Portfolio Preface

The context for this concept-based unit plan developed through Backward Design is based on a
year-long placement I was in, and the student profiles are loosely based on students in the classes
that I observed and taught. Names of students are pseudonyms and details have been changed to
protect anonymity and provide for a diversity of needs that will be addressed throughout these
units.

Part 1: The Context

Fluvanna Middle School
This Fluvanna County public school serves 842 students. While the schools racial makeup is a
majority of white students, there are 4% Hispanic, 17% Black, and 5% two or more races. As you
can see from these statistics, the racial makeup of the school is majority-white. The same makeup
characterizes the classes I have been helping in. 33% of students qualify for free/reduced lunches.
Fluvanna is a middle school that serves grades 5-7, as 8 grade is part of the local high school.
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This school is the only middle school in the rural setting of Fluvanna County, which has a
population of 25,544. The average household income is $57,038, which is about $6,000 above the
national average for household income.
The school day runs from 7:45am to 2:45pm. Teachers arrive at school at 7:15am with a
half-hour chunk of planning to do that is built into the beginning of the day. There are about 41
full-time teachers currently working at Fluvanna County Middle School, making the student-to-
teacher ratio 21:1. I could not find any statistics about the number of ELL learners at Fluvanna
Middle, perhaps because the number is very low. I have only worked with 2 or 3 ELL students
out of the entire 80 students that I teach between 4 class periods. Students are always on a block
schedule with an hour called Genius Hour where they go to a different classroom to work on
interdisciplinary topics. Besides Genius Hour, blocks are always 90 minutes long.
The atmosphere of the school is a little hectic, but definitely welcoming. Whenever I
come in, students always speak to me and call me by name. Something that distinguishes
Fluvanna Middle from other middle schools is that students have the opportunity to do office
help during their free period. During this time, students serve as teachers helpers and help with
the administration stationed at the schools front desk. Additionally, students have recess once
every two weeks, but can choose to opt out of it.
(Curry info on Chalk and Wire and http://publicschoolsk12.com/middle-schools/va/fluvanna-
county/ )

Classroom Context: First Block

First period is a standard 7 English class, but this group of students is more intelligent
and obedient than her other groups of students. The classroom is set up with students sitting in
clusters. During silent sustained reading, they can go sit in the special chairs or on the floor in
designated reading spaces. The classroom is well-decorated and my mentor teacher switches the
posters depending on what the students are studying. There are also motivational posters about
why students should care about school in general.
In first period, there are about 25 students. Most of them are at the same ability level with
reading levels either at or above the 7th grade level. Across the board, they struggle with writing
and grammar skills such as punctuation, capitalization, comma rules, and maintaining coherency
in writing assignments. There is one student is gifted and who may have a formal IEP. Students
mainly struggle with sample SOL questions that have to do with reading comprehension and
vocabulary words in context. There is one ELL learner in this class who speaks Spanish as his
first language. At home, he only uses Spanish with his family, but he definitely has the want and
motivation to learn how to speak and write better in English.
 For the most part, the students respect the mentor teacher and me in the classroom. There
is a clear disciplinary system spelled out on the board, which is the same for all schools in
Fluvanna County. My mentor teacher refers to this system when students are breaking rules or
being rowdy. She also reminds the students to stay on topic by telling them that she can take some
of their minutes off of lunch if they dont cover all the material they need to get to because
students are talking.

Student Profiles:
Garrett: Garrett is a White student who is clearly above the 7 grade level in English. He has
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been identified as gifted and he has a clear curiosity for topics that we discuss in class, often
asking thoughtful questions that extend the material or lead to a tangent. Garrett often completes
work more quickly than his peers and understands concepts with more ease. As you might guess,
Garrett does not seem challenged by this classroom. But with 80 students to worry about, I can
see why it is hard to pay attention to the students who are doing well on their own. Garrett
struggles relating to his peers sometimes because they occasionally make side comments about
his questions and contributions to class.

Zoe: Zoe is a Black student struggling with 7 grade English. Zoe has a hard time doing work on
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her own and finding motivation. This is her second time taking 7th grade standard English. She
often gets distracted by wanting to socialize with her peers instead of doing schoolwork. It is hard
to know whether or not to help Zoe or to let her struggle some on her own because her learning
process is supposed to be hard. Zoe consistently gets lower grades on assignments than most of
her peers and does not get along well with authority figures. She has said that English is not her
favorite subject and frequently gets distracted in class. Additionally, she comes from a single-
parent household that struggles to get by. School might not be a priority in her life, but quite
frankly, it is because she and her family have bigger things to worry about.

Aly: Aly is a White student who seems to thoroughly enjoy school. She frequently volunteers
when teacher asks questions and is very social with her peers. Her writing is well above the 7 th

grade level, but she does not seem interested in this English class, besides wanting to do well in it
so she can take honors English in high school. She has expressed to me multiple times that she
does not see how the content is relevant to her life and is frustrated with school in general.
Though Aly completes the work and understands most concepts, she does not seem like someone
who is going to be a true lifelong learner.

Stan: Stan is a Hispanic student who only speaks Spanish at home. He did not recently come to
the United States, but fails to see why he needs to learn English since he can communicate with
everyone in his community just fine only using Spanish. It is clear that the language barrier is
Stans most significant obstacle; he has high levels of motivation and often just needs
clarification for what the words are for a concept he already understands in Spanish. He is at a 5 th
grade reading level and would rather read in Spanish than in English.