Understanding By Design Unit Template

Title of Unit
Curriculum Area

Power of Story
English Language Arts

Grade Level
Time Frame

12th grade
90 minutes Lesson #: 8 of 15

Identify Desired Results (Stage 1)

Content Standards
Production and Distribution of Writing
5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing
on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience
6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response
to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
Text Types and Purposes
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and
well-structured event sequences.

Understandings
Overarching Understanding
How are you?

Students will self-edit the working draft they have for the
narrative essay assignment. Students will then be divided
into small groups so they can utilize the time to peer review
each others narrative essays.

Related Misconceptions

A common misconception with peer reviewing is that it can

be useless. Some people often think the only response to
give/get is good job! I want my students to understand
that peer workshop is a place to improve upon the work that
youve already created. It can be a very positive usage of
class time.

Essential Questions
Overarching
How are you?

Topical
What is a way to offer helpful
feedback to your peers?

Knowledge

Skills

Students will know

Students will be able to

How to give constructive feedback to their peers.

How to accept constructive feedback from their peers.
Students will know what is important to look for when revising a
narrative essay.

Assess their classmates writings to offer input that will be

beneficial to the other students.
Students can accept feedback from a classmate without getting
offended.
Students can recognize grammatical errors in writing.

Assessment Evidence (Stage 2)

Performance Task Description
Goal
Role
Audience
Situation
Product/Performan
ce
Standards

The goal is for students to offer useful peer feedback to their classmates on their narrative essay
The students role will be to provide feedback to their classmates
The audience is the fellow classmates of the students
Students are just beginning the revision process with this narrative essay. First, students will revise their own
work. Then, students proceed trade with a partner to revise one others draft.
I expect students to answer questions that each person has about their narrative essays. Additionally, I expect
students to offer three pieces of improvement and three compliments.
See above

Other Evidence
Thinking About Revision
Write About what you do to revise your essays. How do you define revision and what does it look like? Try to be as specific
as possible and provide some examples. I will use students responses to this question as a way to open a discussion on
drafting and revision.
Analyze the Assignment
Lets take a look at the assignment. Analyze the assignment for its purpose, audience, and genre. Then, in pairs,
summarize your analysis in a short paragraph. What are some ideas that you have for this assignment? I will use this
writing prompt as a way for me to gauge how students are interpreting my assignment. It is particularly useful when I work
with ELL writers, because I can get a sense of what is challenging for them, where I need to clarify, and what they are
planning to do. For ELL writers with limited writing experience, I often use a graphic organizer or chart (with the categories
of purpose, reader/audience, and genre) so that they cab use shorthand/shorter sentences to articulate their ideas, before
we discuss the assignment as a class.
Whats Our Progress?
Briefly describe how the writing/drafting is going for you. What area has been really difficult/hard? What sections of this
essay/writing assignment do you feel the most proud of and why? What still needs some work? I may also include some of
the following questions in order to help students to plan ahead for their next drafts or assignments: What revision
strategies have worked for you as you have been creating the draft? What is your plan over the next few days as you think
about your next steps with this assignment?
Answering the So What? Question
What do you want to communicate to your intended readers? I will usually ask students to do this a few times throughout a

given writing project, as a way of having them check in on their own writing goals and intentions. The goal is to help
them see how their thinking and hopefully their writing has deepened over time.

Learning Plan (Stage 3)

Where are your students headed? Where
have they been? How will you make sure
the students know where they are going?

How will you hook students at the

beginning of the unit?
What events will help students experience
and explore the big idea and questions in
the unit? How will you equip them with
needed skills and knowledge?
How will you cause students to reflect and
rethink? How will you guide them in
rehearsing, revising, and refining their
work?
How will you help students to exhibit and
self-evaluate their growing skills,
knowledge, and understanding throughout
the unit?
How will you tailor and otherwise
personalize the learning plan to optimize
the engagement and effectiveness of ALL
students, without compromising the goals
of the unit?
How will you organize and sequence the
learning activities to optimize the
engagement and achievement of ALL
students?

My students are going to be completing a narrative essay throughout the course of

the unit. This workshop is the first of 3 in the whole unit. Its important to show
students the value in the drafting process. Students can observe how a classmate is
approaching the assignment and what strategies they are using in their writing.
Additionally to learning from a classmates writing, students can become more aware
of errors they might be making in their own writing. I will make sure I know where
students are going in this unit by requiring them to turn in all of their drafts with
edits when they submit the final narrative essay.
My hook will be having my students come to the whiteboard, then write an example
of good and bad feedback. This will be a good interactive way for students to begin
thinking about how they can provide their peers with useful advice. (10 minutes)
Students will watch me edit a short paragraph under the doc cam. (10 minutes)
After students have seen me edit the short paragraph, they will help me edit a
different paragraph and give feedback.(10 minutes)
Students will then write three questions theyve had come up during the writing
process of this narrative essay. Once students have each reflected and written down
their questions they will exchange their paper with each other for a peer review.
They will read over at least four peoples poems and offer feedback. (30 minutes)
Since students are reflecting on their poem to ask questions of their peers, they are
self-evaluating themselves. When other students respond to their questions, they
are exhibiting deeper level thinking about each others work.
Students are able to form their own questions about what the person reviewing the
essay should look for, and this will offer differentiation to each student. When I am
peer reviewing the paragraph under the doc cam, students will understand the
general idea of what to look for, and then they can make the revisions specific to
them.
I organized the sequence of learning activities based on how I thought would be
most beneficial for my students. I think having a routine activity everyday is
important for students to feel structured, which is why I have DEAR time and free
write time. Workshop time allows students to ask me difficult questions they might
be struggling with as well as consult their peers for other insight. Revision time
allows me the opportunity to see where my students might be struggling and where
we need to give more attention to.

From: Wiggins, Grant and J. Mc Tighe. (1998). Understanding by Design, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
ISBN # 0-87120-313-8 (ppk)