Revised Aug. 31, 2012

English Language Arts Action Plan

Part I: Groundwork

v     Determine a target grade level (Kth grade- 6th grade) and a content area or areas (e.g., Social Studies, Math, Science, etc.) and a topic or theme (e.g., Community, Writing Persuasive Pieces, Text Features of Expository Texts, Fractions, Weather, Landforms, Solar System, etc.)  for the  ELA Plan. (If you are currently in a school placement, you will design the plan for the grade level of your placement).

 

 

1.      Review TN Common Core ELA Standards (and Math standards if appropriate) for the target grade level and the TN State Curriculum standards for the target content area and topic of study. See http://www.tncurriculumcenter.org/home for Common Core and Tennessee Curriculum Standards.

 

2.      With guidance from your course instructor and your Mentor Teacher (if applicable) choose ELA standards you would like to address from TN Common Core and subject specific topics from TN State Curriculum Standards.

  • The ELA  plan MUST include the Language Arts (e.g. reading, writing, listening, speaking, etc.) as well as at least one content area (Math, Science, Social Studies, Art, etc.) 

  • The main theme or topic can be ELA related (e.g., Writing Explanatory Pieces, Descriptive Language, Identifying the Main Idea, Making Inferences, etc.) and/or may include a Content specific topic or theme (e.g. Community, Landforms, Adaptations, Ocean Creatures, Weather, African American Culture, Solar System, Cultural Differences, Probability, Fractions etc. ).

  • Ideally, you will design a broad ELA action (i.e., unit) plan that incorporates a variety of Language Arts skills, reading and writing informational texts, and one or more content area and topic. (From this plan, it is possible to build required lesson plans for Math, Science and your three lesson sequence.)

3.      Identify a “mentor” text appropriate for the topic and grade level you have chosen.  (All texts  and websites should be listed in a bibliography in APA style.)

·       A mentor text is a text that will set the foundation for your plan as well as provoke interest topic of study AND/OR serve as an example of the type of writing (e.g., persuasive, explanatory, etc...) in which you want the students to engage.

·       A mentor text may be a picture book, an informational children’s book, children’s or adolescent literature, biography, autobiography, or an article or information from a website. The mentor text should be a text on which you can build and connect other texts. The mentor texts should be one that will engage (“hook”) the reader in the topic of study and/or give comprehensive information with regard to topic of study.

 

4.      Identify a minimum of three supplemental texts appropriate for your content to deepen and expand upon and provoke critical thinking about the topics of study.

  •  Supplemental texts may include any of the texts listed above and/or actual Science, Social Studies, Math textbooks used in your grade level classroom.

 

5.      Identify a minimum of two media and/or visual aids to supplement your topic of study. Media and Visual aids will be used to provoke interest and/or engage students more deeply in the topic of study.

  • Media and visual aids may include movie clips, appropriate web-based or YouTube videos, photographs, and images.

 

 
 

English Language Arts Action Plan-Part II

Part II:   Mapping it Out

1.     Write an overview of your plan (in narrative form) including rationale for choosing this content areas/topic of study as well as for the media and visual aids that you included. Also, discuss some of the reading, writing, vocabulary, and speaking tasks in which students will be required to participate and strategies  that you will use to support the reading and writing of the texts and to enhance content knowledge.

 

2.   Create a Concept Web or Graphic Organizer that will serve as a visual representation of your plan.

 

3.    Identify overall objectives for the plan. List objectives in terms of what students will be able to do after having participated in this plan of study.

 

4.    Verify that objectives and standards are aligned and add to or delete standards previously identified in Part I as needed.

 

5.    List and describe texts and media chosen for this plan.

 

6.   Outline five ideas/broad plans for achieving objectives on the Template provided. The outline will include the text, guiding questions, tasks, and strategies.