Power Up Plus! Unit Template

for 21st Century Teaching and Learning
Unit Plan Title: Middle Ages and Canterbury Tales Unit
Developed By: Megan Jones / Grade Level: 12 / Length of Unit: 1 week
Standard: What standards will provide the focus for this unit? Choose one core content and one educational technology.
12.R.2.2 Students can read fluently to comprehend grade-level text.
12.R.4.1 Students can evaluate the depiction of human experience in literary works from diverse cultures, locations, and time periods.
12.LVS.1.3 Students can narrate a multimedia presentation that combines text, images, and sounds to reflect, to inform, to persuade, or to entertain
9-12.CT.1.1 Incorporate knowledge and enhanced usage skills to create a product.
Essential Questions: What essential questions will focus this unit?
How do the pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer represent the society during the Middle Ages? How did Chaucer use satire to comment on the church during this time?
Academic Vocabulary: List the key terms students will need to know in order to understand the content.
Satire, Irony, direct characterization, indirect characterization, vernacular, iambic pentameter, couplets, frame story, pilgrimage
Learning Targets: What are the knowledge, reasoning, skill, and product targets unpacked from the standard or benchmark?
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Create Evaluate Analyze Apply Understand Remember
/ Content (nouns) / / Skill
(verbs) / / Assessments
What topics do students need to know? / What should students be able to do to process and retain the knowledge? / What could students do or create to demonstrate their understanding?
Middle Ages
Geoffrey Chaucer
Middle English
Roman Catholic Church
Characterization
Satire / Read critically
Evaluate Text
Identify direct and indirect characterization
Connect to modern life
Identify the use of satire and irony / Stand and Deliver Presentations: Middle Ages background
Prologue Study Guide
Create and present a pilgrim on blabberize.com
Pilgrim study guide
Middle Ages/Canterbury Tales test
Book questions for “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”
Planning the Learning Experiences: What learning experiences will equip students to demonstrate the targeted learnings? In other words, what instructional strategies can be used to facilitate students’ ability to successfully complete the assessments?
Learning Cycle / Tech Integration / Reading Strategies (KWL Charts, Concept Maps, Paragraph Outlines, etc.)
Before
Students will research an aspect of the Middle Ages history, prepare a visual aide, and present it to the class
During
Students will answer questions on a study guide while reading.
Students will create an avatar representing one of the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales.
After
Students will take a unit test on the middle ages and Canterbury Tales.
21st Century Skills: Information, Media and Technology Skills
Information Literacy
Access and Evaluate Information
Use and Manage Information
Research a topic using acceptable online sources and create a presentation
Media Literacy
Analyze Media & Create Media Products
Create a product using blabberize.com or voki.com
ICT Literacy (Information, Communications, and Technology Literacy
Apply Technology Effectively
Where: How will you let participants know the expected outcomes/purpose of the work?
I have a handout describing the expectations. I also tell them when introducing the assignments.
Hook: How will you engage participants?
Students really enjoy creating avatars. I also try to compare Chaucer’s work to modern satirists such as Steven Colbert or the creators of South Park. Once students understand that he was commenting on corruption in the church, they are more interested.
Explore: What activities will provide experiences and explorations to equip participants for completing the final performances?
I show students examples of past projects to help them prepare their pilgrim projects.
Reflect: In what ways will participants be encouraged to dig deeper through feedback and self-assessment?
All of the technology and presentations done in English 12 are an introduction, and I intend for them to use the feedback and tech tools when they are creating the 8-15 minute presentation they are required to do on the senior project. A number of students did use Animoto and movie maker. I believe that the would have used blabberize and animoto if they were more accessible at our school.
Exhibit: How will participants show their level of understanding? Evaluate their strengths and challenges?
There is a presentation at the beginning and the end. For the pilgrim presentation, students have to exhibit that they understand the work, and they also connect it to modern people and identify the satire and irony in the story. / Blabberize.com or Voki.com for the presentation of a pilgrim.
In each unit of study, I have presented tools like blabberize, animoto, and wiki spaces to give students options for their senior project. The project culminates with a presentation in front of a panel of judges, and I do have students who are using these sites to help them prepare for the presentations.
Lessons/Activities: Use this space to describe sequence of learning activities, materials/resources needed, time frames, etc.
Day 1: Stand and Deliver: For this, students sign up to give a short presentation on any aspect of history from the middle ages. There is a long reading on this in the text book, and I make sure that those things are addressed at some point in the presentations. The students use the internet or their text books for research, and they are required to use some type of visual aid for the presentation. Examples of topics include: Robin Hood, medieval fashion, medieval weaponry, the Black Plague, etc.
Day 2: Stand and Deliver presentations: These are short, informal presentations. I tell the students that they are good practice for the senior project presentations at the end of the semester, and the other students and I practice giving constructive feedback, such as “don’t watch the power point as you are presenting”, or “don’t put too much text on the power point.” I also give essential historical input between the presentations. I find this practice is much more effective than lecture or assigning reading. The presentation is worth 30 points, and they are graded on information, delivery, and visual aide. When we finish these, the students are given a short group test to check what they learned, and what background information is still lacking.
Day 3: Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales: I start by presenting a power point about Chaucer’s biography and the Canterbury Tales. It is important that they have some idea of how English has changed since Chaucer’s time. I always ask a student to read the prologue in Middle English before they realize there is an easier, translated version. The students are usually relieved! We read the prologue aloud and discuss a number of study guide questions, so they have an idea of how the story is structured. Then, students get together with a partner, and they choose one pilgrim to do a presentation on.
Day 4: Students come to class today with their pilgrims chosen. There is a short description of each pilgrim in the prologue. Students are required to answer a number of questions about their pilgrim that deal with direct and indirect characterization as well as satire. Then they prepared a presentation of their pilgrim using either Voki or blabberize.com. These programs are perfect for creating characters! The characters were required to dress as the character described as well as look and speak like those characters. The avatars had to introduce themselves and tell a few things about themselves. Then the students had to explain any irony in the characterization and compare the pilgrim to someone who is alive today such as a politician, teacher, etc.
Day 5: Students presented their vokis to the class. We had a lot of difficulties getting the technology to work, so some had to present with power point or pencil drawings, but the ones that worked were neat. Students were graded on their understanding of the prologue, delivery, and their visual aide. By the end of the presentations, all of the major pilgrims in the prologue were discussed.
Day 6: Along with the prologue, we listened to and discussed both “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” These stories give an excellent example of irony as well as the way that Chaucer was satirizing the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. At the end of this unit, students took a test on the Middle Ages, Chaucer, and Canterbury Tales.
Modifications: In what ways will the learning experiences be differentiated to meet student needs?
Far Below Standard / Approaching Standard / Meeting Standard / Exceeding Standard
Students are able to get information from their classmates and in an informal setting conducive to questioning as needed. / The Canterbury Tales pilgrim presentation give lots of opportunities to be creative and go above and beyond the assignment.
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