pulse of the whole room about experiences and possible
benefits to metacognitive thinking.
a. Go over rubric in detail [14 min]
At this point I will introduce the assignment of the final reflection. I
will explain how our previous reflections in our journals have
prepared us for thinking about our growth during this unit and how
this assignment is geared towards getting us to think more deeply
about what helped us learn, what exactly we learned and how I as
their teacher can better support them in future endeavors. We will go
over every category that will be graded and the various areas of
possible accomplishment so that students will know how they will be

assessed, what is expected, and how they can best reach this mark.
This section is intended to be a conversation, where students can ask
questions and receive answers and examples. For instance:
Student: So how would I fulfill the metacognitive component?
Teacher: Well, lets think together: if metacognition is thinking
about thinking, then you could show me by offering me
examples of the kinds of thinking youve done over this unit and
how you feel about this thinking. So for instance I could share
that watching you guys tell me about your writing in your
conferences has made me think about how hard it can be to
draft and so Ive learned that its important to give you more
opportunities to check in and more times in class for you to get
supportfrom me, and from your peers. Does that help?
Student: So what could I say?
Teacher: Well, tell me one example of something you learned!
Student: Funneling our thoughts is hard.
Teacher: Absolutely. So if funneling our thoughts it hard, what
can we do about that?
Student: I dont know. But it was so hard, and it helped to have
other people help to get it smaller.
Teacher: Okay, so how about this: you could tell me that
funneling our thoughts is hard, like you just said, and that you
learned that having help can be helpful, so maybe next time you
need to funnel your thoughts you might want to reach out to a
friend?
Student: Justthat?
Teacher: Yeah! Because that shows me that you thought about
something, and then some thoughts on those thoughts. Does
that make sense?
b. Homework
When one minute of class remains, I will remind students to work on
their drafts for homework. I will also ask them to write a journal entry
about metacognitive thinking: what are their thoughts about this unit?
What have they learned?
Materials:
Projector (for rubric of Final Reflection)
Final Reflection rubric handouts
ELMO camera for modeling
Student journals
Accommodations:

I want to make sure to touch base with Rebecca as shes leaving the
room and ask her if she understands everything in the reflection and
let her know Id be happy to read a draft if shed like me to, to help
guide her as shes writing.