Unit Planning With the Goal in Mind

When teachers plan with the end in mind and unpack the grade-level standards needed for students to meet the end goals of the unit, we provide a road map for our students. We clarify how daily and weekly learning is building toward the end goal, and share learning targets and success criteria with students throughout the unit.

We can additionally focus our assessments on measuring the learning needed along the way to be responsive teachers and empower students in knowing their next steps. In this article, I walk through an example of unit planning with a reading standard that may be helpful, especially for new teachers.

Planning

To plan a unit with the end in mind, I begin by determining and analyzing an overarching unit standard. For this unit, the end goal is standard RI.2.9: Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic. Next, I consider what students will need to be able to do at the end of the unit to show that they understand this standard.

It’s important to consider multiple means of expression; for example, not every standard needs to be demonstrated through writing. The above standard can be shown through speaking, writing, sorting, and/or annotating texts. Equally important is for me to be clear on what students need to demonstrate through their means of expression to show proficiency. For this standard, students need to identify the most important details or parts of each text (using text evidence) and compare the details by showing what is the same and what is different.

Next, I focus on what students will need to learn during the unit to set them up for success with the end goals. I see this as a progression of skills needed, as well as skills that grow in complexity and rigor over the duration of the unit. There are often several big steps that second-grade students will take during the weeks of learning.

For Standard RI.2.9, these are the anticipated beginning steps: identify important details in a section of a text, summarize the key details across an entire text, and identify the main idea(s) of the text. Throughout these steps and the steps that follow, students will need to refer to text evidence to back up their thinking. After going through these steps for one text, students will do the same for a second text. Ending steps include the following: find two to three similarities between both texts and find two to three differences between both texts, using text evidence.

Implementing

Now that I’m clear about the end goal and steps to get there, I need to share these with students and discuss with them, so I post this information where they can refer to it as an I Can Statement written in student-friendly language: I can compare and contrast two texts. We discuss why this goal is important, so that they find relevance and meaning in the learning ahead. For example: This is an important skill for making informed decisions.

Whenever possible, I set students up to have an audience for the work; for instance, we are preparing a reading celebration with another second-grade class to share our learning. Throughout the instruction, we will refer to the posted I Can Statement to check in on where we are currently, providing time for feedback and reflection. It’s also helpful to show students the three to five big steps they will take during the unit, so they can see where we are in the progression.

Now I’m ready to design and deliver daily instruction. In every lesson, I refer back to the I Can and share the success criteria with students (by providing or codeveloping a rubric or checklist or by giving a demonstration or example of proficiency). I need to ensure that these meet the rigor necessary for the stage of learning. As students engage in the learning, I assess or they self-reflect to get feedback and act on changes to improve. Examples of assessment include observation, an exit ticket (such as a sticky note or a thumbs-up), an interview, etc. 

An example of a mid-unit lesson on summarizing the key details across an entire text could look like this: review the I Can, ask students why this is important, review the summarizing of portions of the text we have done up to this point, demonstrate how to take my annotated text indicating my portion summaries, and show how I synthesize these into two to three key details for the entire text.

I explain to students that to be successful, they need to review their annotations, discuss them with a partner to decide on the most important key ideas, and then either explain to me or jot down the key ideas using at least one piece of text evidence. Students work with partners or triads to discuss, using sentence stems such as “On this page, I thought ___ was important because the text states ___. I think this is evidence of the key detail of ___.” When ready, students engage in demonstrating the success criteria.

The final step of any unit includes assessing and celebrating the learning. For assessment, students create a project by speaking, writing, sorting, and/or annotating the texts to provide evidence of the standard. I give feedback and time to make changes before the celebration.

When it’s time to have our reading celebration, I strategically partner students from each class to share their learning. In their own classrooms, students practice what to say and do in partnerships in order to understand the expectations: I will listen actively to my partner share their project, then I will tell what I learned (I learned ___) and what I wonder (I wonder ___). Then I will share my own project. Finally, students individually reflect on what they learned, what they did to set themselves up for success, what challenges they faced, and how they addressed the challenges.

This process provides clarity to students and empowers them by making success clear. It does so in a meaningful way that celebrates the learning.