S+Stubbs,+Catherine

**Office: Room 156** **Office Phone: xxx-xxxx** **Office Hours: 3-5 pm** **Email: catherine.stubbs@maine.edu** =Summary of Unit= Sometimes it may seem that students have not been taught the proper grammar skills they should have been taught when the reach the high school level and enter into an essay driven English class. This may even frustrate most high school teachers and that is why this unit has been created and formed around students learning some of the basics of grammar and sentence structure and what may feel like they should have learned back in grade school. Throughout this unit, students will learn some of the basics of grammar, more specifically clauses, phrases, and parallel structure. They will dive into the basic material of the three parts of speech and will gain an understanding of phrases, clauses, and parallel structure. Students will be using the different types of phrases and clauses in their writing which will in turn, help them to bring more meaning to their own writing. Many students will also be able to create writing that is clear and concise and that has specific detail because they will have already learned what it is that makes a sentence have detail and clarity. Much of what will be asked from students will be how and why questions for why knowing these parts of speech are important and how students know when and where they should be used in a piece of writing. Once the unit has been completed, the students in the classroom will be able to understand more clearly how to use phrases, clauses, and parallel structure and when it is appropriate for them to use them.
 * Teacher: Ms. Stubbs**

=Establish Goals= Common Core State Standards Content Area: Language Grade Level: Grade 9-10 Domain: Conventions of Standard English Standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when speaking

=Students will understand that= •using different types of phrases and clauses in writing will help to bring more understanding and meaning to the writing. •parallel structure creates clearer and more detailed sentences. •learning grammar will help students communicate effectively outside of the classroom.

=Essential Questions= •Why does using different types of phrases and clauses help give more meaning to sentences? •How do you know when it is appropriate to use parallel structure? •Why is the use of good grammar important outside of the classroom?

=Students will know= •Vocabulary: noun, verb, adverbial, participle, prepositional, independent and dependent clauses. •Sequence: sentence structure, verb placement. •Critical Detail: Use of phrases, understanding parallel structure.

=Students will be able to= •demonstrate the use of grammar in their everyday writing. •illustrate meaning to their writing with the use of different phrases and clauses. •create clearer sentences with the use of parallel structure. •compare sentences to find out if parallel structure is used. •believe learning grammar will help to communicate effectively outside of the school. •recognize how meaning is created through the use of clauses and phrases.

**Performance Task Overview** You are an employee at a private grammar expert agency when you get a phone call from the director of the 1973 TV show called Schoolhouse Rock. The director, Tom Warburton explains to you that Schoolhouse Rock was a TV show involving catchy songs that taught the fundamentals of history, grammar, math, etc. to anyone who would watch it. Noticing that his older Schoolhouse Rock videos were a big hit, Tom has decided to create a spinoff of the show, making it more modern in order to attract the viewers of today. He explains that your job is to create a product using Audacity and Comic Life that deals with singing about grammar and more specifically about phrases and clauses. You will be formed into groups of 3 or 4 experts who will then use both of these type II technologies to write a song, and then sing that song while also including a comic strip that will act as the cartoon characters on the T.V. show. Tom is then going to choose which one he believes to be the most creative and understanding presentation and take that group of grammar experts back to his recording studio to work on the rest of the TV series with him. The group that was chosen will also be labeled as the producers of the series and their names will be shown at the beginning and end credits of each episode. This is a chance of a lifetime for one of you grammar experts to finally break out of the agency and create a TV series that will help to interest and educate others about the fundamentals of grammar. Have fun and good luck!

=Expectations= Attendance is required for class and students are expected to show up on time. If students are late by more than 10 minutes, they will be marked tardy for the class and if they come in after 10 minutes, they must have a note in order to dismiss their tardy. If the student is absent, they must check in with me to find out about what they missed in the class as well as check in online as I will post what the lesson was on my own wiki page under the class period and time.
 * __Attendance__**

__**Plagiarism:**__ Plagiarism is not tolerated in the classroom and students who do plagiarize will receive no credit for their work. The student and I will have a talk about what happened and why they received no credit for their work. We will go over the facts on plagiarism at the beginning of the year so that students will all understand what it is and how it will not be accepted in the classroom. The work the students do should be all their own and should be their own original thoughts. The act of stealing other peoples thoughts and using them as your own is against the law and will be acted on accordingly.

__**Classroom Expectations:**__ Students will be expected to be respectful of others in the classroom. There will be no tolerance of making fun of other students work when it is their turn to read aloud a piece of their writing to the class. The class will also help to decide on any other rules that seem necessary for the class by using their best judgment of what they have seen works best in their previous classes.

__**Assignments:**__ If a student misses a class, the work from that class plus a copy of my lesson plan will be in the folder marked with their designated class period and time. Students will be responsible for looking up their own missed work and for turning in that work as soon as possible. If a student misses an assignment, they will receive a zero for that work. Students can make up zeros by the end of the semester.

=Benchmarks (make these into paragraphs describing the projects. also make a point scale)=
 * •Online Blog (200 points):** Students will create a weekly blog demonstrating what they learned about phrases and clauses throughout the week. This blog will explain what they think they learned about grammar at the end of the week. Students will write about what they learned during the week and then will write a part of a short story that they created and which will demonstrate what they learned. The short story will continue throughout the blog entries. At the end of the unit, the short story will be put all in one and will be one giant story demonstrating the parts of grammar the students have learned throughout the unit.


 * •Comic Life (100 points):** Students will make a digital comic showing an understanding between clear and unclear sentences with the use of independent and dependent clauses as well as phrases. They will create characters in the comic and put them in a scenario where they will be demonstrating how unclear sentences effect conversations and understanding of what is being said. The characters will be made up, but they can be taken from pictures that are found on the internet. The conversation the characters have in the comic must be related to that of grammar so that if a student was to look at the product they will be able to tell the difference of what happens when using unclear sentences versus clear sentences.


 * •Wikispaces (100 points)**: Students will find articles online, cut out one section of them, and then change around some of the grammar to create mistakes in the article. Students will then post these articles to their wikis and other students in the class will be assigned to a certain student and will have to go online onto the student's wiki and edit their page in order to find and fix the mistakes. The students will have to keep track of the mistakes they find so they can share what they found to the class the next day. The mistakes that the students make on their article must be from a part of grammar that has been taught already in the unit. The students who edit that page must make it obvious when they correct something by bolding the corrections and italicizing the mistakes.


 * •iMovie (100 points)**: Students will create their own rules for how they want to teach grammar and they then will act out what is wrong and what is right about how people in the world should use dependent clauses, independent clauses, and phrases. Students will act out scenarios where good grammar is important in the real world. They will be in groups of 3 or 4 and will each have a different part in the movie and each student will be an actor in the movie so as they all understand the idea and what is being taught.


 * •Zoho Notebook (200 points):** This is the final product after the students post their blog entries. Students will use the program the Zoho Notebook to post the final product from their short stories from their blogs. The Notebook has tabs on the side and on each tab, the students will write what parts of grammar are found in that page of the Notebook so as to make it easier to tell where they are in the story. The final product of their story will involve every part of grammar that was taught to them in the unit so as to create a full understanding of how to use the parts of grammar and what they are.


 * •Performance Task-Unit Project (300 points):** Students will create a new modern day episode of Schoolhouse Rock by using Audacity and Comic Life to create a song and a background comic of the episode they invented. The song should be catchy and grab the attention of the audience so as to make the grammar that is being demonstrated easier to learn. The comic should go along with the song so the audience can make connections and put a picture to a face, so to speak. This is the final project for the unit and will reflect what the students have learned overall in the unit.

=Grading Scale= **A** (93 -100), **A-** (90 - 92), **B+** (87 - 89), **B** (83 - 86), **B-** (80 - 82), **C+**(77 - 79), **C** (73-76), **C-** (70 - 72), **D+**(67 - 69), **D** (63 - 66), **D-** (60 - 62), **F** (0 - 59 )
 * Total Points: 1000**