Learner Description: Heterogeneously-grouped six-, seven-, and eight-year old students from five classrooms whose reading levels range from pre-emergent to fifth grade. The five classrooms include three multi-age classes of first and second graders, one first grade class, and one second grade class. This group has students who see resource teachers for: ESL, Title One, LD, Social Work, and Speech/Language. In addition to English, seven other languages are the primary language spoken at home.

Overview: This is a self-guided literature study. The children will meet in groups weekly at the beginning of the year to discuss books and authors they have been reading. Groups will begin to form and reform to find a heterogeneous group that can successfully work together. Later, students in the same group will decide on an author, series, or genre that they are interested in pursuing. Students will develop and make a presentation to their peers in other classes, and possibly parents, PTO, entire school, or community in the format of a Literacy Fair.

What will be taught: reading skills, genres, author awareness, researching on the internet, email, letter writing, similarities and differences, comparing and contrasting

How it will be taught: In large and small groups.

What will the students do and learn: Students will choose an author, series or genre of books to read. Students will create a presentation to share the author, series or genre with other students. Presentations may be puppet shows, slide shows, web pages, plays, posters, written reports, videos, scrapbooks, photo albums, etc...

Rationale:

Why would you teach this unit?

To promote an awareness of many books and authors and begin to identify similarities and differences in books written by the same author as well as in books written by different authors.

Why would this this qualify as an Engaged Learning unit?

Students will collaborate to choose authors or genres, research about their selection, decide how they want to present their information and who will be their audience. Rubrics will be student-generated and will assess content, cooperative group work, and presentation skills. The teacher will act as a learner in addition to being a facilitator by modeling, mediating, encouraging, and explaining when needed.

How is technology going to be incorporated into the unit?

Technology will be used in many ways: Possibilities include: internet, email, videos, CD-ROMs, books on tape, video cameras, digital cameras, word processing, KidPix, etc...

Why is this project authentic/meaningful , and challenging for students?

The students will be exploring their own interests in literature, and the authors that they find appealing. The chosen books are found in their environment (home,classrooms, school library, public library). Students are intrinsically motivated to read several books by one author and make connections between the books. While questioning and qualifying their findings, they are improving their literacy skills through speaking, reading, listening and writing.

Goals-Content, Cognitive and Social:

Literacy Standards

District 23 and Illinois

Goal 1 - Read with Understanding and Fluency

The students will recognize similarities and differences in authors' literary works.

The students will read a wide assortment of reading materials for enjoyment and information.

The students will answer comprehension questions about stories they have read.

The students will summarize information from a story.

Goal 2 - Read and Understand Literature Representative of Various Societies, Eras, and Ideas

The students will identify setting, characters, plots, theme, and resolution in a story written by their chosen author.

Goal 3 - Writing Skills

The students will write in complete sentences for their final project.

The students will capitalize the first word of sentences, names, and the pronoun "I".

The students will use appropriate punctuation at the end of sentences.

Goal 4 - Listen and Speak Effectively in a Variety of Situations

The students will listen attentively while others speak.

The students will express their thoughts clearly.

The students will participate in group discussions.

The students will present their ideas orally to during the Literature Fair.

Goal 5 - Study Skills

The students will select appropriate books from libraries, home, or classroom.

The students will use their Quick Word Books to edit their final presentation.

The students will locate parts of a book (table of contents, index, etc.)

Learning Activities:

Literature Circles--grouping children from different classes to talk about the books

Author visit--Bernard Waber visited the school.

Book Talks--children advertised favorite stories (told author, illustrator, why they liked the book and why others should read it)

Book Sort--children organized many books into categories like, topic (animals, nature, people) or authors

Brainstorm Authors--children thought of authors they might like to learn about

Reading--children read books by authors on the list

Book Posters--convincing others to read a book they've read

Book Predictions--children made predictions about what book will be about by looking only at the cover

Author Selection--children chose authors by interest (this changed as children learned what information was available)

Research--internet, book jackets, videos, live author, All About Authors reference books, autobiographies, book club promotion information

Presentation Planning--presentations include: Kid Pix slide show, newscasts, plays, puppet shows, posters, Reading Rainbow reenactments, portfolio, big book \based on author's style, newspapers, magazine ads

Public Presentation--Literacy Fair for entire school, presenting to School Board, sharing with other classes in the school

Student Assessment:

What are my scoring characteristics?

Students are scored on the quality and quantity of information gained and on the presentation given as required by the rubric

What will indicate that students are novices, practitioners, or experts?

Student-created rubric and presentation

How will I measure and communicate student progress on the goals?

Students will evaluate their participation in reading, researching and preparing the presentation by completing three separate self and peer evaluation sheets. Communication between teacher and students will be ongoing throughout the unit. Teachers will regularly conference with groups to assess progress and set goals.

How can students be involved in establishing goals and criteria for the assessment? Students will create a rubric and brainstorm ways to share their learning. How will the assessments be implemented to ensure that they are:

1. Generative? Rubric

2. Seamless and ongoing? Periodic progress conferences and goal-setting

3. Equitable for all students? All students create and are aware of expectations from beginning and can evaluate performance and content against them. Students are given the choice of authors which enables them to find an author who they are familiar with and able to read. The choice of presentation format also allows students to work within a format their are most comfortable and able.

4. An authentic task? By participating in the literacy fair, students are required to obtain the necessary knowledge and prepare a presentation to impart that knowledge to other students, teachers and families.

How will students demonstrate their knowledge and skills? Students will create a presentation to "sell their author" to their peers. Presentations may include, newspapers, books, slide shows, videos, newscasts, puppet shows, etc.

Resources:

Children will need as many books as possible by their chosen author. These books can be from the classroom library, the school library, the public library, their personal book collection or borrowed from other teachers or friends.

Children will need access to information about their chosen authors. They may find this information in a variety of places. Resources could include : books by the author (on the book jacket or last page), the internet , autobiography or biography books or articles, reference books, videos, e-mailing or writing to the author or publishing company, and newspaper articles.

Depending on their chosen presentation format, children will need some of the following technological resources: word processing application, Kid Pix (drawing and slideshow), Superprint, scanner, internet , tape recorder, large screen monitor, disks and video camera.

Again, based on their presentation format, children may need some of the following art materials: poster board, tag board, construction paper, markers, crayons, paint, colored pencils, craft sticks, yarn, glue, large box (for puppet theater) and writing paper.

Management:

How will you manage student work individually and in groups?

-Groups will use progress reports

-Teacher will act as a facilitator to make sure that each individual is engaged in project

How will room(s) be arranged?

-Each group will have its own work space in class (tables,floor,hallways) as well as storage area in their own class

-Students using the computer/monitor will need to have access to electricity when they are working

-For presentations they will be in the hallways at Ross School and for Board Meeting in the Sullivan Library

Where will equipment/materials be located?

-In classrooms, library at Ross

Where will students need to work and how can they be accommodated?

-They will work in their classrooms, library and hallways at Ross

-Students will have free use of and access to all classroom and library materials (including other TIP classrooms)

-School library is set up for flexible access with help for internet searches, books, etc....

-Parents will also be helping in some classrooms

How will students with special needs be helped?

-Since some of the classrooms are multi-age and the other 2 are each a first and second class, students are already supporting each other and working in groups with children of many varied abilities

-Co-teaching with peers

-As teachers we are used to accommodating expectations and individual learner

Unit Evaluation:

What will I need to do, be aware of, and/or gather while teaching the unit in order to answer these questions:

What was effective?

The children made many connections including: authors are real people with real lives, there are similarities between books by the same author, authors include aspects of their own lives in the books they write, how their childhood experiences affected the stories they write now, how reading and writing are inter-related, etc.

The children have enhanced their social skills because they were required to work within their group--they learned compromise, responsibility,

Because the "product" is in presentation form, the children are gaining important public-speaking experiences.

The children have developed a new love and respect of literature and the authors that create it. Many of them have voluntarily given up their own recess times to come in and learn more and brought in work/research completed at home. That's the sign of active learning!

We had at least four computers in each classroom which made the project flow much more easily than if we had only one.

What wasn't effective?/What will I do differently next time?

Each group needs a leader! We would have allowed more time to complete the project. (Three weeks--at least an hour each day--is enough time.) We still would like more computers!