I like to metaphorically dine on the fillings of many pies.
At the time of writing, I am in the closing weeks of a Grammar and Teaching course administered by Grammar guru Joanne Rossbridge (highly recommended by the way, and see the book above as an invaluable associated resource). The final assignment of this course is to design a unit of work that incorporates our learning about grammar and how it can be used to both strengthen literacy and strengthen our subject areas.
Well, it just so happens that at my school I am due to create a unit of work for our faculty, a half-term Year 10 History unit to close the assessable portion of the year in Term 4. Joanne has recommended that we put our grammar knowledge into practice with an actual unit that we would be programming anyway, so as not to double up on our workloads (teachers are busy, y'know).
Here's the doozy though, I am also currently undertaking a fairly autonomous course under the 'Focus on Reading' banner at my school. This piece of Professional Learning also requires me to put into practice what I have learned, in this case strengthening literacy by focusing on fluency and wide reading text sets. This involves me undertaking some action research with a class, using my findings to design some lessons, trying out said lessons on the class, and then presenting my research and progress back to the school.
So, I am going to kill three birds with one stone - a relatively compact unit that meets the criteria and requirements of both projects; Grammar and Teaching, and Focus on Reading. They can't really be that different, right?
My aim is to create 9 or so lessons that teach grammar, History and reading-fluency. A pie of several flavours, and not one that doesn't require some thinking to cook up! The History in question that I'm focusing on is China in the 20th Century.
Stay tuned as I post my process in putting this unit together from start to finish.
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