Question 2

Question 2:

With the particular novel I brought in as my sample, I did take a well-rounded approach to developing the curriculum. Speak is a YA novel that is about a young girl who gets raped at a party over the summer. As a result of the rape and the sequence of events following it, Melinda becomes ostracized and loses her ability to communicate. In the case of this novel, my main goal was to educate the students about the difficult topics in the novel that my students will more than likely be affected by over the course of their lives. To do this, I reach out to the community and bring in several speakers, such as a representative of the Women’s Crisis Center, the police department, and/or a psychologist. I also have the skills and ideas that the students need to learn over the course of the unit, such as themes, compare and contrast, writing skills critical thinking etc. I incorporate these into my lessons. For instance, while reading an excerpt of Maya Angelou’s, I review literary devices and do an oral quiz as well as practice comparing and contrasting and writing. I take the learners into account and keep an eye on them to see how they are handling the work load and how their skills are progressing as well as their reactions to the content matter being covered. I make the work challenging but attainable and then give them opportunities to do activities that trigger the multiple intelligences. The assessments in this unit are very formative. I ask them to utilize information to make something new and think about a variety of topics and present their thoughts in writing, speech and artwork. I don’t give a typical pen and paper test on this unit at all. However, I must admit that not all my units are as well-rounded as this one.