A sense of accomplishment is a wonderful feeling and I felt this way when I turned in my final project for my class. My project was to create a learner driven unit. I am pretty proud of myself now. However, when I actually use this unit with my American Literature class, I am sure I will see many places for improvements. It really amazed me how much I questioned and revisited this project.
The process of building this unit began with looking at my curriculum and finding a place to use an inquiry based unit. In an English class, I felt an inquiry would be the best way for me to begin my journey into this method of teaching. During second semester, I knew I would be covering Edgar Allen Poe. Poe is an American classic but he is not my favorite. I have been concerned that I often don’t do justice to this author because it is hard for me to get really excited about the material. I may have just angered a great number of people. He just scares me and I don’t like to be scared. Now that I had my starting place, I needed to look at other inquiry based English units that had already been created. The Buck Institute for Education was my first source. BIE is the gold standard in learner driven teaching. This site had many examples and I quickly started to form my driving statement the students would be required to prove or disprove. My instructor, Mr. Brian Anton, explained he had more success with statements rather than questions. My statement is, “Edgar Allen Poe was an American author from the 1800’s, who is credited with inventing the modern day detective story and the science fiction genre. Even with Poe’s modern popularity, many authors and critics since his death have questioned the quality of his work. Prove or disprove whether Poe’s writing should be classified as high quality and the impact it has on today’s authors.” My students will begin the process by defining what they believe is high quality writing. Then they will read and research Poe’s works, both short stories and poems. They will then go before a panel of college English teachers and journalists from our community and present their findings on the statement. They will be expected to defend their answer. I am excited to teach Poe this year. My hope is this inquiry driven unit will encourage more of my students to really demonstrate their full potential when they have an authentic audience. I am still having a few problem with the rubric for this unit. It has been the difficult part for me to complete. I have read the examples used on the BIE and I just worried that it is not what I really want to use. My plan is to continue to work on it and seek advice from other who have done this instructional method. This spring I have to be flexible and willing to change if things are not going as planned. This first full unit will be a learning experience for me! Work Cited "Resources ." Resources | Project Based Learning | BIE. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
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AuthorMy name is Lisa and I teach English Language Arts at Forsyth, MO. Archives
May 2017
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