Unit Planning

In the context of teaching, a unit refers to a cohesive body of work that a teacher is expected to teach and students to learn over a particular period of time. 


Creating a unit plan should not cause you to lose sleep if you follow the following simple steps: 

A. Begin by brainstorming answers to the following questions: 

• What is this unit going to be about? (Here you are deciding on the topic/s of the unit)

• What is it that I want my students to know and be able to do by the end of the unit? (this question should generate broad objectives)

• What specific information will my students be learning over the period of time? (This question should generate content. You may have to do some research to ensure that your information is comprehensive and accurate.) 

• What activities will  my students be engaged in to ensure that the objectives are met? (This question allows you to think about the classroom activities that students will be engaged in over the period. For English, you will need to ensure that the activities reflect best practices in the subject such as integration of the modes of language - reading,writing, listening, speaking, viewing and visually representing; use of the process approach to writing, and modelling.

• What materials will I need to successfully engage my students in the activities? (this will ensure that you make a comprehensive list of resources/materials that you need for the unit.

• What will I do to measure whether the planned objectives are met? ( Clearly, you will be identifying suitable assessment activities for the unit).

You might have observed that all the questions begin with 'what' and there are six of them. I call them the "Six What?" of unit planning. Each area is a heading for your unit. They are: Topic, objectives, content, activities, materials and assessment.

Another interesting mnemonic is, "Teachers Often Can't Add, Multiply and Argue"  You may create your own mnemonic to help you remember the headings.

B. It is advisable that you create a web to represent the different sections graphically'. This should also help you to organise the information better when you are actually writing the unit.

C. Once you have answers to all your what's,you may go on to organise the objectives in terms of a logical sequence and align the other elements with the objectives.

D. Finally, ensure that the objectives, content, activities and assessment are suitable for the age and stage of the learners. These should also reflect planning to support differentiated instruction.

Remember that a unit is a cohesive body of work. How will you achieve cohesion? 

In English, cohesion may be achieved through:

• Themes (Eg. careers)
• Skills (Eg. comprehension skills)
• Areas or aspects of Language Arts (Eg. types of writing)

 An important aspect of a unit is the rationale. In your rationale, you will state the principle or principles that motivated the creation of the unit and the important benefits that students will derive from the body of work. Try to make this as concise as possible.

 In some situations, you may also need to provide a summary of the unit. This, of course, is a synopsis of the unit focus and it should be as clear and concise as possible.

 Another aspect of the English Unit is the approach. You may be required to explicitly state the approach or approaches that motivate the activities. In fact, you should determine what approaches you will use in keeping with your objectives and select activities to suit the approach. Whether you are required to state your approaches or not should not preclude you from selecting suitable approaches for your context.This is an essential aspect of planning the English unit. Four very important approaches in the teaching of English are the the Literature Based Approach, the Reader Response Approach, The Process Approach and the Communicative Approach. 

By now, you might be thinking that unit planning is a lot of work and you are just not up to it.You are right in thinking that it requires a lot of thought but you are certainly capable of creating a a comprehensive unit that will maximise the benefits of teaching and learning. Once you take the time to think through the various aspects of the unit carefully, and plan well, lesson planning and teaching becomes a breeze and you and your students will enjoy rich dividends.

It's time for you to start planning or revising that plan you are working on. Happy planning.