Capstone
I taught my capstone in a 9th grade English classroom at a large suburban high school where half of my students were ELLs. I created and implemented a two-day (block scheduling) unit based on the book Unwind by Neal Shusterman.
Highlights:
- Students did a vocabulary pre-test using Socrative.
- I used articles from Newsela in order to allow students to read the same article but at the appropriate reading levels for each student. This also helped to connect the book to the real world.
- I successfully had students highly engaged in a discussion using a talking object.
- Students presented a persuasive speech using Mac technology and playing the role of a character from the book.
For more details, including how I planned this unit using Understanding by Design, click the links below!
Google Slides Presentation (details vocabulary strategy, discussion rules, performance task, and gives a good overview of the lesson in general)
Character Profiles (prompted students’ memory of each character’s background)
Graphic Organizer (for the leveled newsela articles students read in groups)
Rubric (for students’ performance task)
*UbD = Understanding by Design
