Our developing unit

The main goal of our lesson plan is to start familiarizing students with academic writing. They will learn pre-reading strategies and note taking skills which will later help them generate ideas for their papers. Unit one will cover the notion of audience and the basic components of the standard academic essay. Unit two will involve more student generated content and peer feedback. Here they will fine tune and solidify their understanding of the essay components such as the thesis and supporting paragraphs. Unit three will continue focusing on peer reviews while bringing in outside research. Students will learn and practice how to incorporate other ideas into their writing. Students will be expected to continue revising and proofreading their work on their own or with classmates. Unit three and later unit four will also attempt to teach students how to evaluate their sources and selecting texts for their assignments. The final unit will wrap things up with self-reflection.

The reading/writing skills are meant to start relatively light with a larger focus on content generation then develop to include deeper analysis and critical thinking. For example, students start out with strategies that will help them look for and retain the key ideas from their readings. Ideally, students will not only be able to then retain and paraphrase the ideas, but also analyze and compare such thoughts with other readings from their outside research.

The paper assignments range from simple narratives to more complex position papers where they must support their argument with logical and textual evidence.