TEACH-NOW M5U1A2: Standards and Backwards Mapping for a Language Arts Technology Writing Unit

How do I create a curriculum that fully meets a Pennsylvania standard? 

In the words of Jay McTighe, the trick is to engage in what he calls "backward design." Although the concept is not new in education, having first been suggested by Ralph W. Tyler in 1949, McTighe is credited with applying this "backwards" approach to writing curriculum. He advises that teachers think of the Latin origins of the word curriculum, which means "a course to be run."

In order to determine the direction I am running, I need to start with a fully realized goal. In this case it's Pennsylvania standard CC.1.4.6.U, which reads: 

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting. (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2014)

Why this standard?

I found an exciting standard for sixth grade writing that requires the use of technology. My credential will be in Grades 4-8 Language Arts, and my own children are going into 3, 4, and 7th grade, so this standard piques my interest. Furthermore, before I switched careers, I worked in the "edutainment" industry, so my background helps me along this "course to be run" as well.

In addition, I believe that this skill is highly valuable to students regardless of their academic and career paths. Learning to intelligently create, collaborate, and share one's writing using technology is an important skill for any student to master before they are ready for seventh grade.

Three proficiencies students will be able to do when they finish this unit

1. Information-finding. They will know how to search for reputable news and objective information on a subject (versus biased or commercially motivated writing), and to properly cite that information in their own writing. 
1. Students who are just developing this skill can focus on identifying whether the site is ".com" vs. ".gov" and explain why this makes a difference as to whether the information is reliable. 
2. Students who are relatively proficient can cite multiple reputable sources, and find materials elsewhere that back up the information they found on a reliable source.
3. Students who are extending their learning in this arena can compare and contrast information found in multiple sources, and demonstrate to classmates which they found to be most reliable and why. 
2. Publishing quality work. Students can publish their own writing in a public space online in a polished, appropriate, well-annotated manner, and share that writing with classmates and other interested readers.
1. Students approaching this skill for the first time can work to publish writing on a class blog reviewed by their peers. Before the work is published, they will print it out and work to repair any grammatical or factual errors.
2. For students who have some experience publishing online, they can create a private blog of their writing and post three short observations related to their experiences at school.
3. For students with significant publishing experience they will be challenged to design and create a class blog, to create some initial content for it, and to open it up for subject-specific submissions by their classmates.
3. Work together. Students will collaborate on a document with classmates, and to produce and share a polished result of that collaboration. 
1. Students who are new to collaboration will be paired in their own group. They will receive a relatively simple assignment to start: a rhyming poem for which each member of the group is responsible for one line. For example, Students A, B, C, and D would write a sixteen line rhyming poem in which they take turns adding lines in a Google Document. (ABCD ABCD ABCD ABCD)
2. Students who have done online collaboration with classmates before will be asked to create an informational text together regarding something that the group agrees is of high interest. This should be an opinion piece supported by factual evidence, and the group will be assigned by the teacher to tackle specific parts of the essay topic they choose.
3. Students who are very comfortable collaborating with each other will receive a much more amorphous task. They will be asked to make a Google Slides presentation of a topic of their choosing, but they most choose that topic and the design of the slides from different locations in the school so the situation mimics long-distance collaboration.

Three assessments to know whether students are meeting the standard

1. Find the reputable source. Students are given a series of annotated "facts" and must determine which are derived from objective sources, and which are not. They will need to look for a ".gov" or ".edu" in the website address, as well as the content itself, and how it is used to support the author's claims.
2. Collaborate to write. They will be paired with a new group of 3-4 students and given one class period to silently collaborate on and complete a series of small written projects (a limerick about the school cafeteria, an advertisement for tutoring services, and an informational text about The Humane Society of the United States)
3. Type fast! Students will be challenged to produce one, then two, then three pages of writing in a single sitting, to test their keyboarding skills. They will be given a choice of multiple high-interest subjects so that research or uncertainty is less likely to slow them down. This will amount to three typing assessments in a single week.

Three learning experiences that will help students meet the standard

1. Exploring writing apps. Students will participate in a jigsaw learning activity where they master a writing-related app and then teach their classmates how to use the app. These apps can include Clean Writer, a distraction-free writing app for mobile phones; Writing Challenge and Writing Prompts, prompt generators for phones; Pages, a mobile word processor; and Write, a note-taking app.
2. Online scavenger hunt. Students compete in an online scavenger hunt, using reputable sources to answer questions about literary figures covered in other parts of their Language Arts lessons. This competitive experience will teach students how to efficiently find information to guide their writing, as research techniques will be reviewed prior to the hunt, and winning players will share their strategies afterwards.
3. Fictional character blogs. Students post daily, public blogs written in the voices of fictional characters on adventures such as Jim from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn or Salamanca from Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons. Students may further collaborate with other students around the country or the world to read and comment on each others' fictional character blogs.

In summary, this Pennsylvania English Language Arts standard lends itself to many different types of learning situations -- from the simple coordination required to quickly manipulate a keyboard to the complicated task of collaborating with far-flung peers.

I find it to be an inspiring standard from which to create "a course to be run!"

References

Pennsylvania Department of Education. (2014) Academic Standards for English Language Arts. Harrisburg, PA.

McTighe, Jay. (2012, December 6) "Common Core Big Idea 4: Map Backward From Intended Results." Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/common-core-map-backwards-jay-mctighe-grant-wiggins.

Selby, Joan. (2016, June 10) "16 Writing Apps for Students and Teachers." Retrieved from https://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/1642-16-writing-apps-for-students-and-teachers