Concept Based Unit Plan

The Power of Words -- Identifying Audience

Day 4 of 9, Week 2 of 3
Plan Type: Full Detail
Content Requirement Satisfied: Reading Experience, Writing Instruction (Capitalization)

Essential Question:
1. Who is my audience?
2. How can words be powerful?
4. How can words energize their audience?

Objectives:
SWBAT
1. Understand that words are a powerful tool because of how they affect an audience.
(Cognitive)
C. Words can be powerful by energizing their audience.
D. Energizing words use images to lift up their audience.

2. Value bravery, kindness, and respect.

A. Be brave by writing down their ideas and expressing themselves.

3. Write and reflect on the power of their words to influence a specific audience.
A. Identify the intended audience of a written work.
C. Create an illustration based on an energizing image.

SOLs:
7.1 The student will participate in and contribute to conversations, group discussions, and oral
presentations.
d) Use language and style appropriate to audience, topic, and purpose.
7.3 The student will understand the elements of media literacy.
e) Craft and publish audience-specific media messages.
CCSS:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.6
Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English
when indicated or appropriate. (See grade 7 Language standards 1 and 3 here for specific
expectations.)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.4
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are
appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Assessments:
Formative:
- Illustrations with explanation
- The students will choose a piece of text that they find inspiring and illustrate it in
the same way that they illustrated the stanza of Maya Angelous poem. This
illustration will be included in their final portfolio. They will also write a very short
explanation that tells me who their audience is and how their image represents
the energizing power of the passage that they choose.

Diagnostic:
- Capitalization Do-Now.
- This is a short do now meant to get the students thinking about capitalization. It
will also show me what the students do and do not know about capitalization.
Feedback will be given in class when I go through the do-now with them. This will
also act as a journal entry because the students will be answering the prompts.

Material Needed
- Copies of the capitalization do now for every student
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1POWW1m62jQH6XVbrxZcBVBKHjvKlcIrwzhRm6
T6_Kbc/edit?usp=sharing)
- Google Document Handout for explanation
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pp4oA8_YgfZ6FP4YJAr7iIbuLZrp4nFUzVupLZsL
4CY/edit?usp=sharing
- Copies of the students illustrations from the previous day.
- Laptops for every student
- Projector and screen
- Other collage materials: printer paper, magazines, glue, scissors, markers, etc.
- Something for students to write with (pen/pencil)
- Internet access.
Technology Usage
- The students will have the option of using Google Drawings to create their illustration of
their stanza. This is not mandatory, but it will allow some students to learn how to
operate the software and begin to learn how to create and edit images on a computer,
which is very much a 21st century skill.

- I will also use Google Slides to help record the students ideas in a place where they can
see them. These slides will later be uploaded to the class website.

Differentiation
Mercedes has been having trouble in the past few classes. Her reading level is so low that she
had a lot of trouble with Maya Angelou poem. I believe that both her and Gabriela will benefit
from this lesson because it gives them a choice in what text they want to draw from, including
some of their favorite songs.

Procedures
Beginning Room Arrangement: The desks are arranged into five tables of four desks apiece.
There are also soft reading spaces, such as the beanbag corner and two different couches, and
a kidney shaped conference table in the back of the room. When the students enter they know
to pick up handouts by the door, leave their bookbags and class materials at their homebase
seats, and sit anywhere they find comfortable and productive and read their independent book
for the fifteen minute reading caf. However, there is no reading caf today so I would instruct
them to make their way to their home base seats at the door.

Greet Students (5) [20]

Okay team! Lets find our way back to our homebase seats.
The students would close their books and return to their homebase seats.

Capitalization Do Now (15) [20]

- We arent going to have reading caf again today, but I promise that were going to have
it tomorrow.
 - Now, when you came in you should have picked up this (said holding up the
capitalization do now handout) handout.
- Please take six minutes and fill it out. The instructions are in italics at the top.
- I would then take attendance before circulating the room to check in with students.
- After six minutes had passed and all of the students had finished the do now I would go
through it with them.
- As Ive been reading the work that you guys have produced Ive noticed theres been
some confusion about when to and when not to capitalize letters. Lets go ahead and go
through that now.
- As I go through it I would point out the patterns in capitalization by asking the students to
volunteer their answers and responding to them. The key patterns that I want to highlight
are that the first letter in each sentence is capitalized and names and acronyms are
capitalized.
- When I was done going through the do now I would collect them so that I could see what
the students had written in response to the questions.

Recap of Yesterdays Discussion (15) [35]

- After the do now I would transition into the recap of yesterdays discussion.
- This discussion would be partially dependent on what we had gotten to the previous day.
But I do want the students to understand the following:
- When I went home yesterday I was looking at your illustrations and I noticed that
a lot of the images are very similar to the ones we used when we made our
inspiring images. The truth is that text that energizes us tends to be very closely
related to texts and images that inspire us.
- Today we are going to be making some more illustrations, but this time you guys are
going to get to choose which text you want to use. I want you to think about something
that energizes you. I choose the poem Still I Rise because thats what gives me
energy, but you might think of a song that you really like, or a speech from a movie.
Once youve thought of something that gives you energy I want you to take a small part
of it, about the same size as one of the stanzas we worked on, and make an illustration
of it the same way we did yesterday. With one big exception: we will be making these
illustrations independently.
- Do you guys have any questions?
- I would give a good amount of wait time and answer any questions that the students
have for me.
- When the students are done asking their questions than I would have them get started
on making their illustrations.
Workshop: Illustration (15) [50]
- The students would have fifteen minutes to work on their illustrations. I would be
circulating to conference and answer questions.

Workshop: Explanation (15) [65]

- After the students have worked on their illustrations for about fifteen minutes I would stop
them, regardless of whether or not they were finished. This is with the promise that they
will have more time to work on it before they turn in the final.
- At this point I would quickly go through my expectations for the explanation writing with
the students.
- I would model the process of going to our class website and opening the explanation
digital handout and making a copy of it to their own drive and sharing it with me.
- Once the students had done that than I would walk them through writing an explanation.
- I expect for the students to give me a copy of the text that they chose and explain to me
why they choose this text by telling me what makes it energizing.
- I would give the students as much time as possible for them to write their explanations
while still giving us twenty minutes for classroom meeting.

Classroom Meeting (20) [85]

- When there are twenty minutes left in class I will have the students move the desks into
a classroom meeting circle.
- The content of this classroom meeting is largely dependent on how the previous lessons
have gone but the structure remains the same regardless.
- The classroom meeting will start with a greeting where the students go around the circle
say hi to the people on either side of them and shake hands. Only one student should be
speaking at a time during this greeting.
- Following the greeting the students will answer a question (the content of which is
dependent on their current affective skills and how the past few lessons have gone).
- The students will have the option to pass on the question and I will come back to them.
- After the discussion we will play a game until a few minutes before dismissal.
- Before I dismiss the students I will have them put the chairs and desks back into their
original positions.