Teaching Short Stories: Unit Makeover [S4 E107]

unit-makeover

Listen to the full episode below about doing a unit makeover:

Who doesn’t love a good makeover? Well friends, today we’re talking about giving our favorite kind of makeover - a unit makeover! Specifically, a short stories unit makeover.

The reason we’re creating this episode during the summer is because we have heard from many of you that your first unit is short stories. We’ve also heard from you that this unit has not yielded much success for various reasons.

So, if you are in the same boat and do a short stories unit to kick off the year, we want to go through this unit makeover with you. Then you’ll be able to make the changes you want to make in order for it to be as successful as possible for your students.

You’ll hear the steps that we take in the unit makeover process and we’ll also dive into a specific unit makeover that Marie has done. Our process will help you to easily revamp any unit by creating a vision, nailing down an essential question, gathering supplemental texts, and preparing unit assessments.

Check out Marie’s fairy tale vision board:

unit-makeover

Be sure to sign up for our free unit makeover challenge so that you can give your units a glow-up too! This is a 10-day email series that will allow you to implement each step of our process on your own time! Sign up below or learn more here.

Do you have a teacher friend who would also benefit from a short stories unit makeover? Share this episode with them so you can go through this process together!

Topics Covered:

  • Details of a unit that Marie did on short stories

  • How to think about your short story unit in a few different ways

  • The problem with starting the year with short texts and reviewing terms

  • The disjointed feeling that often happens with any given unit

  • Identifying a unit that may need a makeover, and the steps to take in the unit makeover process

Resources:

Related Episodes:

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Amanda Cardenasunit, planning, strategies, assessment, discussion, community, advice, inspiration, inquiry