Sample Unit: Exploring Friendships (Grade 6)
Contexts: Personal and Social
Time Line: 5-6 weeks |
Objectives
The foundational objectives develop gradually and continuously throughout the Middle Level. The learning objectives identified below have been selected as the focus for this grade 6 sample unit.
Speaking
Students will extend their abilities to recognize that talk is an important tool for communicating, thinking, and learning.
- recognize that talk helps to clarify thinking
- use talk to share feelings and opinions.
Students will extend their abilities to practise the behaviours of effective speakers.
- share ideas and information in one-to-one and small group situations
- reflect on and assess own speaking experiences using such tools as teacher conferences and checklists.
Students will extend their abilities to speak fluently in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes and audiences.
- engage in conversation about topics of personal interest
- participate in dramatic speaking such as role plays and readers theatre
- participate effectively in group discussions.
Listening
Students will extend their abilities to recognize that listening is an active, constructive process.
- demonstrate willingness to be active listeners
- value listening as a means of learning and enjoyment.
Students will extend their abilities to practise the behaviours of effective, active listeners.
- listen attentively to the speaker(s) and show interest in what is said
- consider and respect ideas from the speaker's point of view
- reflect upon and assess their own listening strengths and needs using methods such as checklists and teacher conferences.
Students will extend their abilities to listen effectively in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes.
- listen to participate in discussions and to enjoy.
Writing
Students will extend their abilities to recognize that writing is a constructive and recursive process.
- recognize that writing is a process of constructing meaning.
Students will extend their abilities to practise the behaviours of effective writers.
- generate and explore ideas for writing using a variety of pre-writing techniques
- shape and develop pre-writing into a written draft by using formats appropriate to purpose and audience
- reflect upon own writing and revise for clarity of meaning and appropriate detail by adding, rearranging, or deleting ideas
- proofread and edit to ensure that word choices are vivid and that they accurately convey the intended meaning
- polish final drafts, when required, using pre-established criteria appropriate to chosen format.
Reading
Students will extend their abilities to recognize that reading is an active, constructive process.
- recognize that reading is an active process in which readers interact with text to construct meaning within the context of their own understanding and experiences.
Students will extend their abilities to practise the behaviours of effective, strategic readers.
- with prompting, draw on prior knowledge and experience when constructing meaning and responding to text
- select and use appropriate strategies for constructing meaning from text
- reflect on their personal and critical responses to what they read, and share their responses with others
- consider others' responses in reshaping and extending their own responses.
Students will extend their abilities to read fluently and confidently a variety of texts for a variety of purposes.
- respond to an increasing variety of prose (fiction and nonfiction), poetry, and drama
- use pre-reading, reading, and post-reading strategies, as directed, to gather information and understand ideas.
Integrated Language Study
Students will extend their abilities to:
- know that a simple sentence requires a subject and a predicate
- write simple sentences
- revise wordy sentences by editing out words and phrases that are unnecessary to the meaning of the sentence
- recognize and produce conventional spellings of common, familiar words.
Common Essential Learnings
Many of the objectives for English language arts also develop knowledge, skills, and processes related to the C.E.L.s of Communication, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Values and Skills, and Independent Learning. In addition, other C.E.L.s may be emphasized, depending upon the unit topic or theme. Objectives related to the C.E.L.s for this sample unit are stated below to provide direction for teachers. However, emphasis on particular C.E.L.s within a unit does not preclude the development of other C.E.L.s.
The following objectives related to the C.E.L.s were selected for this sample unit. The students will:
- use expressive language to develop an understanding of themselves and their relationships with others (C)
- ask pertinent questions in order to further their own understanding (C)
- explore thoughts underlying feelings and feelings underlying decisions and beliefs (CCT)
- examine the pressures placed upon friendships during adolescence, in relation to changing attitudes and feelings about sexuality and to intense peer group influences (PSVS)
- respond sensitively to the ideas, comments, and products of others (PSVS)
- develop a willingness to take risks as independent learners (IL).
Unit Focus and Direction
Friendship is an important part of adolescence. The self-concept of Middle Level students is often determined by their interactions with friends. Although friendships are not always easy to make and to maintain, they have the potential to enrich students' lives and enhance their social development. "The bond of friendship serves as a context for learning to identify with others and to see the world through their eyes, and also for self-exploration and personal growth" (Moss, 1994, p. 19).
Throughout this unit, students will have opportunities to explore friendship experiences of fictional or nonfictional characters and begin to develop a better understanding of their own relationships and interactions with friends.
Some questions that students may explore during this unit are:
- What is friendship?
- What are the qualities of a friend?
- What are the bases of friendships? (Students will likely begin with the ideas of common interests, nearness of place, belonging to the same culture, religion, club, etc. Try to elicit from students the idea that friendships frequently do cross or transcend ages, cultures, genders, abilities, and geographic location.)
- How do we demonstrate friendship? What do we do for and with a friend that we would not do for and with others? What sacrifices might we make for a friend?
- How and why do we choose the friends we choose? How are personal values reflected in one's choice of friends? Do we sometimes make mistakes in our choice of friends? How? Why? How does it feel to be excluded by others? How can we help someone who is excluded? Can we prevent people from being excluded? How?
- What might be some barriers to friendship? (Try to elicit from students the unfairness of choosing friends on the basis of physical appearance, race, etc.)
- What are some difficulties of making and keeping friends? How can conflicts between friends be resolved?
- Why do friendships break up and what are some problems when they end? Are there "right" and "wrong" reasons to end a friendship? What might some of these reasons be? How do we deal with the loss?
- How do different people deal with the death of a friend?
- What are some troubles friends get into together?
- How do families receive new friends? How might family members react to friends who might be "different" in some way? How can this be addressed?
- Can pets be friends?
- What purpose can imaginary friends serve?
- Can people of different ages and genders be friends? What difficulties might friends encounter, if they are of different ages and genders? How might they deal with these difficulties?
Throughout the unit, students will engage in the language processes of reading, writing, listening, and speaking in an integrated manner. It is important to provide for language study in the context of the language processes, whenever it is relevant and required. Some suggestions are made in the lesson plans; however, teachers will need to determine their students' needs and ability levels, to decide when and where to provide language study support.
Students will need:
- one three-ring binder with three dividers for mini-lesson information, individual vocabulary study, and individual spelling monitoring
- one bound notebook for Reader Response activities
- one writing folder and a portfolio.
Adaptive Dimension
The Adaptive Dimension empowers teachers to make adjustments in a variety of areas in order to meet individual student needs. Throughout this unit, teachers should make adjustments as required in learning environment, instruction, curriculum topics, resources, and assessment and evaluation. The duration of the adaptation may range from five minutes of individual assistance to whole class instruction over an extended time frame. See the introductory section of the curriculum guide for more information about the Adaptive Dimension.
Instructional Strategies
Throughout this unit teachers will use a variety of instructional strategies. Each lesson includes some methods from each of the following strategies: direct instruction, indirect instruction, independent study, and interactive instruction. Instructional Approaches: A Framework for Professional Practice (Saskatchewan Education, 1991) provides detailed information about each of these strategies and describes methods of instruction that fit into each strategy.
Assessment and Evaluation Strategies
This unit provides opportunities for the use of the following strategies:
self-assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment
observation checklists
anecdotal notes
writing portfolios
rating scales and rubrics
Reader Response Journals
individualized spelling and vocabulary records
oral presentations.
Teachers should monitor and record student progress by using a variety of assessment tools on a daily basis. Regularly collected data provides information upon which to base instructional decisions and student reports. Sample assessment tools are provided in this curriculum guide. These may be used as printed, or they may be adapted to accommodate observation of specific lesson objectives and student needs. Teachers should make students aware of the criteria for their assessment and evaluation early in the unit. Whenever possible and appropriate, students should be involved in establishing these criteria.
Resources
The bibliography lists resources that are suitable for this unit; however, teachers may find it necessary to select other resources that are more appropriate for their students' needs and interests. In addition, there may be resources that are already known by the teacher or that are more readily available at the time.
| Note: The bibliography that accompanies this guide will be updated regularly to include suitable new releases. Teachers are encouraged to select resources from the bibliography and from their own repertoire of literature, considering the needs and interests of their students. |
Teacher Preparation
- Select a wide variety of resources that are appropriate to the theme and organize these into a classroom collection for student and teacher use throughout the unit. As well as novels, include magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, and a range of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students may choose from these for independent reading. Mature-content picture books, and audio and video recordings can also be useful supplements to print media.
- Select five or six novels appropriate to the theme and at various reading levels (four or five copies of each, depending upon class size) for students' guided reading experiences. Consider selecting picture books which support the theme in order to address varied reading abilities. Choices may be made from the bibliography or from other available, appropriate resources.
- Determine how class times and procedures will be structured. Some considerations include the following: the structure and organization of the writing process; the time and organization for Reader Response, Literature Circles, and independent reading; the number of oracy activities and their structure; how language study will be integrated; expectations regarding Vocabulary Logs and personal spelling lists; and the assessment and evaluation of the unit. (Teachers may wish to determine some or all of the procedures in collaboration with students; however, it is useful to have considered the possibilities beforehand.)
- Prepare a unit overview handout for students (see the following page for an example).
- Prepare a Literature Circle folder for each Literature Circle group. The folder, to be kept in the classroom, should contain the following items:
- Literature Circle Information Sheet (one copy). This provides the group with information about the reading of the novel, and about group discussions and group roles.
- Individual Reading Schedule (one copy for each member of the group). This is an individual recordkeeping sheet for each student. It provides the teacher and student with information about the students' reading progress.
- Role Sheets for each of the following: Discussion Co-ordinator, Summarizer, Language Master, and Recorder. (Alternative roles may be chosen depending upon students' abilities and needs.)
See samples of the forms described above in the Reading section of this curriculum guide. Using different coloured paper for each folder item can make for easy reference when the teacher is explaining their uses.
Teacher as Reflective Practitioner
Observations made during daily classroom instruction and learning help teachers to question and reflect upon their practice. When teachers ask questions about such things as the effects of their instruction, student engagement in activities, and student progress, they find ways to improve their practice and make learning more rewarding for their students. Within each lesson that follows, one or two questions provide possibilities for teacher reflection; teachers may use these or ask their own questions, depending upon their purposes and needs. (Additional questions may be recorded in the spaces provided at the end of each lesson.) Often, teachers record their observations, questions, and reflection in journals or notebooks, as a means of maintaining continuous records of decisions that have helped shape their practice.
Activities in this Unit
The activities in this unit are designed to provide students with integrated experiences in writing, reading, speaking, and listening.
Speaking
Talking Circles
role play
Readers Theatre
discussion during Literature Circles, and peer and teacher writing conferences
Listening
during read-alouds, Talking Circles, Readers Theatre, role play, and telephone conversations
during Literature Circle discussions and writing conferences
Writing
paragraph
dialogue
Readers Theatre
letter
during Reader Response
Reading
teacher read-alouds
sustained silent reading of short selections and Literature Circle novel
independent reading selections
Viewing
bulletin board
picture books
Representing
bulletin board
thank you card
The suggested times for activities within each lesson are approximate and are intended only to serve as guidelines. Teachers may find it necessary to adjust these times according to their students' needs, interests, responses, and requirements.