Small group unit analysis

Deciding what to do for my small group reading unit wasn’t too difficult. In my CT’s 9^th grade Pre-AP class the girls are working on lit circles. It’s working so well I decided I would take it on as my own small group up unit.  Lit circles are something I am fairly familiar with and I think it works well with students with different abilities and personalities. It surprised me how much work wen into it although I used the same outline as my teacher. I wanted to make it more my own while still using the books she used for the unit. It is about creating awareness of social injustices in Asia, something I feel very passionate about. I think becoming more familiar with other cultures fosters an understanding for others who may be different from you, whether they live on the other side of the world or just down the street. By having the girls focus for a six weeks on learning about a culture so starkly different from their own the students can find a desire to explore other cultures more whether through traveling, reading, and eating!

 I liked the books my CT chose and I did try to exchange some of them for others but none of them seemed really suitable. For example, I would love to include Thailand Cambodia Laos or Vietnam as one of the countries we studied but I was at a loss for any worthwhile books that were accessible for my students to read. I also adjusted the end of the unit assessment to be a group presentation and short essay. My CT is making this project more extensive by making it a research proposal in conjunction with the 9^th grade social studies teacher but I am preparing my unit in terms of being isolated in my class separately. I like the idea of the group presentation so that all of the students can learn about each other’s countries and the injustices that people face there or have faced in the past. By looking at current problems and problems that have been eradicated I think it can make the students feel empowered. They can see that it is possible for things like the maltreatment of women to improve like in the case of foot binding. This is why I decided to let the students choose to focus on a current social issue or one that was prevalent in the past. Studying ones that have been eradicated can give hope and direction in ways to fix the current ills in society.

I think my tweaks I made to this unit would work well in this classroom. They girls are ultra-motivated and they all seemed to enjoy their books, although some said, “It was good for a book I had to read!” The books were different levels with some being rather difficult and some on the easier side. It was a good variety for the different strengths of students in the class. All in all I think I made a good unit. I’ve given it some thought and I think it can also lead into a whole group text reading Half the Sky, which is what I am considering preparing for my whole group text unit for class. The only thing I’m worried about is students needing more time to make the presentation and write their essays. I think with this particular group, it is plenty of time and they do not need too too much scaffolding. If anything, they would only need another day or two but I think that giving them time in class to research and giving them the guidelines early it would be reasonable for them to have their presentations prepared in the timeline I’ve given.