| Top 10 Tips for Writing an Integrated Unit Plan |
Outline – Start by creating a general outline for your unit. You can use our Curriculum Outline Instructions as a guide.
- Core Text – Decide first on a core text, a unit theme and a central question you would like the students to answer. If you are an English or social studies teacher, ideally your core text will be a novel or piece of non-fiction that your core concepts compliment. If you are a math or science teacher, you may wish to use a textbook as your core text. However, you should consider an extended piece of reading (novel or non-fiction) as a compliment to your core concepts. Core texts should be read as a whole class. They should be challenging, a read that asks students to move beyond their comfort level in terms of ideas covered and reading skill level.
- Supplemental Pieces – These you may have ideas immediately or they may come as you develop the rest of your outline. Ideally, supplemental pieces are short reads (poems, newspaper articles, short stories, excerpts of longer works, songs, web sites, etc.), art work, music, speeches, film, radio, television shows, etc. All of your supplemental materials should work to flesh out and support your core concepts, your core text, your core skills, and the project students work to complete.
- Independent Reading – You want to foster outside reading in all subject areas. Create a list of books that students are required to read outside of class, usually districts require a certain amount of outside reading per year. Check your school requirements and space your independent reading due dates throughout the year accordingly so that students meet those requirements. Let them choose from the list. Again, your reading list should support your core concepts and skills and compliment your course. Independent reading should be at the reading level of your students. Provide books with a range of reading levels for your students. Remind your students to choose books they are actually interested in or they will be likely not to read. Hold students accountable for their independent reading by asking them to think about what they read and critique it. DO NOT ASSIGN TRADITIONAL BOOK REPORTS! These require little to no thought and are easy to fudge.
- Concepts – Then figure out what core concepts (standards) you would like to cover.
- Skills – List the reading skills, writing skills, technology skills, and oral skills you would like students to master by the end of the unit. Yes, these skills should be addressed in all subject areas, as students use them in all subject areas and most aspects of their lives!
- Demonstration of Mastery – Finally, decide on a project that incorporates all of the core concepts, reading skills, writing skills, technology skills, and oral skills you have asked students to learn and master. The project can be put together at the end of a unit, but should have pieces that students put together and practice throughout the unit. Check out our Project House for examples of mini-projects and full unit projects.
Detailed Outline – Create an overview of your unit that details the concepts, readings, skills, strategies, and accompanying materials you will need for each lesson. Preview and download one of our Unit Overview Checklists in your subject area (English, Math, History, Science).
Work Backward – It’s easiest to start your detailed outline at the end of the unit.
- Exams – Will you give a traditional final exam? If so, save the last day for the final exam. You may want to reserve a day at the end of the unit for a review for the exam. Try not to give the review the day before, as you don’t want to encourage cramming.
- Final Projects – Save one to two days before your exam for evaluation and viewing of final projects (both by outside evaluators and peers). If you choose not to give a final exam, you can use your projects as their final exams or demonstration of mastery. You can even conduct a project swap among peers and formal written evaluation in essay form as your final exam. Figure out a way to incorporate the project into your final exam. Decide how many days you would like to devote to the project. You will want to save at least two days at the end of the unit for students to finish, polish, and make ready for public display their projects. However, you may want to devote every fifth day or every other week in the unit to project work where students work towards and practice pieces of their project.
- Core Text – Plan your whole class reading time or time you will devote to discussing and working with the text. Decide how many chapters or pages students will need to read a night and how many lessons it will take to finish the book. Ideally, the book needs to be finished before they finish their final project.
- Supplemental Materials – Ideally, you will use some supplemental materials as a precursor to studying your core text and core content and skills. Use these to kick off your unit. Be sure you draw on what students learned previously. Use your supplemental materials as a way to review and move students into the new unit.
Vary strategies – Vary the strategies you use for each concept and skill you are teaching. See our Teaching Strategies for new strategy ideas. Try to keep your strategies student centered. These you should insert as you flesh out individual lesson plans. See our Top Ten Tips for Writing an Awesome Lesson Plan.
