Ideas for IRW Unit Plan

Ponder all the ideas, activites, readings, blogs and discussions that we've had so far this semester. What ideas and elements might you want to incorporate into your IRW unit plan? What types of readings assignments (e.g. MLK's I have a dream, fiction, non-fiction, pop culture)  and/or themes (e.g. education, social justice, environment) might you want to incorporate into your unit plan?  


Possible Themes: Since McCormick discusses the important of matching, to a certain degree, the reader's repetoire with the text's repetoire, I would base the unit around a theme that has relevance to the students' lives and which is current. I have two possible ideas. One is about the state budget cuts and the importance of student political participation. We can read about Proposition 30, the decision by the CSU trustees to raise CSU tuition if Prop 30 doesn't pass, and student activism in general. Students would read actual initiative text, but also articles about the crisis and the impact on students. As an activity, students can write letters to the editor and/or letters to CSU trustees and state elected officials about how they feel about the budget cuts and the impact on them.

A second idea is to focus on family immigration, particularly immigration from Asia. Where I teach (De Anza and Ohlone) there are a high number of Asian American students, as well as international students from Asia. Immigration to the U.S. is a topic that is relevant to those students, even ones who are not Asian. The issues we can explore are struggle, sacrifice, loss, adjusting to a new country, culture shock and making a new life in America. In terms of readings, there are books and short stories about 1st and 2nd generation Asian Americans and their lives in Asia and the subsequent move to the U.S.. The writings can be reflective about their own journeys and their parents/grandparents journeys (through oral history interviews), connecting the readings with their own experiences. My hope is that students will come away with an appreciation of the commonality that is shared by many who come to the U.S. for a better life.
I found the readings and discussions we had in class quite instructive and influential in my process of developing an Integrated Reading and Writing unit. Here are some elements I would like to incorporate:

1) A diagnostic/self-reflection at the beginning of the unit
2) Use of K-W-L+ as a tool to get students thinking about and writing about their readings as a way to activate their schemas and to interact with the texts.
3) Allow for drafts and re-drafts of papers and for peer and self editing to allow students to learn to edit and proofread their own work and the work of others.
4) Writing tasks like sentence combining as well as reflective writing such as journaling.
5) Have community-building activities to have students learn to work collaboratively but also to develop their investment in the course. One community-building activity that I found to work is an ice breaker called "creation chant" where the students stand in a circle and say a word or phrase that has cultural meaning to them and their family. They go on to explain its importance. This is video taped and shared with the class on a class website or facebook page. Another idea is to have students create a project that is a spoken word poem, graphic novel (short) or short film. The piece relates to cultural experiences and the readings and is shared with the rest of the class (or performed) as a community-building activity.
6) I would make the final project of the course a writing portfolio, so the writing assignment due at the end of the unit created would be a part of the portfolio.
7) Scaffolding would be an essential way to build skills of integrated reading and writing through the unit and the course overall.
8) Readings: Choose readings that are relevant to students and activate their schema (general and literary repetoire). Would utilize many types of media, not just print (magazine/newspaper/non-fiction/memoirs) so the students can relate to the media. Different media can include videos (youtube), blogs (or have their own blogs), facebook/twitter.