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 Department
of Language EducationPracticum in Language X425/L525 Dr. Hope Elkins, Ph.D. |
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The purpose of this assignment is to give you experience in logically designing integrated curriculum, preparing adequate lesson plans, and choosing a variety of strategies we've learned in class. Though the assignment requires only five lesson plans, you can add lessons if desired. By keeping the unit in a ring binder, you can, if needed, take lesson plans out to use with other learners and in other units. To carry out the assignment: 1.Begin with one interesting topic, question, author, problem, book; some focussing element. You might wish to follow Short's suggestion of beginning with a broad concept and develop a focus from there. Be sure to develop the topic and question with your tutee. 2.Provide some background experiences for the student, and develop research questions about the topic with her. Choose five subject areas, i.e., math, science, social studies, art, language arts which are relevant to the question and of particular interest to the student. 3.Carefully describe how you will introduce the unit to provide background experiences and motivate the learner to become involved in the study. 4.Develop a lesson plan for each chosen subject area, tied to the focussed topic and with a strong language arts emphasis. Remember the unit should focus on reading, writing, speaking, and listening in every subject area. Carefully review the language strategies you've learned so far and integrate with the theme topic. For example, if your theme topic is based on how pond life effects the surrounding environment, and your student has trouble with vocabulary, look at the word identification strategies in McCormick. Module 9 includes a variety of strategies that help readers access text in the content areas. Search the literature for strategies that can be incorporated into each lesson to provide support for your learner's specific language needs. Where additional support is needed, describe in detail how you plan to give that support. We so often take reading for granted and don't realize that ESL students and struggling readers cannot always make the leaps required to research topics. Think about your learner and identify where she might have a problem. Include strategies to support her in mini-lessons. The mini-lessons can be placed in the lesson plan itself or put at the end of the lesson plan. Include all parts of the lesson plan (see Module 2 for lesson planning), and keep lessons separate so each can be taken out of the folder. I want to perfectly picture your lessons from the submitted plans; therefore, lesson plans cannot be too detailed. 5.Describe how you will conclude the unit to tie learnings together, allow the student to reflect and apply learnings, and to provide a means for her to organize and share what was learned. Again, be detailed.
Below are the specific parts of the unit. Place all parts in order in a ring binder. If you have questions about the assignment, contact me (hoelkins@indiana.edu). I will be more than happy to assist you in any way.
The finished unit should contain: 1.Title page. 2.Table of contents: List the major sections of the unit with page numbers. 3. Rationale: This part of the unit tells the advantages of doing theme studies and why you and your learner chose a particular topic or began with a particular book. A rationale is an argument justifying your curriculum. 4.Visual map: Make a drawing showing how you've connected the various parts of the unit. Be as creative as you like. 5.Listing of program goals and objectives for the unit: This is a listing of all goals and objectives in the individual lessons. The listing is included so at a future time you can quickly know unit goals without looking through all the lessons. 6.Introductory Activity: A detailed description of how you will introduce the unit (see above). 7.Five lesson plans: (See Lesson Planning in Module 2). 8. Concluding activity: (See above). 9. Evaluation: Make a checklist of how you will evaluate the unit. 10. References: List any published resources mentioned in the unit. Authontic literature used in lessons can be listed by title and author under "Resources" in the lesson plans. Other readings, i.e., resource articles or books used in planning the unit, should be listed in the references. 11. Appendices: Some people wish to put ideas for lessons or support materials at the end of the unit for easy access. These can go in the appendices. Note: Put each part of the unit on a separate page. In this way you can easily remove parts if needed.
Comments: disted@indiana.edu Copyright 1998, The Trustees of Indiana University
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