death of a salesman -...

Death of a Salesman:

A Curricular Unit Examining Family Dreams and Relationships

While Developing Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking Skills

Esther Jing-Hua Wu

Education 262C: Curriculum and Instruction in English

Dr. Peter Williamson, Ms. Chandra Alston, and Ms. Michelle Brown

Winter Quarter 2008

Death of a Salesman Unit Esther Jing-Hua Wu

Winter Quarter 2008 2

Table of Contents

Unit Overview: Essential Question and Learning Targets………………………………….3

Unit Calendar………………………………………………………………………………..9

Lesson 1…………………………………………………………………………………….13

Lesson 2…………………………………………………………………………………….22

Lesson 3…………………………………………………………………………………….27

Unit Assessment Plan………………………………………………………………………30

Unit Assessment Rationale…………………………………………………………………32

Culminating Assignment…………………………………………………………………...34

Culminating Assignment Rationale……………………………………………………...... 37

Letter to Parents…………………………………………………………………………….39

Resources…………………………………………………………………………………...40

Unit Reflection……………………………………………………………………………...41

Appendix…............................................................................................................................43



Death of a Salesman Unit Overview

Essential Question

How do the dreams and aspirations of your parents, grandparents, and ancestors change and

impact family relationships from generation to generation?

Core Literary Text

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Genre: Drama, published 1949, Penguin Books, New York.

Other Texts

Miller, Arthur. ―Tragedy and the Common Man.‖ New York Times, February 27, 1949.

Prentice Hall. ―Introduction to Contemporary Writers—1946 to Present.‖ The American

Experience. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1989. pp. 1023-1036

Various credible online research articles related to the father-son relationship, postmodernism,

literary criticism on Death of a Salesman, and the American Dream. Students will

research and find these articles on the internet.

Rationale

Death of a Salesman will mark many firsts for my students who are juniors in an Honors

American Literature class: first play, first major text featuring a nuclear family, first tragedy. It

will also be the last major text we will read for the year, so I want this unit to have personal

significance for students. Although students have made personal connections to the texts we

have studied thus far, those connections have been more abstract and centered on ethics and

decision-making. For example, students considered Kohlberg‘s theory of moral development,

Carol Gilligan‘s care ethics, and Dorothy Riddle‘s scale of attitudes towards difference in

relation to Huckleberry Finn. For The Scarlet Letter, students examined the seven deadly sins

and reflected upon a ―sin‖ or habit in their lives they wanted to purge like sloth or vanity. For

The Great Gatsby, students explored the ways in which their views on money, construction of a

public and private self, and pursuit of social status shape who they are. While these connections

have been intellectually rich and relevant to students‘ lives, they have not yet reflected on the

more interpersonal dimensions of self which include relationships with one‘s family and one‘s

family history. Therefore, my essential question focuses on family relationships and the ways in

which the dreams of parents, grandparents, and ancestors change from generation to generation

and impact those relationships.

Death of a Salesman is a play in which the unit‘s essential question is central to the text. Like its

title elucidates, Death of a Salesman depicts the emotional, professional, social, and ultimately

physical death of a salesman, Willy Loman, whose dreams have gone awry and in many ways

destroyed his relationship with his wife and sons. This play offers a sharp and tragic look at how

Willy‘s dream which can also be associated with the American Dream—the possibility that one

can achieve financial success, be happy, and gain status in society no matter your background—

can lead to one‘s demise. It also alludes to how Willy‘s father‘s dreams of getting rich from

diamond mining results in his father‘s abandonment of his family for the promise of wealth in



Alaska. The play examines how Willy‘s father‘s dreams have shaped Willy‘s dreams and

aspirations and consequently how they influence his relationship with his eldest son, Biff, who

rejects his father‘s dreams yet feels their effects keenly.

Additionally, this unit‘s essential question goes to the heart of the discipline in that it poses a

powerful question about identity that human beings have journeyed to answer in pursuit of self-

knowledge and understanding. Novelists and poets have attempted to unpack the complexities of

this question in their creations of characters and conflicts. Amy Tan‘s The Joy Luck Club,

Khaled Hosseini‘s The Kite Runner, and Sophocles‘s Oedipus Rex are examples of texts that

touch on this unit‘s essential question in important ways. Characters struggle to make sense of

their dreams and aspirations vis-à-vis their relationship to their parents or family history.

Therefore, the exploration of this question is one that can be applied to many other texts and

recurs naturally throughout one‘s learning and history of the field.

Because the essential question has no one obvious ―right‖ answer, it raises other important

questions. For example, what is the American Dream and how does it affect our society‘s

economy and social structures? Is achieving the American Dream a real possibility for all

peoples in the country? At one time in our nation‘s history, going into the family business was

expected of children and, in fact, a value that people shared. How and why has this changed?

Why do our parents and their hopes and dreams for us their children affect us so deeply? What

is the connection between our parents‘ happiness and our own? These questions and many

others will enrich the class‘s discussion and understanding not only of the core text but students‘

lives as well.

Finally, the unit‘s essential question is deliberately framed to provoke and sustain student interest

because my students, juniors in high school preparing to leave home, are passionately concerned

about their futures and what their lives will look like. All of them have stated that they want to

attend a four-year university and attain lucrative jobs. In the midst of these pursuits, my students

are also in the process of gaining autonomy and figuring out who they are as individuals shaped

by their parents yet distinct from them. Recently, I asked them what annual income they would

like to make by the age of thirty that would be realistic and satisfactory to them. To my surprise,

the range of salaries students mentioned was $110,000 to $1.5 million. Many of my students

explained that the annual income they wanted had to do with the fact that their parents do not

make much money (in their eyes) currently, which suggests that my students are aware of how

their parents‘ career aspirations and therefore financial success affect their livelihood now.

Whether or not they have thought more deeply about how their parents‘ dreams have influenced

theirs, the unit‘s essential question will invite important self-reflection and give my students an

opportunity to explore a topic that is relevant to their lives right now.

Unit Learning Targets

Reading Strategy: Summarizing/Chunking

Students will learn how to chunk different passages and summarize the main ideas so that they

gain a deeper understanding of the play (and its genre) and its characters. They will also,

through chunking and summarizing, analyze the literary ―moves‖ of the play in order to

understand the ways in which the author uses stage directions, tone, or the ―sound‖ of language



to develop characters or depict relationships. Students will also learn how to chunk passages in a

play in order to block scenes and make inferences about characters and relationships based on

how characters are positioned and the inflections students choose to give characters when

reading dialogue.

California Language Arts Standards for 11th

/12th

Grade Literary Response and Analysis

3.1 Analyze characteristics of subgenres (e.g. satire, parody, allegory, pastoral) that are used in

poetry prose, plays, novels, short stories, essays, and other basic genres.

3.3 Analyze the ways in which irony, tone, mood, the author‘s style, and the ―sound‖ of language

achieve specific rhetorical or aesthetic purposes of both.

Rationale

Because this is the only play students will read all year, they are less familiar with this genre and

need help learning how to read a play, understand its storyline, and then analyze it for deeper

meaning and comprehension. I have noticed that my students tend to rush through texts without

probing into a text for deeper meaning. Learning to chunk passages and then summarize main

ideas will be an effective reading strategy students can use to slow down their reading in order to

make sense of the play, its characters, and its conflicts beyond the obvious. Students will learn

that chunking and summarizing passages as they read will deepen their engagement and

understanding of the play. More practically, due to the multiple time shifts in Death of a

Salesman, chunking and summarizing as those shifts happen will help students make sense of

what is happening in the play and how this reveals important aspects about the characters and

their relationships.

Literature: Character Development

Students will learn how an author uses dialogue to develop characters and their relationships and

reveal the complexities and histories of those relationships. Students will also learn how stage

directions provide insight into characters and their relationships.


/12th

Grade Literary Response and Analysis

3.4 Analyze ways in which poets [playwrights] use imagery, personification, figures of speech,

and sounds to evoke reader‘s emotions.

3.3 Analyze the way in which irony, tone, mood, the author‘s style, and the ―sound‖ of language

achieve specific rhetorical or aesthetic purposes or both.

Rationale

Up to this point, students have had extensive practice analyzing the themes of texts and

examining a character‘s moral development, but have not yet examined a character‘s holistic

development and relationships with other characters deeply. Students need practice inferring

what a character‘s personality, relationships, dreams, etc. are exclusively through dialogue and

stage setting. Because Miller does not explicitly state what characters are like but instead uses

dialogue and stage directions to develop his characters and their relationships, students need to

learn how to read dialogue and stage directions effectively in order to trace how characters and

relationships develop in the play. Working with character development through dialogue and



stage directions will also give students needed insight into the play as a whole—its themes,

conflicts, and tender moments.

Writing: Reflective Compare and Contrast Essay

Students will learn how to make connections between two texts of different genres (a play and

one‘s own life) and how to write a compare and contrast essay that examines the similarities and

differences between the relationships important to these texts. Students will learn how to reflect

upon their own lives and use the play‘s themes and character development to enhance their

understanding of themselves and their relationships.


/12th

Grade Writing Applications

2.2. Write responses to literature:

a. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the significant ideas in works or passages.

b. Analyze the use of imagery, language, universal themes, and unique aspects of the text.

c. Support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text

and to other works.

e. Identify and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within the

text.

2.3 Write reflective compositions:

a. Explore the significance of personal experiences, events, conditions, or concerns by using

rhetorical strategies (e.g., narration, description, exposition, persuasion).

b. Draw comparisons between specific incidents and broader themes that illustrate the writer‘s

important beliefs or generalizations about life.

c. Maintain a balance in describing individual incidents and relate those incidents to more

general and abstract ideas.

Rationale

Up to this point, students have written several literary analysis papers, but have not spent as

much time reflecting personally on texts. They have practiced making text-to-text and text-to-

world connections, but have not practiced making explicit text-to-self connections which is just

as important of a connection. Because my students tend to gravitate towards abstract

philosophical questions about social ills like racism and ―Is it truly possible for human beings to

be altruistic?‖, for example, their writing has tended to be speculative as a result. This kind of

abstract thinking has been exciting to nurture; however, I want my students to reconnect with

their hearts and reading literature to understand not just the great existential questions of the

universe but also one‘s self and relationships. Fostering a personal connection to texts will

empower them to consider these big abstract questions from a different perspective, and this

writing assignment attempts to do that.

However, given how abstractly students like to think, I want the culminating assignment to

challenge students‘ thinking about texts from different genres—a play and one‘s own life which

is why the writing target is not merely a reflective composition or a compare/contrast essay.

Being able to make connections between seemingly dissimilar texts will help students develop

higher order thinking skills, logic, and analysis. Blending the compare/contrast essay form with

the reflective composition will ask students not only to assess a literary text for its themes,



complexities, and nuances, but also their own lives. This will challenge them appropriately to

find compelling evidence that supports their claims and write precise, clear commentary that

explains how their evidence fits the claims, a skill they still to practice which I learned from

assessing their semester-long Author Study Projects.

Speaking and Listening: Using Textual Evidence to Support Claims

Students will learn to support claims with textual evidence in literary discussion. Students will

learn how to ask questions or make comments that build off of other students‘ ideas.


/12th

Grade Listening and Speaking

2.3c Support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text

or to other works.

2.3e Identify and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within

the text.

Rationale

Even with literature circles and Socratic seminars, students need additional practice discussing

literature in a way that is tied to, and supported by, the text. Students need to hone their skills of

identifying and assessing the nuances and complexities within a text instead of making

judgments about a text and holding stubbornly to their initial impressions throughout an entire

unit (which is what my students tend to do even with explicit instruction on how not to do that).

Through discussions focused specifically on the text‘s ambiguities, students will learn to discuss

ideas in a more sophisticated manner, ask questions without rushing to find the ―right‖ answer

(which often does not exist), and stay with a text‘s literary/dramatic tension. Tying ideas to the

text and supporting viewpoints through accurate and detailed references will help students focus

their comments and ask engaging, relevant questions. Learning also how to ask questions or

make comments that build off of other students‘ ideas will facilitate a more fluid and cohesive

discussion. As one of my students said in our last Socratic seminar, ―We need to avoid having

‗Discussion ADD‘ where the topic changes constantly.‖ Therefore, students, by grounding their

claims in the text, will learn how to follow strands of ideas in literary discussion and build off of

one another‘s comments by asking questions or offering evidence that supports or calls a claim

into question.

Technology: Identifying Credible Sources for Internet Research

Students will learn how to identify credible sources on the internet for information on a research

topic. Students will learn how to focus their research by crafting clear, guiding questions.

California Language Arts Standards for the 9th

/10th

Grade Research and Technology1

1.3 Use clear research questions and suitable research methods (e.g. library, electronic media,

personal interview) to elicit and present evidence from primary and secondary sources.

1 For this target, I had to draw from the 9

th /10

th Grade Standards because the ones from 11

th/12

th grade did not fit my

learning target.



1.5 Synthesize information from multiple sources and identify complexities and discrepancies in

the information and the different perspectives found in each medium (e.g. almanacs, microfiche,

news sources, in-depth field studies, speeches, journals, technical documents).

Rationale

For my students‘ Author Study Projects, a semester-long research project that asked students to

incorporate literary criticism and an author‘s biography into their original commentary on an

author‘s work, students turned to Google and Wikipedia for information despite receiving

explicit instruction on what makes credible research sources, including special attention to what

makes an internet source credible for an academic research paper and what does not (e.g. Google

is not a source. It is a search engine. Wikipedia is not an authoritative encyclopedia of

information). My students need to revisit this skill because they have not yet demonstrated that

they know how to identify credible internet sources, a skill they must have to write college-level

research papers. Additionally, to practice interdisciplinary, across-genres thinking in preparation

for the culminating assignment, students need to learn how to conduct effective internet research

by first learning to craft focused, guiding research questions and then searching for information

that is relevant to the topic that comes from a reliable source. Developing this skill will lead

them to practice synthesizing the information they find and applying it to their growing body of

knowledge and identifying which parts enhance their understanding of the core text and which

parts do not. This ability to sift through information on the internet and find what is relevant,

credible, and useful is a skill students need to develop in order to become informed citizens of

our country as the internet has increasingly become people‘s dominant source of information.

Grammar: Subordinating Conjunctions and Prepositional Phrases Students will learn how to use subordinating conjunctions and prepositional phrases to draw

comparisons and contrasts in their essays and transition from one idea to the next.

Rationale

Students have not had much specific grammar instruction this year, so working with anything

specifically related to grammar will be a first, but a necessary one. In papers I notice that

students rarely use subordinating conjunctions like ―consequently‖ or prepositional phrases like

―on the other hand‖ to draw comparisons or contrasts. They need these grammatical structures to

communicate their ideas clearly, so we will spend time learning what these words means, how to

use them effectively, and where to place them so that they serve as transitions from one idea to

the next. Developing a sound understanding of subordinating conjunctions and prepositional

phrases will in turn increase their sentence fluency and give them more tools with which to

organize their claims and evidence when writing.



Unit Calendar for Death of a Salesman Day #: Day of the Week

Period Length

Day 0: Friday

50 minutes

Lesson‘s Learning Targets

Daily Journal Prompt/

How Class Begins

Learning Activities Wrap up The Great Gatsby.

Students check out Death of a

Salesman from TSS.

Pass out speed dating sentence

starters to students.

Homework Respond to each sentence starter

on the free write handout. Read

pp.1023-1036 in The American

Experience. Take STAR notes and

prepare for reading quiz Monday.

Established Class Routines and Special Notes

Daily Journal: Class often begins with a daily journal prompt written on the board. Students come to class, sit down, and write responses

during announcements. Teacher circulates and checks homework. Daily Journal Debrief: After announcements, the teacher directs the

students to share their responses in their small cooperative learning groups (students sit in groups of 4) and then the teacher facilitates a large

class discussion using equity cards to call on students.

Equity Cards: For large class discussions, the teacher pulls students‘ names randomly from the class‘s equity cards (every student‘s name is

written on a card). Because students have discussed ideas in their group, they are usually prepared to share an idea with the whole class.

Students always have the option to pass. After equity cards are drawn, the teacher opens the floor to students whose names were not called

but would like to share a comment.

Reading Quizzes: To keep students accountable to reading the text, students take oral reading quizzes. At the beginning of class, the

questions are projected on the overhead. Students discuss the questions in their small groups. The teacher circulates and checks for

understanding. Then the teacher leads the quiz by pulling student names randomly using equity cards. Students choose which question they

want to answer.

STAR Notes and Annotating Texts: Students are in the habit of taking STAR notes or annotating texts as they read. They received

instruction on this early in the year and have become skilled at these strategies.

Tiered Questions for Socratic Seminar: Students use J Taylor Education‘s depth and complexity icons promoting academic language (e.g.

multiple perspectives, ethics, big idea, unanswered question) to write seminar questions. Tier 1=use 1 icon word in question, Tier 2=2 icon

words, Tier 3=3 icon words. Icons are posted on the white board and students have learned what each word means.

Literature Circles (lc): Students sign up for a specific role and meet in small groups to discuss a core text. Students are familiar with the

roles but have written descriptions of roles for reference. Students have established a routine where everyone shares his/her role with the

group. They consistently raise important questions and issues in their discussions and are self-directed. The teacher circulates among the

different lit circles and checks for understanding. For this unit, students will sign up for roles and the teacher will assign students to groups.

Round Robin: Two students remain at desks while the other two students rotate clockwise around the room. Students discuss specific

topics and typically have a graphic organizer to structure conversations and take notes. This is basically a traveling Think-Pair-Share. The

teacher facilitates the rotation and circulates to check for understanding.

During Announcements (DA): Students write or work on activity during announcements which is five minutes long.

Class officially starts at 9:05 am; however, students are in class at 9:00 am for announcements. Typically students do not listen to

announcements, so they respond to the daily journal prompt then. If I put one minute on the calendar for the daily journal, this is because

students have already been writing for five.

Dialectical Journal: Students choose a quote and analyze it for its themes, literary devices, character development, and personal

connections. Students are familiar with the dialectical journal format.

Class Debrief: Teacher leads a class debrief by pulling equity cards and then opening the floor to others. Same as DJ routine.

T-Model: Teacher models strategies, thinking and writing process. Students listen and follow along.

S-Practice: Students practice strategies that the teacher just modeled in their small groups. Teacher circulates.



Day 1: Monday, April 7

50 minutes

Day 2: Tuesday, April 8

50 minutes

Day 3: Wednesday, April 9

90 minutes

Day 4: Friday, April 11

50 minutes

Students will learn how their

family history and dreams have

impacted their lives. Students will

learn what ideas are important to

the postmodern literary era.

Students will learn how to make

inferences about setting and

character from stage directions

(How to read a play).

Students will learn how to chunk

and summarize passages in a

play in order to understand

characters and their relationships

more effectively. (How to read a

play in chunks) Students will

learn how to use blocking to

understand characters‘

relationships. (How to see a

play)

Students will learn how to use blocking

to analyze characters‘ development and

relationships (How to see a play).

Students will learn how to communicate

their rationale for their blocking scene

using sentence starters that build

academic language. Students will learn

how to support their ideas using textual

evidence in lit circles.

Students will learn how

inflections in dialogue

accentuate characters‘

personalities and

relationships. (How to

hear a play) Students will

learn (review) effective

interview techniques.

Reading Quiz Preparation (DA)

Reading Quiz (5 min)

DJ: Think back to the most

recent conflict you had with your

parents. What does the conflict

reveal about your underlying

desires versus your parents‘

desires? (DA)

Students continue blocking scene they

are presenting to class. Students prepare

a rationale for their blocking decisions.

Teacher circulates. (10 min)

DJ: Refer to the conflict

you wrote about on

Tuesday. How did your

and your parents‘ tone of

voice affect your

conversation? How did

Speed Dating (10 min)

Students round robin and discuss

free write. Students take notes on

graphic organizer. Teacher keeps

time and students moving.

Speed Dating Class Debrief

(10 min) Same as DJ debrief

routine.

Introduction to DOAS,

Postmodernism, & Culminating

Assignment (10 min)

Teacher goes over info on

overhead. Students follow along

in unit packet.

Literature Circle Sign-Up (1 min)

Teacher reviews roles and passes

around sign-up sheet.

T-Model (5 min): Stage Directions

Teacher models how to make

inferences about setting and

character from stage directions.

Students fill out graphic

organizers.

S-Practice (10 min): Students fill

out graphic organizers in small

groups. Teacher circulates.

Daily Journal Debrief (5 min)

Students Share Inferences

(3 min) made for homework in

small groups. Teacher circulates.

Class Debrief (2 min): Teacher

facilitates large class sharing.

T-Model (5 min): Chunking &

Summarizing. Graphic organizer

on overhead. Students follow

along.

S-Practice (10 min): Students

practice strategies in small

groups and fill out graphic

organizer. Teacher circulates.


facilitates large class sharing.

T-Model (10 min): Blocking

with emphasis on how it reflects

relational dynamics. Teacher

presents rationale. Students fill

out graphic organizer.

S-Practice (10 min): Block

assigned scene from DOAS in

small groups. Teacher circulates.

Blocking Performances (50 min)

Teacher directs students to use sentence

starters to structure their feedback & fill

out graphic organizer. Students give

context for performance. Other students

add rows to graphic organizer. Students

perform scenes to the class. The teacher

sits with the class as an observer and

facilitates the timing and transitions of

performances. After each performance,

the teacher asks the rest of the class what

inferences students made about

characters and relationships based on the

blocking they saw. Students share their

rationale using sentence starters. The

teacher may add additional comments at

end, again modeling the use of sentence

starters if needed. Then the teacher

invites performing members to share

rationale behind blocking for their

character and what it reveals about their

relationships with other characters.

Students fill out graphic organizers as

groups share.

Literature Circles (30 min)

Teacher models how to use textual

evidence to ask question or support

points using sentence starters. Students

listen. Teacher asks students to practice

this skill in lit circles. Teacher circulates.

it reveal certain aspects of

your relational history?

(DA)

Daily Journal Debrief

(2 min)

T-Model (3 min): How

inflections made in

dialogue reveal characters‘

personalities,

relationships, and history

with one another.

Connects to blocking.

Students listen.

S-Practice (10 min):

Students pick from list of

four passages, read

passage aloud in small

group, and discuss how

inflections made express

characters‘ personalities

and relationships with

others. Teacher circulates.

Class Debrief (5 min)

T-Review: Interview

strategies (5 min).

Students listen.

Lit Circles (25 min)

HW: Read pp. 11-40 of Act I.

Finish filling out graphic

organizer for Act I‘s stage

directions for Tuesday.

HW: Read the rest of Act I.

Finish filling out graphic

organizer. Write dialectical

journal entry. Prepare for lit

circle role.

HW: Read pp. 71-105 of Act II of Death

of a Salesman. Write dialectical journal

entry. Prepare for lit circle role.

HW: Finish reading Act II

and Requiem. Choose

family relationship you

want to analyze for essay

& conduct interview.

Prepare for lit circle role.




50 minutes


50 minutes


50 minutes


50 minutes

Students will learn to identify

reliable sources on the internet for

information. Students will learn

how to make interdisciplinary

connections with a core text

through supplementary articles.

Students will learn how to use a

Venn diagram to compare &

contrast relationships. Students

will learn to make inter-

disciplinary connections between

texts.

Students will learn to build off of other

students‘ comments in literary

discussion. Students will learn to use

textual evidence to support their claims

in literary discussion (speaking and

listening).

Students will learn how to

use prepositional phrases

and subordinating

conjunctions to express

complex ideas (grammar).

DJ: What are key insights you had

from your interview with a family

member? How do your insights

connect with a relationship in

DOAS? (DA) Teacher circulates.

DJ: What is your article‘s main

argument and how does it

enhance your understanding of

DOAS? (DA) Teacher

circulates.

Begin class by reviewing the sentence

starters on handout and choose two from

each category you will use in this

discussion. Swap questions with a

partner and star those you find especially

interesting. (DA) Teacher circulates.

DJ: Look over the essay‘s

rubric. Discuss the areas

in which you are strong

and areas in which you

still need help. Give

reasons for your claim.


T-Model (10 min): How to

identify reliable internet sources

and conduct effective internet

research. Teacher demonstrates

how to do search on Computer On

Wheels (projects computer

screen). Teacher models how to

make interdisciplinary

connections using a graphic

organizer. Students take STAR

notes in DJ.

S-Practice (35 min): Students go

to computer lab to find two

articles on assigned topic related

to lit circle role. Articles must

meet reliable sources criteria.

Teacher must approve of articles.

Students research; teacher

circulates. Students annotate

articles & fill out graphic

organizer.

DDirector and Play Director: the

American Dream and happiness/

wealth; Literary Critic and

Summarizer: Play review from

1950s and contemporary time;

Psychologist with another group‘s

psychologist: father-son

relationship or communication

between parents and children.


T-Model (10 min): How to use a

Venn diagram to compare and

contrast family relationship and

DOAS relationship for essay.

Teacher projects work on

overhead. Students listen.

S-Practice (5 min): Students

begin working on Venn diagram

for essay (to be finished for

homework). Teacher circulates.

Teacher transitions class to next

activity and tells students to

finish the Venn diagram for

homework (2 min).

T-Model (3 min): How to fill out

graphic organizer for jigsaw in lit

circles and make

interdisciplinary connections (i.e.

identifying patterns, trends, and

places of congruence). Students

listen.

S-Practice in Lit Circles (30

min): Students conduct regular lit

circle procedure and fill out

graphic organizer for jigsaw

articles. Discussion Directors are

appointed to keep time.

T-Model (5 min): Sentence starters to

build ideas off of others‘ comment and

reviews norms. Teacher also models

how to use textual evidence to support

claims. Students listen.

Teacher asks students to look through DJ

and dialectical journal entries to refresh

memory on DOAS. Students do it.

Teacher circulates. (2 min)

Socratic Seminar on DOAS (38 min)

Students ask the questions and lead

the discussion.

Teacher listens and intervenes only

when necessary.

Skill to focus on: using sentence

starters to build off of others‘

comments and use textual evidence to

support claims.

Socratic Seminar Reflection (5 min)

Teacher leads class in reflection on

seminar. Students respond.

Teacher circulates during

DJ. (DA)


(5 min)

T-Model (10 min):

Prepositional phrases and

subordinating

conjunctions hand-

clapping activity (taught

by Jeff Zwiers). Teacher

explains rationale behind

activity. Students listen.

S-Practice (15 min): In

pairs, three rounds of

topics: 1) favorite movie,

2) your relationship with a

parent/sibling, 3) how that

relationship is similar to

and different from

relationship in DOAS.

Teacher circulates and

keeps time.


use the phrases to express

complex ideas &

relationships and write

claims and sub-claims.

Students listen.

S-Practice (15 min): Write

central & sub-claims using

grammar structures.

Teacher circulates.

HW: Annotate your texts & fill

out your section of graphic

organizer. Choose DOAS

relationship you want to compare

and contrast with family

relationship. Essay due April 30.

HW: Write 6 questions (2 from

each of Costa‘s levels) for

Socratic Seminar next Monday.

Use at least 1 icon word in each

question. Finish Venn diagram.

Read & annotate Miller‘s essay.

HW: Work on essay due this

Wednesday, April 30.

HW: Work on essay

which is due tomorrow.

2 My unit will be interrupted by Spring Break which is April 14-18 and STAR testing which is April 23-25.



Day 9: Wednesday, April 30

90 minutes

Day 10: Friday, May 2

50 minutes

Day 11: Monday, May 5

50 minutes

Day 12: Tuesday, May 6

50 minutes

Students will learn how to

evaluate whether claims and sub-

claims are logically and clearly

worded. Students will learn how

to organize claims and sub-claims

coherently. Students will learn

how to give specific, effective

feedback on writing.

Students will learn how to assess

the strength of their evidence and

supporting examples. Students

will learn how to use transition

words to integrate quotes, facts,

anecdotes, etc. smoothly into

commentary. Students will learn

how to give context and

commentary for evidence.

Students will learn the

components of a strong

introduction and conclusion.

Students will learn how to make

their phrasing and word choice

more academic language

(development of style).

Students will learn to

reflect on their learning in

a unit. Students will learn

to appreciate their and

their peers‘ writing.

Begin class by color coding your

essay with the following

directions: Box claims in red.

Underline evidence in blue. Draw

a squiggly line under commentary/

analysis in orange. Circle

transition words in green. Teacher

circulates. (DA+10 min)

Begin class by meeting with your

partner and reading each other‘s

revisions. Fill out peer review

section, ―After the Revision.‖

Share your feedback with your

partner, using sentence starters

from yesterday. Teacher

circulates. (DA+ 5 min)

Begin class by meeting with your

partner and reading each other‘s

revisions. Fill out peer review

section, ―After the Revision.‖

Share your feedback with your

partner, using sentence starters.

Teacher circulates. (DA+ 5 min)

DJ: 1) What did you learn

about reading, writing,

listening, or speaking in

this unit? 2) What did you

learn about yourself?

(DA)

T-Model (Skill, 10 min): How to

evaluate whether claims are

clearly worded, logical, and

specific by asking questions (e.g.

What does this say? Does it make

sense? Why is this important?

How does relate to my big idea?).

Teacher demonstrates how reading

claims and sub-claims out loud

can indicate whether claims are

clearly and logically worded.

Students follow along on

overhead.

S-Guided Practice w/ Teacher (10

min): Analyzes sample essay‘s

claims with teacher. Then teacher

models how to revise and organize

claims to make them stronger.

Students contribute ideas.

T-Model (Process, 10 min): How

to share feedback respectfully

with partner. Teacher gives

sentence starters and models how

to fill out peer review sheet with

student volunteer and make

recommendations. Students listen

and follow along.

S-Practice (50 min/25 min per

essay): Teacher reveals pre-

assigned pairs. Partners conduct

peer review for claims, fill out

peer review sheet, and make three

concrete recommendations for

revision. Teacher circulates and

checks in with pairs.


checks in with students and

answers any questions.


evaluate whether evidence

supports examples clearly and

logically. Uses sample essay on

overhead. Students follow along.

S-Guided Practice w/ Teacher

(Skill, 10 min): Analyzes sample

evidence with teacher. Then

teacher models how to revise

evidence and invites students to

share suggestions.

S-Practice (25 min): Partners

conduct peer review for

evidence, fill out peer review

sheet, and make three concrete

recommendations for revision.

Teacher circulates and checks in

with pairs.


checks in with students and

answers any questions.


write effective introductions and

conclusions using academic

language (consider audience,

purpose, central claim, and

application). Uses sample essay

on overhead. Students follow

along.

S-Guided Practice w/ Teacher

(Skill, 10 min): Revises

introduction and conclusion with

teacher, using academic

language.

S-Practice (25 min): Partners

conduct peer review for

introduction, conclusion, and

academic language. Fill out peer

review sheet. Make three

concrete recommendations for

revision. Teacher circulates and

checks in with pairs.


(10 min)


give feedback on final

revisions and how to fill

out peer review‘s final

comments section.

Students listen.

S-Practice (25 min): Final

Peer Review. Students

find partners, read papers,

and fill out final peer

review sheet. Pairs share

feedback. Teacher

circulates.

Quaker Reading (10 min):

Teacher gives instructions

and students time to pick

passage to read out loud.

Class stands in circle and

Quaker reading

commences.

Students submit papers at

end of period.

HW: Revise essay and fill out

―Revisions Made‖ section on peer

review form.

HW: Revise essay and fill out

―Revisions Made‖ section on

peer review form.

HW: Finish revising essay. Fill

out ―Revisions Made‖ section on

peer review form. Score rubric.

HW: Read short story for

next unit.



Lesson 1 (50 minute period): Death of a Salesman

Learning Targets

Students will learn how their family history and dreams have impacted their lives and their peers‘

lives.

Students will learn what ideas, themes, and authors are important to the contemporary literary era.

Students will learn how to make inferences about setting and character from stage directions (how to

read a play).

Language Demands

Communicating personal experiences in a fast-paced, highly demanding speaking and listening

activity (speaking and listening)

Listening for key phrases in one-on-one conversation and writing those phrases down

Interpreting sentence starters for quiz (reading)

Using academic language to respond to quiz‘s sentence starters (speaking)

Reading unit packet

Reading and interpreting stage directions

Filling out graphic organizers using academic language

Sheltered Reading Quiz (5 unofficial minutes during announcements, 5 minutes of quiz)

Reading Quiz Preparation (5 unofficial minutes)

In their small cooperating learning groups of four, students will prepare for a reading quiz based on the

reading they did for homework: ―Introduction to Contemporary Writers—1946 to Present.‖ The

teacher will project the sentence starter questions (e.g. ―The United States emerged from World War

II…‖) on the overhead, giving students time to discuss questions in their small groups. The teacher

will circulate, listen to student discussions, and check homework at this time (the free write where

students responded to sentence starters).

Reading Quiz (5 minutes)

After quiz preparation, the teacher begins the quiz by pulling students‘ names randomly from the

class‘s equity cards (please see unit calendar for a more detailed description). Students may choose

any question from the list and answer it. They may consult their notes for help but not their textbook.

They receive a plus on their reading quiz tally if they answer the question correctly; they receive a

minus if they answer incorrectly. The pulling of cards keeps going until every student has had an

opportunity to answer a question. Because students are familiar with this format, the quiz will

probably go quickly.

Speed Dating (20 minutes)

See Speed Dating Sentence Starters Freewrite.3

The teacher asks students to take out their freewrites which they did for homework and review their

responses silently. Then the teacher gives instructions for the Round Robin Speed Dating activity

where students go on speed dates and share their responses. Students are familiar with this activity‘s

rotating format.

The teacher models a date, showing what to do and what not to do. The teacher will also model how to

listen for key phrases and ideas and how to write them down in daily journal quickly. Then students

3 Adapted from Steven Kahl‘s ―American Authors‘ Speed Dating‖ activity. Mountain View High School.



pair up at their tables. The students sitting side by side pair up with one of the other students at the

table. For Date 1, students share their response for Question 1. Students take notes on what their dates

say in their Daily Journals. Then the two students who are facing each other rotate and find new dates

at the next table where students share their responses for Question 2 and so on. The desks are arranged

such that two students face each other while the other two students sit side by side. There are five

groups of four students and one group of five. If all students are present, then the odd person out goes

on a date with the teacher. The teacher facilitates time, tells partners when to switch with each other,

and goes on dates if there is a student without a partner. Students go on about 10 dates. Each date

lasts about 2 minutes (60 seconds each—not a lot of time, but that‘s the nature of speed dating).

Speed Dating Debrief (5 minutes)

After the last date, the teacher will ask the students to think of three things: 1) one word that describes

their experience, 2) something interesting they learned about someone, and 3) something interesting

they learned about themselves. The teacher will give students silent thinking time to jot down their

ideas. Then the teacher will ask students to share their response to Question 2 and Question 3 with a

partner at their table (―Think, Pair, Share‖). The teacher circulates. Then the teacher will ask all

students to share their one word that describes their experience with the whole class. The teacher will

pull a student‘s name randomly and that person goes first and then students go clockwise around the

room until everyone shares.

Introduction to DOAS and Culminating Assignment (5 minutes)

The teacher will introduce Death of a Salesman by giving general facts about the text (title, author,

year it was published) and sharing the unit‘s essential question, learning targets, and culminating

assignment. The students will follow along in their unit packets. Then the teacher will answer any

questions students might have.

Literature Circle Sign-Up (at end of DOAS introduction)

Then the teacher reviews the literature circle roles and then passes around the sign-up sheet for roles,

making clear that this time the teacher will compose the groups based on students‘ role preferences.

Students will not sign up for both role and group this time, only role.

Mini-Lesson: Stage Directions

Teacher models. (5 minutes)

The teacher then models how to make inferences about setting and character from a play‘s stage

directions. She models how to fill out the graphic organizer which is projected on the overhead.

Students follow along and fill out graphic organizers with the teacher.

Students practice. (10 minutes)

Students continue making inferences about character, setting, and theme from stage directions in small

groups and filling out their graphic organizers in small groups. The teacher circulates to check for

understanding.

Homework Posted on White Board and Online

Read pp. 11-40 of Act I. Finish filling out graphic organizer for Act I‘s stage directions for Tuesday.

You must analyze 10 stage directions to receive full credit on homework.

Lesson Plan Rationale

This lesson falls at the beginning of my unit. Two things were especially important to me as an ―into‖

for the text: 1) that students have an opportunity to reflect upon their own lives and 2) that students



have an opportunity to share their reflections with classmates as a means to build community. So far

my students have discussed a lot of ideas and gotten to know what each other thinks about academic

issues and literary texts; however, I do not believe students have had many opportunities to connect

with one another personally aside from the Emersonian Gift Exchange we did at the end of our

Transcendentalism unit where every student created a gift for a classmate based on Emerson‘s criteria

in his essay ―Gifts.‖ Connecting personally with classmates increases community in the classroom

which is important for group work, especially for my unit later on as students write very personal

essays and workshop them with a partner. Personal connections establish trust and respect between

classmates and make for a better academic learning environment. Some students have said to me

explicitly that they feel intimidated by some of the other students in the class, so I think sharing about

their personal lives on ―dates‖ where students talk with at least ten other classmates will make each

other seem less intimidating.

As a warm up to the ―into,‖ I give students the speed dating sentence starters as a free write assignment

to complete before the official first day of the unit. This is part of my sheltered instruction for the

lesson plan so that students have time to respond thoughtfully to each prompt, which may be difficult

during the highly demanding speech component of the speed dating activity. Having their responses in

front of them will give them something to say during the fast-paced speed date. Students are familiar

with this format of sharing, but to give extra support for the activity, I want students to prepare their

responses in advance. Asking students to take daily journal notes is also structured to support

listening. I will instruct students to listen for key words and write those down as they go on their dates.

Finally, my students receive extra support during the debrief where they are given time to reflect on the

experience, share their responses in pairs, and then share their one word describing the experience with

the class. This makes speaking less intimidating and gives students time to collect their thoughts

before sharing them.

My free write essentially serves as an anticipation guide for the text except that students are creating

the statements they discuss with partners by offering ideas and themes from their lives, an important

skill they will need later on to write the reflective compare/contrast essay. The sentence starters

address the essential question in some way because it asks students to reflect on their family

relationships, dreams, family history, etc. In terms of supporting academic language, students can see

the free write sentence starters to help them understand the topic, hear them used in on their dates,

practice speaking them, and write down what they hear others saying.

Let me step back for a moment and give my rationale for the reading quiz. First, this is an established

routine in our class. Before reading a text from a new literary era, students read the corresponding

introduction in their textbook, The American Experience. Learning the historical background of the

literary era gives important context for the core text and helps them make meta-level connections

between the text and the literary era in which it was written. The reading quiz is written in the lesson

to support content area knowledge.

Second, I have sheltered the quiz to support the activity‘s language demands, especially with EL

students in mind. Students see the questions in advance so they have time to understand what the

sentence starters are asking and refer back to their notes and textbook for clarification. They discuss

answers with their classmates, giving them an opportunity to practice sharing their answers out loud.

The questions are written as sentence starters so that students read the sentence starters out loud and

complete the sentence which gives them a model for how academic sentences are structured and an

opportunity to practice saying complete academic sentences so that they can hear the correct form.

When students are called on, they may consult their notes and choose the question they want so that



they share what they know. These structures are put into place to scaffold both the content area

knowledge (history and characteristics of contemporary literary era) and language demands (using

academic language to communicate what you know about the literary period).

After the quiz, I introduce the core text by going over basic facts and sharing the essential question,

learning targets, and culminating assignment. I will pass out unit packets (see attached handouts; the

culminating assignment handout and rubric can be found later in the unit). Students can follow along

and ask questions. I will speak slowly and make explicit what students are expected to learn in the unit

so that they may monitor their own progress. I introduce lit circle roles to remind students again of

how they function, and finally I move into modeling how to read stage directions.

Typically, my students read stage directions quickly and do not think much about them, so I want them

to practice reading stage directions carefully and making inferences about the text to enhance their

understanding. They fill out a graphic organizer to support the language demands associated with

reading stage directions and work in groups to make sense of how the images and setting contribute to

the play‘s tone, characters, and setting. The graphic organizer asks students to record the images,

words, ideas they associate with the stage direction (drawing from prior knowledge) and using those

ideas to analyze the stage direction more deeply. The graphic organizer is designed to support

analytical thinking which serves as a scaffold for the skills students need to complete the culminating

assignment.

Sheltered Strategies Used

Giving students sentence starters in a free write to prepare for speed dates

Using sentence starters instead of recall question format for reading quiz to promote academic

language and increase fluency

Giving students time to discuss quiz questions in small groups

Calling on students using equity cards and allowing students to choose which question they want to

answer

Allowing students to use notes as support during verbal response to quiz question

Modeling speed date

Modeling how to listen for key phrases and take notes in daily journals

Giving students time to reflect on experience and record thoughts

Think, Pair, Share

Modeling how to read stage directions and make inferences about character

Having students discuss stage directions in small groups

Giving graphic organizers to students to support their reading of stage directions

I implemented these strategies to support the language demands of the lesson and give students

multiple entry points to the content through varied activities.



Lesson 1: Free Write4

Please respond to the following sentence starters.

1) My idea of a perfect job is…

2) The American Dream is…

3) The thing I worry most about is…

4) A story my parents have told me about their growing up experience is…

5) Sometimes my brother/sister butts heads with my mother/father (pick one) because…

6) I think my father/mother is similar/not similar to my grandmother/grandfather (pick a relationship)

because…

7) Three words that describe my father/mother are…

8) My father/mother worries about…

9) The best thing about my relationship with my father/mother is…

10) Something I do not understand about my father/mother is…

11) Eventually I would like to settle close to/far away from my parents because…

12) My grandfather‘s/grandmother‘s career was…

4 Idea adapted from free write activity used in English C&I over summer 2007 as ―into‖ for autobiographical incident.



Lesson 1: Reading Quiz for “Contemporary Era”5

1) Maria Wyeth of Play It As It Lays thinks about…

2) Some of the new technology of the contemporary era include…which makes life…

3) After World War II, great strides were made in American society in the areas of…

4) Popular entertainment changed dramatically…

5) The effects of entertainment‘s changes on literature are…

6) Contemporary writers‘ style of writing tends to…

7) After the WWII, Americans wanted to…

8) In 1945, the United Nations was created to…

9) Americans of the 1950s are sometimes referred to as…because…

10) Near the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Union launched…which made Americans…

11) In response, President John F. Kennedy promised to…

12) Blacks could not play baseball in the major league until…

13) Many significant events took place in the U.S. in 1968 including…

14) In July 1969, Neil Armstrong…

15) Some famous American writers of the 1940s and 1950s are…

16) The upheavals of the 1960s caused Americans to become…

17) Civil rights activism continued the 1960s and another movement began attracting attention…

18) The postwar period was a time of explosive growth in…because of…

19) American industry changed rapidly…

20) Postmodernism emerged as a philosophy that…

21) One of the literary giants to whom many modern writers look is…because…

22) Some famous prewar poets include…

23) Some famous contemporary poets are…because…

24) One of the features of literary history is its…because…

25) Contemporary writers use many literary forms and techniques which include…because…

5 Format adapted from Steven Kahl‘s reading quizzes at Mountain View High School.



Lesson 1: Death of a Salesman Unit Packet6

Essential Question: How do the dreams and aspirations of your parents, grandparents, and ancestors change

and impact family relationships from generation to generation?

Reading Schedule

Reading Date by Which Reading Should

be Completed

Other Assignments Due

Read pp. 11-40 of Act I

Tuesday, April 8 Fill out stage directions graphic

organizer.

Read rest of Act I Wednesday, April 9 Fill out chunking/summarizing

graphic organizer. One

dialectical journal entry. Prepare

for lit circle role.

Read pp. 71-105 of Act II Friday, April 11 One dialectical journal entry.

Prepare for literature circle role.

Read rest of Act II and the

Requiem.

Monday, April 21 Choose family relationship you

want to analyze for essay and

conduct interview. Prepare for lit

circle role.

Literature Circle Roles

Discussion Director—Facilitates conversation, makes sure everyone shares his/her role contributions, keeps the

discussion moving along, keeps time, ensures that everyone‘s voice is heard and enforces literature circle norms.

Summarizer and Word Watcher—Summarizes the key events of the reading succinctly. Identifies and defines

unknown words.

Play Director—Visualizes how scenes should be blocked, makes inferences about character, relationships, and

theme from stage directions and stage set. Uses inflections to communicate nuance about characters and their

relationships.

Literary Critic—Analyzes the play for its literary and dramatic elements—theme, tone, imagery, conflict,

dialogue, motifs, etc.

Psychologist—Examines the underlying motivations and psyches of characters and their relationships.

Analyzes how characters‘ desires clash or connect with others. Illuminates the finer aspects of character‘s

relationships.

Learning Targets

Reading: Chunking and Summarizing

Literature: Character Development

Writing: Reflective Compare/Contrast Essay

Speaking/Listening: Using textual evidence to support claims in literary discussion

Technology: Identifying credible internet sources and crafting focused research question to

guide internet search

Grammar: Using subordinating conjunctions and prepositional phrases to organize ideas

6 Idea adapted from Steven Kahl‘s unit packets at Mountain View High School.



Lesson 1: Literature Circles Sign-Up Sheet

Please sign up for a role you would like to have. I will put you in groups based on your preferences.

Discussion Director—Facilitates conversation, makes sure everyone shares his/her role contributions, keeps the

discussion moving along, keeps time, ensures that everyone‘s voice is heard and enforces literature circle norms.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Summarizer and Word Watcher—Summarizes the key events of the reading succinctly. Identifies and

defines unknown words.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Play Director—Visualizes how scenes should be blocked, makes inferences about character, relationships, and

theme from stage directions and stage set. Uses inflections to communicate nuance about characters and their

relationships.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Literary Critic—Analyzes the play for its literary and dramatic elements—theme, tone, imagery, conflict,

dialogue, motifs, etc.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Psychologist—Examines the underlying motivations and psyches of characters and their relationships.

Analyzes how characters‘ desires clash or connect with others. Illuminates the finer aspects of character‘s

relationships.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.



Lesson 1: Death of a Salesman

Graphic Organizer for Stage Directions

***You must analyze a total 10 stage directions to receive full credit.***

Stage Direction &

Description

Concrete words, feelings,

or images I associate

with this image/direction

Inference about what

the stage direction

might say about

theme, character, or

relationship in the play

Questions I still have

A melody played by a

flute which is small and

fine, telling of grass and

tress and the horizon

Peter and the Wolf,

horizontal wind

instrument, single

melody line, high notes,

pure sound

Flute and melody

represent something

pastoral, simple, pure,

unfettered. Link back

to nature, a simpler

time?

Does the flute reflect

or contrast the setting

in the play? How

does it contribute to

the tone and setting?

Salesman‘s

House…towering

angular shapes behind it,

surrounding it on all

sides

Modern, contemporary,

urban, impersonal,

formulaic; house is

fenced in

Salesman‘s house is

trapped. Symbolic for

the salesman being

trapped and cornered

by larger, imposing

presences? Salesman

lives close to people

but is still isolated,

maybe pushed out, by

others. He is trapped.

This contrasts the

pastoral tune of the

flute.

How does the

physical layout of the

stage contribute to

the characters‘

development, story,

and relationships?

Surrounding area shows

an angry glow of orange

Solid vault of apartment

houses around the small,

fragile-seeming home.

Air of a dream




Learning Targets

Students will learn how to chunk and summarize passages in a play in order to understand

characters and their relationships more effectively. (How to read a play)

Students will learn how to use blocking to understand characters‘ relationships. (How to see a

play)

Language Demands

Reading and interpreting a written prompt

Writing response to prompt

Communicating ideas orally in small group discussion

Listening and understanding others‘ ideas in small group and whole class discussion

Using academic language to share inferences about stage directions

Reading play format and identifying good places in text to chunk/summarize

Using academic language to summarize what is happening in play

Using academic language to communicate inferences about characters

Listening to teacher‘s speech and understanding what she is communicating

Daily Journal (During Announcements)

The Prompt: Think back to the most recent conflict you had with your parents. What does the conflict

reveal about your underlying desires versus your parents‘ desires?

Students respond to the prompt during announcements while the teacher circulates and checks

homework.

Daily Journal Debrief (5 minutes)

Please see detailed description of this class routine in the unit calendar.

--Small groups share responses.

--Teacher circulates and listens for themes.

--Teacher pulls three to five students‘ names randomly from equity cards and students share.

--Teacher opens floor to anyone else who wants to contribute.

Students Share Inferences in Small Groups (3 minutes)

The teacher then directs students to pull out their stage directions graphic organizers they filled out

with their small groups and finished for homework to share new insights into text from stage

directions. The teacher circulates and checks for understanding.

Class Debrief (2 minutes): Stage Direction Inferences

Using equity cards, the teacher calls on students to share new inferences and the teacher adds these to

the overhead of the graphic organizer for all to see.

Teacher Models (5 minutes): Chunking and Summarizing

The teacher transitions the class from making inferences about setting, theme, and character to

chunking and summarizing. Because students effectively chunked and summarized parts of the text

for the stage directions, the teacher will name the reading strategies more explicitly so that students

will learn the strategies‘ names and apply them to their reading of Act I. The teacher will model the



strategies out loud, projecting the chunking and summarizing graphic organizer on the overhead so that

students can follow along.

Students Practice (10 minutes): Chunking and Summarizing

Students practice these reading strategies in small groups. Teacher assigns different page numbers to

groups to analyze. Students fill out graphic organizers for their assigned pages (chunking and

summarizing parts only). There are six cooperative learning groups in my class and their parts are

assigned as follows:

Group 1: pp. 12-15 of Act I. Group 2: pp. 16-19 of Act I.

Group 3: pp. 20-23 of Act I Group 4: pp. 24-27 of Act I.

Group 5: pp. 28-31 of Act I Group 5: pp. 32-35 of Act I.

Class Debrief (5 minutes)

Teacher asks group to nominate a speaker and each group‘s speaker shares the inferences and insights

they gleaned about text from the passages they chunked and summarized in their given part. The

teacher adds students‘ comments to the graphic organizer on the overhead. Students fill out graphic

organizers along with teacher.

Teacher Models (10 minutes): Blocking7

The teacher then transitions the class from chunking and summarizing to blocking. She picks two

students volunteers to play Willy and Linda in the opening scene of the play and gives instructions to

volunteers about how to position their body. The teacher explains that in a play the position of

characters—where they are standing, how their bodies are positioned, who is standing with them, how

someone is positioned in relation to them in a conversation—often reveals something about the

character and his/her relationship with that person. The teacher models how to make inferences about

their relationship based on how they are blocked. The teacher refers back to the stage direction

inferences/graphic organizer for help. Teacher models giving rationale for blocking. Students fill out

blocking column on chunking/summarizing graphic organizer as teacher fills out organizer on

overhead.

Students Practice (10 minutes): Blocking Scene from Play

Students then return to the passages they chunked and filled out for their chunking/summarizing

graphic organizer and choose a scene to block from the pages assigned. Students discuss how scene

should be blocked and practice the scene to perform in front of classmates the next day. Teacher tells

students that their performance should be a maximum of five minutes. Students fill out blocking

column of graphic organizer. Teacher circulates and checks for understanding.

Homework Posted on White Board and Online

Read the rest of Act I. Finish fill out chunking and summarizing graphic organizer. Write dialectical

journal entry. Prepare for lit circle role.

Lesson Plan Rationale

Similar to the speed dating free write sentence starters, my daily journal prompt for this and

subsequent lessons is designed to prepare students for their culminating assignment. Today‘s prompt

asks students to continue reflecting on their relationship with their parents which is directly linked to

7 This is adapted from Dr. Peter Williamson and Ms. Chandra Alston‘s English Curriculum and Instruction Lesson on

blocking. Winter Quarter 2008. Stanford University.



the essential question. The goal is that as they respond to these journal prompts, they are able to

analyze that relationship more critically so that when it comes time to write their essays, they can refer

to their daily journal for ideas. Sharing their responses with others continues to build community and

give students an opportunity to hear what they share and hone their thoughts. Sometimes as we share

our reflections, we are able to gain more insights into situations or relationships, so the

speaking/sharing component of daily journal debriefs are intended to foster this kind of thinking and

analytical skill.

Because my students are proficient readers, chunking and summarizing may seem like a review.

Despite their proficiency, they tend to rush their reading and become overconfident in their

understanding of a text. I want to slow their reading pace down so that they practice doing the kind of

close reading they need to understand the play, its characters, nuances, and conflicts more deeply.

Working on chunking and summarizing explicitly will help students develop good reading strategies

that enable them to make meaning of the text. It will also instill patience and discipline, skills needed

in understanding particularly dense academic texts.

Essentially students have begun chunking and summarizing by paying close attention to the stage

directions and making inferences in Lesson 1, so Lesson 2 explicitly names the reading strategies and

provides additional information about these strategies which will help students understand what they

are doing. After the daily journal routine, students share the additional inferences they made about

stage directions with small groups and the class. This allows me to check for understanding as I hear

students‘ responses (are they picking up on the nuances and complexities of the play? Are they

moving beyond plot summary?), and it gives students an opportunity to increase their understanding as

they hear others‘ share their inferences. In this way, the class is collaborating together to share

meaning.

Because of students‘ work with stage directions in Lesson One, I predict that they will master

chunking and summarizing fairly quickly. I will check for understanding as I circulate and listen to

small group work. If it seems like the class has mastered the skill adequately, I will introduce blocking

in order to maintain momentum. Blocking will give students a very tangible, visual look at character

and relationships. Because blocking is a kinesthetic exercise, it will draw in kinesthetic and visual

learners. Seeing people‘s positions and body language will provide a three-dimensional visual into

character and make understanding character development more accessible to readers who respond

positively to this kind of learning. Blocking will also support the language demands of the class in that

it provides an avenue other than reading and writing for students to understand the text. Blocking a

scene will give students an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of character development,

the unit‘s literature target, beyond recording their thoughts on graphic organizers and discussing them

in groups.

Throughout my lesson plan, I circulate and do informal formative assessment and checks for

understanding also as an opportunity to check in with students who are struggling readers and writers.

In the context of this class, those who struggle are those who need more time to read and write and

those who still need to strengthen their literary analysis skills. I do not have any EL students in this

class; however, I do have students who struggle using academic language in their writing and

speaking. With this in mind, modeling academic language while chunking and summarizing, as well

as recording inferences using academic language on the graphic organizer, will help struggling

students practice using academic language and develop their thoughts about characters beyond plot

summary.



My lesson plan is linked to my essential question because it asks students to examine dialogue closely

to understand the play‘s characters, their relationships, and their desires which will inevitably lead us

back to the essential question. Learning also to block scenes will further students‘ understanding of

characters and their relationships.


Defining key terms like blocking

Practice sentence fluency in daily journals

Think, Pair, Share for daily journal debriefs

Modeling academic language

Graphic organizers

Small group work

Blocking (bringing in multiple intelligences and modalities)

Explicitly naming reading strategies

I found this lesson difficult to shelter and should probably provide sentence starters to help EL students

develop academic language in addition to my modeling every reading strategy and activity. I rely on

fluent English speakers to model speaking and listening in academic English. Perhaps the most

effective sheltered strategy used here is blocking because it provides students an entry point to the text

that is not predicated upon an understanding of English. Body language uses no words to

communicate feelings and relationships, so using this strategy will help ELL students to master the

content area knowledge, which for this lesson is character development.



Lesson 2: Death of a Salesman

Graphic Organizer for Chunking/Summarizing and Blocking

Quotes (List page

number, beginning

line and ending line

of passage you

chunked)

Characters

Involved

Brief summary of

what the characters

are doing or talking

about (above the

surface)

What you learn about

the characters as

individuals and their

relationship (below the

surface)

How the characters

are blocked and

how this reflects

your inference in

previous column.

p. 12, Willy Loman,

the Salesman, enters

carrying two large

sample cases…a

word-sigh escapes

his lips.

Linda, his

wife…gets out of

bed and puts on a

robe, listening.

Willy and his wife

Linda

Willy comes home

after a long day of

work and Linda

wakes up, gets out of

bed, and stands at

door listening to her

husband.

Willy is tired, worn from

his job. He feels

burdened, exhausted,

hopeless, maybe even

despairing. Linda worries

but keeps this to herself.

She remains optimistic for

Willy‘s sake, but perhaps

more for her own.

Willy‘s body is

slumped. He

shuffles his feet.

Looks down at floor.

His body language

droops to reflect his

physical and

emotional

exhaustion. Linda

stands a little taller,

more solid somehow,

yet she leans into

door, straining to

listen. She wears a

concerned expression

on her face. Before

she calls out to

Willy, she breathes

deeply as if to gather

her strength.

p. 13

L: ―Well, you‘ll just

have to take a rest,

Willy, you can‘t

continue this way.‖

[….]

W: I‘ll start out in

the morning. Maybe

I‘ll feel better in the

morning.

Willy and his wife

Linda

Willy comes home to

a concerned wife

Linda who wants to

know how her

husband‘s day on the

job went. Willy is

struggling to drive

very far these days.

Linda tries to

console her husband.

Willy—optimistic about

what he can do but also

depressed that he isn‘t able

to do what he think he can

do.

Linda—seems to tiptoe

around Willy, tries to offer

encouragement and

maintain a positive

attitude, very nurturing

Relationship: Willy does

not seem to listen to Linda

much. Linda continues to

care for her husband

without

complaining/bitterness.




Learning Targets

Students will learn how to use blocking to analyze characters‘ development and relationships (how

to see a play).

Students will learn how to communicate their rationale for their blocking scene using sentence

starters that build academic language.

Students will learn how to support their ideas using textual evidence in lit circles.

Language Demands

Communicating ideas orally in small group and whole class discussion

Listening and understanding others‘ ideas in small group and whole class discussion

Using academic language to share inferences about stage directions

Reading play format and identifying good places in text to chunk/summarize

Using academic language to summarize what is happening in play

Using academic language to communicate inferences about characters

Listening to teacher‘s speech and understanding what she is communicating

Listening and understanding the performance of a dramatic scene

Students Practice (15 minutes): Blocking Scene from Play

Students begin class by resuming the work they began in Lesson 2 on blocking a scene from a play.

Each small group blocks a scene from the pages they were assigned from Act I for the chunking and

summarizing practice. The teacher reminds students to prepare a rationale to explain the decisions

they made about blocking, circulates among groups, and keeps time.

Blocking Performances (50 minutes)

Before performances begin, the teacher directs students to use sentence starters to structure their

feedback (see handout) and add rows to chunking/summarizing/blocking graphic organizer. Students

give context for performance (e.g. give page numbers, basic summary of what is happening, basically

sharing chunking/summarizing information). Students perform scenes from DOAS to the class. There

are five groups, so the groups have a total of ten minutes each which includes five minutes of

performance and five minutes of analysis. The teacher sits with the class as an observer and facilitates

the timing and transitions of performances. Students add to chunking/summarizing/blocking graphic

organizer for each performance. After each performance, the teacher asks the rest of the class what

inferences students made about characters and relationships based on the blocking they saw. Students

share their rationale using the sentence starters. The teacher may add additional comments at the end,

again modeling the use of sentence starters if needed. Then the teacher invites performing members to

share rationale behind blocking for their character and what it reveals about their relationships with

other characters. Students fill out graphic organizers as groups share.

Literature Circles (30 min)

Using sentence starters, the teacher models how to use textual evidence to ask question or support

points referring back to the graphic organizers students have filled out so far. Students listen. Teacher

asks students to practice this skill in lit circles. Teacher circulates and checks for understanding as

students meet to discuss text in lit circles.



Homework Posted Online and on White Board

Read pp. 71-105 of Act II of Death of a Salesman. Write dialectical journal entry. Prepare for lit

circle role.

Rationale

Understanding a play would not be complete if students did not try their hand at acting out a scene.

Asking students to perform scenes from DOAS will make the play come alive for students and increase

access to the characters and relationships in the play. Working in a small group to discuss how

characters should be blocked will encourage students to consider the character‘s development and

relationships as they understand them in the text so far. This will give them additional opportunity to

make meaning of the text and probe the text deeply for theme, nuance, conflict, etc. Acting out scenes

will also utilize students who enjoy drama and learn content more effectively in performance.

Bringing in multiple abilities and modalities of learning will make the material more accessible for

more students.

To support the ongoing development of literary analysis skills, I ask students to make inferences about

characters and their relationships from each performance. Students will add rows to their

chunking/summarizing/blocking graphic organizer which will give them reading-strategy-specific

things to think about as they watch each performance.

Asking the non-performers to share their inferences and give feedback to performers allows me to

check for understanding which will help me see which students are applying the strategies proficiently

and which students still need help. I provide sentence starters as a language support for students who

need guidance using academic language to give feedback. After non-performing students give

feedback, performing students share their rationale for their character‘s blocking which gives them an

opportunity to articulate their understanding of characters and relationships. Sentence starters are

available to them to guide their conversation. All students will have an opportunity to perform, watch,

give feedback, and share rationales which will promote community and further their use of reading

strategies and understanding of character development.

After performances, students hold their first literature circle for the unit. For previous units, students

have given overwhelmingly positive feedback about literature circles and have consistently performed

their jobs well. I have included literature circles in my unit so that all students have multiple

opportunities to share their ideas about the text and deepen their understanding by listening to other‘s

ideas. Literature circles also promote community and learning.

Before literature circles meet, I model how to use textual evidence to support a claim or ask a question

using sentence starters. This is to support students who are still struggling to use academic language in

their discussion of literary texts and to remind others to use academic language. I emphasize this skill

also because my students in their literary analysis papers struggle to incorporate strong supporting

evidence for their claims. Explicitly modeling how to use textual evidence in literary discussion here

is a scaffold for our Socratic seminar later in the unit, which scaffolds students to do the culminating

assignment. During literature circles, I circulate and check for understanding as I listen to groups

discuss the text, use textual evidence to support claims, and perform individual roles.


Modeling

Sentence starters



Small group discussions; literature circles

Dramatic performances

Graphic organizers

This lesson is a continuation of Lesson 2. I support language needs by using sentence starters to guide

feedback on blocking performances and incorporate textual evidence in literary discussion. I also

utilize the graphic organizers students have already been using, so students are building off of the

previous days‘ work, giving language learners another opportunity to develop comprehensive reading

and analytical skills. The blocking performances and literature circles provide rich opportunities for

students to discuss the essential question and understand the text deeply.



Unit Assessment Plan for Death of a Salesman

HAmLit Grade Breakdown

I need to uphold my CT‘s grading system, so here is how things break down in my class:

Essays, Speeches 20% 90-100 A

Unit/Final Exams 10% 80-89 B

Card Quizzes 10% 70-79 C

Homework Completion and Quality 10% 69 and below F

Class Participation 10% *No D‘s are given for the class.

Daily Journal 10%

Unit Projects 10%

Formal Discussions and Seminars 10%

Author Study Project (already completed) 10%

100%

Unit Assessments

All my assessments will be added to the ongoing cumulative grade in the categories my CT has already put in

place for the class. See above for percentages and how each will contribute to the students‘ final grades.

Assignment/Category Points

Homework Grade and Completion 10 Homework Checks to add to ongoing tally

Card Quiz 1 quiz to add + to ongoing tally

Class Participation Floating grade that is adjusted at end of each unit.

Students can work to increase it.

Maximum: 100 points

Daily Journal (to be assessed at end of semester) 6 entries to add to journal

Maximum: 100 points

Socratic Seminar for Unit (Formal Discussions) 25 points

Literature Circles for Unit (Formal Discussions) 25 points

Blocking Scene (Unit Projects) 25 points

Self-Review on Revisions (Essays) 50 points

Peer Review on Revisions (Essays) 50 points

Final Draft (Essays) 100 points

Major and Minor Assignments

Because my CT spreads out grading into multiple categories, the major assignments are those that have higher

point values. In this unit, the components related to essays hold the highest point totals. Students will receive

three grades towards their overall essay grade which is unusual since students typically only receive one essay

grade per unit. I deliberately added more assessments for essays so that students had more opportunities to

improve their essay grade. The culminating assignment gives more details for each writing component.

Overall, students have an opportunity to earn points in every category except unit/final exams and the Author

Study Project which students have already completed.

Blocking Scene—Students will receive a grade based on 1) how effectively the blocking expressed the

characters and their relationships and 2) how clearly they explained their rationale behind their blocking

decisions.

Socratic Seminar—Socratic seminar grade will include the questions students wrote in preparation for the

seminar in addition to the quality of their comments during the discussion. Students will self-score a rubric (see

appendix).



Daily Journal—Students will be assessed according to guidelines on rubric (see appendix).

Literature Circles—Students will be assessed according to guidelines on rubric (see appendix). Peers will also

confidentially submit a grade for each person in their literature circle which will be factored into the grade.

Class Participation—Rubric is available for students to see how their grade is assessed (see appendix).

Peer Review on Revisions—Students will be assessed on the quality of feedback they give to their partners in

peer review (rubrics and graphic organizers are still in progress and are not available to add to the unit yet).

Self-Review on Revisions—Students will be assessed on the quality of their revisions and how they

incorporated feedback from their partners‘ into revisions (rubrics and graphic organizers are still in progress and

are not available to add to the unit yet).

Essays—Essays will be assessed according to rubric (see culminating assignment).



Unit Assessment Rationale

I believe students should be assessed across learning activities and given multiple opportunities to

demonstrate multiple intelligences. For the most part, I agree with my Cooperating Teacher‘s current

assessment plan because grading is spread evenly throughout nine categories that assess students‘

abilities to write, read, speak, and listen across contexts (the major components of the

Reading/Language Arts Framework for California). The category that is given the most weight is

essays (20 percent of the final grade) which makes sense given that students spend a substantial

amount of time preparing to write essays inside of class and actually writing them outside of class. I

like that homework and card quizzes are weighted the same as unit exams because the value placed on

consistent, everyday work is the same as timed unit exams which assesses a certain set of skills and is

often not an accurate depiction of a student‘s ability to analyze texts and write an argument in

response.

Unfortunately, given the time constraints of my unit, I am unable to assign a unit exam and unit

project. Unit projects are typically a place where students can express their multiple intelligences.

Often unit projects provide students the opportunity to apply their musical talents, sense of humor,

artistic abilities, etc. to the text we are studying. For the purposes of my unit, however, I will assess

students‘ ability to read and understand character development and relationships in plays and write

analytical essays more heavily than other kinds of intelligences which is a weakness of my unit

assessment plan as a whole. To compensate for the lack of unit projects, I count the blocking

performance and rationale given to explain blocking decisions as 25 points towards the unit project

because it does assess understanding in a different modality. However, other than not receiving major

points for the unit exam or Author Study project which is already complete, students have

opportunities to earn points in all other categories. This reflects my value for assessments that are both

formative and summative which will reflect students‘ comprehension of content area knowledge and

application of skills more accurately.

While three of my major assessments are writing-based, I am focusing these assessments on the

writing process, especially as it relates to revisions. Assessing the process students take as they write

is important because it stems from my philosophy and value that students should be evaluated on their

writing process/progress in addition to the final draft they submit (contrast this to giving one grade for

one paper which is the typical assessment model used in the class). Assessing student process/progress

necessitates my teaching students how to revise papers, which is why I am spending four days on

explicit writing instruction. So far my students write essays without much support. They create a

topic and then start writing without the proper scaffolding needed to improve their reading and writing

skills. Because I want to provide support for students as they write and teach them the process of

revision, I will assess them on what they are learning as they engage in the writing process which

theoretically should translate into better writing. The final draft is weighted the most points because it

comes at the end of support, peer feedback, ongoing revision, and scaffolding, so the point value for

the final draft increase as students receive more instruction and are given more opportunities to revise

their paper.

Students will also learn how to give and receive effective feedback, so to keep them accountable for

peer workshops, students will be given two grades: 1) one on how well they used feedback in their

revisions and 2) how well they gave feedback. This emphasizes that writing is also a social process.

Students will be assessed on what I teach them.



Finally, students will be assessed on what I am teaching them and what they are learning in the unit (a

direct link to my learning targets). For example, students will learn how to incorporate textual

evidence into their papers and whole class discussions, analyze texts beyond plot summary, understand

characters and their relationships through chunking and summarizing parts of the play, and use

subordinating conjunctions in comparing and contrasting ideas. My assessments will give students an

opportunity to demonstrate their comprehension and application of these skills through the culminating

assignment, Socratic seminar, blocking performance, and peer review.

Lastly, I will adjust my students‘ class participation to reflect their work through the unit. This is a

more subjective grade to give and I do not feel entirely comfortable assessing students on their

participation (it can be very subjective and difficult to measure), so in the future when I have my own

classroom, I will eliminate that category from my assessment plan and adjust the other percentages

accordingly.



Death of a Salesman Reflective Compare and Contrast Essay

Paper Length: 5-7 pages, double spaced, 12 pt font, 1‖ margins

Timeline: Interview Due April 21 Homework Grade

Venn Diagram Due April 22 Homework Grade

First Draft Due April 30 Homework Grade

Peer Review on Revisions Due May 6 50 points (Essays)

Self-Review on Revisions Due May 6 50 points (Essays)

Final Draft due May 6 100 points (Essays)

The Prompt

Write an essay in response to the following prompt:

Compare and contrast your relationship with a family member to a relationship featured in Death of a

Salesman. For example, you may want to compare your relationship with your father/mother to Biff‘s

relationship with Willy.

In your analysis, please include the following:

Ways in which the dreams/aspirations that family member has for himself/herself and for you

impact you and your dreams/aspirations

Analysis of how your relationship is similar and different from the relationship in the play

Textual evidence from the play, anecdotes from your personal life, quotes from family members,

and any other useful evidence you need to support your argument.

Transitions between ideas using subordinating conjunctions and prepositional phrases

What You’ll Be Graded On (See Rubric)

Ideas/Analysis – how well you answer the prompt, make claims and sub claims that form a cohesive

argument, and analyze the relationships you choose to feature in your paper

Organization – how well you structure your argument and present your ideas clearly

Evidence—how strongly you support your claims with textual evidence, personal anecdotes, quotes,

etc.

Academic Language – how well you define and qualify terms and use precise academic language

Grammar and Presentation – how well you follow grammatical conventions, utilize subordinating

conjunctions and prepositional phrases to make smooth transitions from one idea to the next, and

format your paper



Rubric for Reflective Compare/Contrast Essay C

ateg

ory

Does Not Approach

Expectations Yet

Point Value: 1

Approaches Expectations

Point Value: 2

Meets Expectations

Point Value: 3

Exceeds Expectations

Point Value: 4

Id

eas

& A

nal

ysi

s (1

.5x

)

~Shows little or no

understanding of the

relationships in the play

and the conflicts between

those characters.

~Does not discuss the

similarities and

differences between a

relationship in the play

and a relationship in the

writer‘s life.

~Does not analyze the

relationships; spends most

of essay giving plot

summary.

~Shows some

understanding of

relationships in the play and

the conflicts between those

characters.

~Discusses similarities and

differences between

relationships in play and life

somewhat.

~Spends some of essay

giving plot summary but

also spends some time

analyzing the relationships

and developing ideas.

~Shows thorough

understanding of

relationships in the play

and the conflicts between

those characters.

~Discusses similarities

and differences between

relationships in play and

life thoroughly.

~Spends most of paper

analyzing the relationships

and developing ideas in a

well crafted, well

supported argument.

~Shows thorough,

insightful, and highly

perceptive understanding

of the relationships in the

play and the conflicts

between characters.

~Discusses similarities

and differences between

relationships in play and

life creatively and

insightfully.

~Delivers incisive, well

supported analysis and

crafts argument

seamlessly.

Org

aniz

atio

n (

1.5

x)

~Ideas are presented

erratically.

~Little to no transitions

between ideas and

paragraphs are used.

~Little to no logical order

to the paper‘s overall

structure.

~Ideas are presented in

somewhat logical fashion,

although some parts are

confusing.

~Some transitions are used

between ideas and

paragraphs.

~Paper‘s overall structure is

somewhat logical and easy

to follow.


logically and clearly.

~Transitions are used

between ideas and

paragraphs in a way that

advances argument.

~Paper‘s overall structure

is logical and easy to

follow.


seamlessly and clearly.

~Transitions between

ideas and paragraphs are

seamless and advance the

argument logically.

~Paper‘s overall structure

is logical, clear, and

exceptionally easy to

follow.

Ev

iden

ce (

1x

)

~Does not select evidence

that supports the claim

~Does not give context for

quote

~Does not analyze

evidence

~Only inserts evidence

into paper without

explanation

~Selects adequate evidence

that supports claim

superficially

~Gives some context for

evidence but is still

confusing

~Analyzes the evidence

superficially and does not

relate back to central claim

or sub claim

~Integrates evidence into

overall commentary

somewhat forcefully

~Selects strong evidence

that supports the claim

~Gives clear context for

evidence


clearly but does not

explain its significance as

it relates to claim

~Integrates evidence into

overall commentary but

does flow as smoothly as

the exceeds expectations

paper

~Selects highly insightful,

persuasive evidence that

clearly supports the claim

~Gives succinct, clear

context for the quote


insightfully and clearly

explains its significance as

it relates to claim

~Integrates evidence

smoothly into overall

commentary

Aca

dem

ic L

ang

uag

e

(05

.x)

~Inconsistent use of the

present tense.

~Slang and colloquial

language used.

~Terms and concepts are

unqualified and

undefined.

~Consistent use of present

tense with a few errors

throughout paper.

~Little to no slang terms

used.


sometimes defined and

qualified.

~Consistent use of present

tense with no errors

throughout paper.

~No slang or colloquial

language is used.


defined and qualified.

~Use of present tense is

consistent and advances

argument.

~Academic language is

used artfully.


defined and qualified

clearly.

Gra

mm

ar a

nd

Pre

sen

tati

on

(0

.5x

)

~Grammar and spelling

errors distract from

argument.

~Little to no incorporation

of subordinating

conjunctions.

~Paper is formatted

sloppily.

~Paper is relatively

grammar and spelling error

free.

~Some subordinating

conjunctions are used for

transitions.

~Paper is formatted

properly with some errors.

~Paper is free of grammar

and spelling errors.

~Subordinating

conjunctions are used

properly for transitions.

~Paper is formatted

properly with no errors.

~Paper is free of errors

and written with unique

style.

~Subordinating

conjunctions are used

artfully in transitions.

~Paper is formatted

properly with no errors



Points scored on rubric

Converted grade on 100 point

scale

20 100

19 98

17-18 95

15-16 90

13-14 85

11-12 80

9-10 78

7-8 75

5-6 70

Below 5 60



Culminating Assessment Rationale

For my culminating assignment, I return to my essential question and ask students to compare and

contrast a relationship in Death of a Salesman with a relationship they have with a family member

especially as it relates to personal dreams and aspirations. I have chosen to blend writing genres—the

reflective essay and the compare/contrast essay—as the mode of writing through which I will assess

what students have learned through the unit for several reasons. Firstly, we have spent a lot of time

exploring the social, political, and cultural aspects of literature but not the personal ones. Students

have reflected on how literature relates to their lives loosely, but have not yet reflected critically and

personally in a way that brings insight and transformation. Secondly, I want my students to conduct in

depth literary analysis and articulate their ideas in writing. Too many of my students write plot

summaries in their papers, so I want them to develop this essential analytical and writing skill so that

they can become more effective writers overall. Thirdly, I want my students to learn how to connect

ideas from two seemingly dissimilar texts and construct a well-supported argument that illuminates the

similarities and differences between the texts. This skill is important for my students to develop as

they go on to university and enter different fields. The ability to identify patterns and trends across

texts/disciplines is an essential skill for almost all careers today.

My culminating assignment addresses my writing, reading, literature, and grammar targets. It also

requires the support of the speaking and listening targets which provide a scaffold for the writing target

by helping students use textual evidence to support their claims. Students must understand characters

through dialogue in order to compare and contrast their own lives to the lives of those in the play.

They must know how to summarize their ideas concisely yet develop them adequately in their

analysis/commentary which can be helped by chunking and using subordinating conjunctions or

prepositional phrases to organize ideas. Students must also select textual evidence and anecdotal

evidence from their lives to support their claims and provide specific commentary explaining how the

evidence does indeed support claims. Scaffolding for this appears in Socratic Seminars, literature

circles, and teacher modeling.

Strengths of the Assignment: I think the assignment will spark student interest. It asks students to

learn more about themselves while engaging in higher order thinking. Generally speaking, students

like ruminating upon their own lives. Assigning an essay where the main text is about their

relationships with a family member may possibly diffuse some of the stress that comes with writing an

essay, which may then help students make deeper connections with the literary text as they consider

their lives in comparison or contrast to the Loman Family. Plus, teenagers are especially prone to

comparing themselves with other people, so here is an opportunity to compare and contrast one‘s life

with someone else‘s while working on academic skills. On the other hand, one‘s life as text can be

problematic for some. This leads me to discuss the weaknesses of the assignment.

Weaknesses of the Assignment: I am mixing writing modes (reflective essay and compare/contrast

literary essay) which will make for tricky scaffolding. Students will need explicit instruction on how

to write this reflective compare/contrast essays. I have an idea of what I want the final essays to be

like, so how can I communicate this vision clearly and scaffold adequately for students to write the

essay well? This is my challenge. I have attempted to address this area of weakness in my unit

sequence by providing lots of opportunities for students to reflect on their lives and receive explicit

writing instruction. I still wonder, however, if there will be students who struggle connecting to the

text or possibly feel vulnerable sharing information about their lives if their family histories are

painful. Asking students to write a reflective essay on a highly personal topic also means asking

students to take risks, to look critically at their lives and understand possibly vulnerable, fragile



relationships. This can be difficult and I do not want to alienate students who may find this kind of

assignment an invasion of their privacy. I will probably offer a second option so that students can

choose to write strictly a compare/contrast essay between two characters/relationships in the play.



April 2008

Dear Parents and Guardians:

I am writing to tell you about the next unit in your student‘s Honors American Literature class. It is a

unit that I am very excited to teach and hope your student will enjoy as well. The unit is framed

around the following essential question: How do the dreams and aspirations of your parents,

grandparents, and ancestors change and impact family relationships from generation to generation?

Our core text will be Arthur Miller‘s tragedy Death of a Salesman, a play that addresses the essential

question in multiple ways through the story of Willy Loman, a burnt-out salesman, and his

relationships with his family, in particular with his oldest son Biff. The play highlights the way in

which Willy‘s dreams have shaped him as a salesman and father and how Willy‘s journey in pursuit of

his dream—the American dream of success and prosperity—has profoundly impacted the way in

which he sees himself, experiences the world, and relates to his son and vice versa. Death of a

Salesman is a powerful, thought-provoking play that raises important questions about identity and

family history, and if you have time, I encourage you to read the play along with your student.

As you can see from the essential question, your student will be reflecting upon his/her family history

which may perhaps be a topic that peaks your interest and curiosity as well. You may actually play a

part in our unit‘s culminating assignment. Here‘s how: the culminating assignment for the unit is to

write an essay comparing and contrasting a relationship in Death of a Salesman with a relationship the

student has with a family member. To prepare for the essay, students will conduct an in depth

interview with that family member and gather information about that person‘s dreams, history, view on

the world, relationship with his/her parents, etc. Your student may choose you to interview, so be

prepared to reflect on the essential question yourself! The essay is due on May 6, and students will

receive time in class to work on the essay and hone their ideas.

As with previous units, the grading will break down as follows: Essays, Speeches 20% Unit/Final Exams 10%

Card Quizzes 10% Homework Completion and Quality 10%

Class Participation 10% Daily Journal 10%

Unit Projects 10% Formal Discussions and Seminars 10%

Author Study Project 10% (already completed)

Total: 100%

Within the unit, students will have multiple opportunities to earn points for every category except

unit/final exams. In keeping with our policy, students may always revise an essay and replace a prior

grade with a better grade. Assignments will be posted online for you and your student.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone or e-mail (info below). I

am looking forward to the unit and seeing where our discussions take us!

Sincerely,

Esther Jing-Hua Wu

(Phone…….E-mail……)8

8 I prefer not to publish my personal contact information in this unit.



Resources and Materials

Alston, Chandra and Williamson, Peter. English Curriculum and Instruction. Stanford

University Teacher Education Program. Stanford, CA. 2007-2008

Lesson on blocking

Quaker reading

Rubric for essays which I adapted

Kahl, Steven. Cooperating Teacher. Mountain View High School. Mountain View, CA. 2007-

2008.

Costa‘s 3 levels of questions

Daily journal routine

Dialectical journal format

Equity cards

Grading plan categories and percentages

Literature circles format

Reading quiz format

Rubrics for daily journal, dialectical journal, Socratic seminar, class participation

Small group learning format

Socratic seminar format

Unit information packet

Miller, Arthur

Death of a Salesman. Penguin Books: New York, New York. 1949.

―Tragedy and the Common Man.‖ New York Times, February 27, 1949.

Prentice Hall. ―Introduction to Contemporary Writers—1946 to Present.‖ The American

Experience. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1989. pp. 1023-1036

Various credible online research articles related to the father-son relationship, postmodernism,

literary criticism on Death of a Salesman, and the American Dream. Students will research and

find these articles on the internet.

Zwiers, Jeff. Stanford Teacher Education Program. Stanford, CA. 2007-2008.

Academic language handout

Subordinating conjunctions clap activity



14 March 2008

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to inform you that I am a unit planning survivor. Though the process has slain me many a

night and my teacher-soul has needed resuscitation more times than I can count, I am more engaged in

teaching than ever. I am also—dare I say it?—invigorated by the challenges and rewards unit planning

presents. Painful and unending as unit planning can be, I have discovered the joy of sequencing,

seeing learning targets fall into place, and maintaining a vision for the unit through the anchoring

strength of an essential question. It is as if I am beginning to develop teacher-vision similar to

Superman‘s x-ray vision: the ability to see the scaffolds I need to put into place for my students to

scale the proverbial mountain which is the culminating assessment, the beast of an essay that will test

my students as thinkers and writers and me as their teacher and guide. This is but one aspect of the

journey my students are on to become critical thinkers, readers, writers, listeners, and speakers. My

teacher-vision must also see what students already know and need help knowing so that they may grow

in all aspects of our discipline.

My ideas about curriculum planning have developed slowly. With each (re)consideration of my unit,

be it daily or unit-wide learning targets or the culminating assessment or lessons or grading plans, I

have seen how I must have a logical order to activities and assignments that fit my learning targets and

goals. Activities cannot be incorporated simply because they are fun or exciting. They must have a

purpose that fits the overall vision of what students should be learning. Speaking of learning,

everything seems to return to this: what do I want my students to learn in this unit? What do they need

to learn to do the culminating assignment successfully? How will I build checks for understanding in

place so that I know what my students are learning or not? How do I sequence my instruction so that

students will learn things in a logical manner? While learning may seem the obvious central focus of

unit planning, this was not so obvious to me at the beginning of unit planning. Only by disciplining

myself to put my learning targets before me at all times did the message click: unit planning at its most

fundamental state is about student learning. It is the I-Ching or North Pole of unit planning. Though

labor intensive for the teacher (similar to giving birth to a child), unit planning places students at the

center of instruction. This is my job as a teacher, and in order to plan well, I must remember for whom

and for what unit planning serves.

Although my unit is still unfinished (to my dismay, I see new holes to fill, rubrics to write, but such is

the nature of unit planning), I hope you will see the overarching vision for the unit and consider its

clarity and strength. My essential question and learning targets provide the foundation for my unit, and

my unit calendar attempts to scaffold students carefully towards the culminating assignment such that

they are equipped with the tools they need to write their reflective compare and contrast essays well. I

think my essential question is particularly strong because it asks a question that is important to

teenagers (and humanity in general) and will sustain student interest throughout the unit. I also think

my learning targets make pedagogical sense, and the sequencing of my first three lessons will help my

students approach the reading of the core text which is essential for later cognitive work more

critically.

With regard to weaknesses, I think my culminating assessment is interesting but risky, which is a

general weakness of my unit in general. I may be basing my entire unit plan on a faulty assumption

that my students will indeed be interested in learning more about their family histories and comparing

a relationship they have with a family member with a relationship in Death of a Salesman. This could

be a huge bust. What I think is a strength may in fact be a major weakness of the unit. Given the



personal nature of my unit, I may isolate some students who may be struggling with their home life or

may not be emotionally ready to think critically about their family relationships and how dreams have

shaped them. Furthermore, knowing my students, I wonder if they will resist making personal

connections to the text. First period (not my primary placement) would enjoy the personal angle the

unit takes tremendously, but my students in second period for whom this unit is written may not. Their

dialectical journals for their Author Study Project in which they were to make connections may be an

accurate reflection of their dislike of making personal connections (most students completely

dismissed that requirement). The class tends to get most excited about ideas related to social justice—

race, equity, class—and we will consider those ideas vis-à-vis the American Dream in The Great

Gatsby but not for Death of a Salesman.

In addition to the risky personal nature of my unit, I am concerned about the pace of learning. I was

limited to three weeks (I originally had eight instructional days!) for my unit plan, so I am worried that

my pacing is too fast, that I am doing too much, and that my learning targets are too ambitious. I am

teaching an Honors class which may make this unit feasible, but I do wonder if the timing of lessons is

a little rushed. Another weakness is the assumptions I make about language demands and needs. I

have tried my best to shelter my first three lessons, but I wonder if I am missing additional language

demands. Lastly, my rationales are still muddled and unclear. I am still learning how to articulate my

reasons for why I am sequencing instruction in a certain way and how things fit together. My

culminating assessment rationale is perhaps my weakest attempt at explaining how my learning targets

connect to the assignment.

Finally, what was most helpful in planning the unit was revision and feedback from colleagues.

Having fresh eyes review my unit plan, ask critical questions, and challenge my pedagogical moves

was vital to the shaping of this unit. My colleagues could see obvious holes that were no longer

obvious to me (after all, I had fallen in them!). Their feedback helped me improve my unit and get out

of my pedagogical rut. As a result, my appreciation for collaboration has deepened even more.

Thank you to all who have helped me write this unit, and thank you to those of you who are reading

this. This unit is still a work in progress, but I hope it will give you some interesting ideas as you plan

your own units.

To our teacher vision—into, through, and beyond,

Esther Jing-Hua Wu

STEP Class of 2008



Appendix9

9 The following documents are rubrics and handouts I would like to incorporate into my unit. Some of these documents are

mentioned in my unit; others are not because I am still thinking about how to use them. Unfortunately, I was unable to

import PDF files successfully into the Word document, so readers will only be able to see them if they have the actual print

out of my unit plan.

death of a salesman -...

Documents