Hey language educators !  I have been crazy busy and haven’t had a chance to continue with my series on thematic unit planning.  I’m going to try to be better so you all can plan a complete unit before May!  On y va…

You have determined your theme and written an essential question.  It’s time to move onto Step 3: Determining Unit Goals.

From here on out, I suggest using the Unit Template from “The Keys to Planning for Learning” from Donna Clementi and Laura Terrill as you plan your unit.  You can access a blank copy here. It does a great job of leading you through all the planning steps.  I realize some of you must submit a school/district approved unit plan, but I still advise you use this one for your initial planning.  I come back to this document over and over again throughout the teaching of the unit.  It keeps me on track and directs which steps to take next when lesson planning.

With our planning so far, you should be able to fill in the very top of the document.  Here is my sample for the unit I have been planning on city life:

OK- Back to Unit Goals:  Remember that the unit goals should indicate what the students will be able to DO at the end of the unit using the three modes of communication: Interpretive, Presentational and Interpersonal.  They do not address vocabulary or structures; they “create a context for purposeful communication” (Clementi and Terrill, 2017) . Unit goals should be tied to the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages.  The Goal Areas encompass the 5C’s: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons and Communities.  A summary of the goals can be found here; the entirety of the goals can be purchased on the ACTFL website.

A little bit of “real teacher talk here”:  I have to be honest, when I heard “standards”, my eyes used to glaze over. Blah-Blah-Unpack Standards- more Blah-Blah.  Standards to me were just a few numbers (from the Illinois State Standards that are horrible) that I had to put on my lesson plans.  They never served as a guide to me.  Then I was introduced to the  World Readiness Standards.  They are awesome!  In the past, I planned for Communication and maybe in passing, mentioned some Culture.  The Connections, Comparisons and Communities were almost non-existent in my lessons.  This was the richness I was missing in my classroom.  The C’s work beautifully together to prepare students to be globally competent citizens- all the while using the target language.  Teacher-to-teacher advice: give them a try.

While crafting my unit goals, I also try to keep Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind.  I want to make sure that I am hitting all levels of learning and not just the basics.  This is especially important in the novice levels.  Novice learners CAN do higher order skills- and do them in the TL!  Here is a quick review of Bloom’s hierarchy.

Here are my unit goals for my city unit:

Learners will be able to: recognize places that are found in their city (Remembering) talk about places they go their city (Understanding) recognize places that are found in other world cities (Remembering) talk about places that others go in world cities (Applying) talk about similarities and differences in their city and other world cities (Understanding) explain why people go to places in cities (Analyzing) rate the importance of places in a city (Evaluating) design their own ideal city (Creating) explain in writing why they included what they did in their ideal city (Evaluating)

Next, I’ll show you how I used these unit goals to create the unit IPAs.