This thematic unit worked wonderfully, as I was able to implement multifaceted ideas and skills into a curriculum plan that reflects my personal passions. The unit was held together by a focused guiding question that allowed students to keep their ideas, skills, and thoughts focused, all while developing Indigenous ways of knowing and being, as well as reflective and descriptive writing, reading and responding, and visual design and speaking skills. The inquiry model of the unit (being led by a guiding question) allowed for varied learners and personal applications. Students seemed to connect well with the unit texts and content by making personal connections, engaging eagerly in unit activities, and displaying wonderful celebrations of learning in their final unit presentations. Because they were developing multiple skills, students remained engaged during 3-hour lesson blocks and were able to develop these competencies over a broader period of time. My greatest joy in this unit was reading through students\u2019 final reflections on their relationship with nature: many students shared anecdotes, connections to place and identity, and showed off their descriptive writing skills. As a whole, the unit offered something beautiful and poignant for each learner in the class.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite the many things that worked pleasantly well, this curriculum plan came with its fair share of surprises. While my students engaged well with most of the texts in the unit, they did not connect with \u201cA Mountain Journey\u201d — the text was too lengthy without much time spent to make it a worthwhile read. In addition, the timing of the unit worked rather well, with most of the activities running according to schedule — yet several of the activities needed to be modified or even eliminated throughout the unit due to pandemic restrictions, availability of resources from the Indigenous support network at the school, and simple time restraints. Especially at the end of the unit, students needed more time to prepare for their performance tasks, and I needed to prioritize giving students adequate time to fulfill the expectations, receive feedback, and complete the performance assessments with their best effort.<\/span><\/p>\n This unit is absolutely one I would utilize again in an English 9 context. It offers many rich learning opportunities for students to practice various writing styles; under pandemic restrictions in the quarter system, the English 9 course needed to be shortened significantly. In the future, if the quarter system remains, this unit could easily incorporate some skills students developed in Unit 1 of the English 9 course (writing in different genres) — to save time, this unit could easily incorporate some of these skills.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Furthermore, while the unit connected deeply to students\u2019 sense of connection to the land, the potential for more meaningful Indigenous perspectives and content remains. I would like to explore more Indigenous-inspired poetry and further opportunities to open up the classroom for Truth-Telling by local Indigenous Elders. I strongly believe the unit, and students\u2019\u00a0 final presentations and reflection, would show an even greater depth in learning with these deepened perspectives.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, since this unit was originally taught during the winter months, it would benefit from more opportunities for students to explore the outdoors through place-based learning and writing activities which would show a more direct application to the content and ideas. I would certainly teach this unit again in the fourth quarter of the year, to take advantage of brighter, longer days and opportunities to go off-campus for a change of scenery and closer connection to nature. Some ideas for field trips would be to volunteer to extract blackberry bushed or pick up garbage in the local park (to connect to the environmental aspects of the course) or go for an easy hike as a class to use for descriptive or reflective writing exercises.<\/span><\/p>\n\n Treasures This thematic unit worked wonderfully, as I was able to implement multifaceted ideas and skills into a curriculum plan that reflects my personal passions. The unit was held together by a focused guiding question that allowed students to keep their ideas, skills, and thoughts focused, all while developing Indigenous ways of knowing and being, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-52","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wanderings<\/b><\/h3>\n
Future Directions<\/b><\/h3>\n