This week, we're analyzing our third song of the year, so we chose Bob Dylan's classic song, "The Times They are A-Changin'." How fitting as patiently wait for the results on this election day. Also fitting because our new theme of the six-weeks is the idea of change.
I highly recommend the concept of using an over-arching theme to tie your teaching units together. We've always wanted to have themes, (some people have essential questions) but this year, we're really making it happen. It's definitely increased the meaningfulness and flow of our 7th grade ELAR classes. Everything seems to have more of a purpose. So far, we've focused on the themes of identity and relationships, so we thought the next theme we'd address would be change. We're also thinking that the idea of change will fit perfectly into so many current events: Bob Dylan winning the Pulitzer Prize for literature, changes in technology, changes in government, and it'll fit perfectly with our upcoming unit on expository text. As you can see, we still have units of study as planned by our district. So far, we've studied fiction, poetry, and drama. Within these units of learning, we pull resources to tie-in with our theme. So we're still teaching fiction, but we're pulling resources that all touch on the theme of identity. Or, we're teaching poetry and drama, but we're pulling texts that relate to the theme of relationships.
For this upcoming expository reading and writing unit, we'll use the theme of change to guide our reading of texts on civil rights and current events, and then we'll make our way into the holidays by exploring the changing of the seasons and how holiday traditions change depending on where you go. I think we might even write about how a person can change the world! We shall see.
Do you use themes to guide your units? If so, let us know what themes you use. And if you need a good song/poem to analyze in the coming weeks, definitely give this Dylan song a try. Because whether we like it or not, the times, they really are a-changin'.
Megan Gordon
7th Grade ELAR
I highly recommend the concept of using an over-arching theme to tie your teaching units together. We've always wanted to have themes, (some people have essential questions) but this year, we're really making it happen. It's definitely increased the meaningfulness and flow of our 7th grade ELAR classes. Everything seems to have more of a purpose. So far, we've focused on the themes of identity and relationships, so we thought the next theme we'd address would be change. We're also thinking that the idea of change will fit perfectly into so many current events: Bob Dylan winning the Pulitzer Prize for literature, changes in technology, changes in government, and it'll fit perfectly with our upcoming unit on expository text. As you can see, we still have units of study as planned by our district. So far, we've studied fiction, poetry, and drama. Within these units of learning, we pull resources to tie-in with our theme. So we're still teaching fiction, but we're pulling resources that all touch on the theme of identity. Or, we're teaching poetry and drama, but we're pulling texts that relate to the theme of relationships.
For this upcoming expository reading and writing unit, we'll use the theme of change to guide our reading of texts on civil rights and current events, and then we'll make our way into the holidays by exploring the changing of the seasons and how holiday traditions change depending on where you go. I think we might even write about how a person can change the world! We shall see.
Do you use themes to guide your units? If so, let us know what themes you use. And if you need a good song/poem to analyze in the coming weeks, definitely give this Dylan song a try. Because whether we like it or not, the times, they really are a-changin'.
Megan Gordon
7th Grade ELAR
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