UBD

Page of web resources

Middle School Units
Units need:

1. An essential question (frames students' reading and thinking)
2. Cluster questions (unit questions - tie the unit selections togther and helps students relate to essential question
3. Thinking skills - directly tuaght and applied throughout unit
4. End-of-cluster activities - help students synthesize what they hare learned
5. Writing prompt -
6. Assessment options - essay test, vocabulary quizzes, rubrics for individual projects, WIDA- PMIs

Teachers:

1. activate pk
2. model and teach thinking skills
3. develop thematic vocabulary
4. use writing to integration literature and thinking skills
5. assess students' knowledge using appropriately differentiated assessments - WIDA's PMIs

Information and tips from Jay McTighe (to buy access to more unit examples?). His free example units.

Example themes and essential questions from NY school district.

Themes/Essential questions:

1. And justice for all - What is justice?
2. The best of friends - What is the value of friendship?
3. Decisions... - How do I make a decision?
4. Family matters - Does family matter?
5. On the edge of survival - What can be learned from survival literature?
6. To be a hero - Who can be a hero?
7. Who am I? - Who's the real you?
8. What is the value of sport?
9. How do we protect our planet?
10. What is funny?

Genre:
1. Why do myths endure?
2. Why read fantasy?
3. Why are we fascinated by mystery?
12. """"" science fiction?

Time periods:
1. What was the great depression? (any time period or event?)
2. How do we achieve the ideal of equal rights for all?
3. Shoud we keep America's Immigration door open?
4. Why is the civil war condered a defining moment in American history?
5. What effect did the decade of the ##s have on the US?
6. Could a Holocaust happen here?
7. What is the lure of the Frontier?