"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows." - Sydney J. Harris

Units and Lesson Plans

Classrooms have no script. Corporations selling education offer preset modules, or binders of ready-to-use plans, but they cannot replace a teacher who knows their students and the widely varied classroom communities they are a part of. As much as education changes, teachers remain the best authors of units and lesson plans for their classrooms. I design units aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS). By writing learning targets developed from CCSS standards, I ensure my students have the skills and knowledge they need to suceed and achieve their goals. The Standards provide a framework to construct curriculum that is of higher quality and is research-supported.

My approach to currciulum design is student-centered. When generating ideas for units and lessons, the guiding force is the question: How can I put the learning in the hands of my students? I teach skills and provide materials for my students to use as part of their own learning process. It is my responsibility to craft learning experiences where students have the things they need to learn by and for themselves.

Selected Units and Lessons from Fall 2019 - Fall 2021

Teaching Internship

Lesson Sequence (Unit 2 - Dystopian Fiction: Fahrenheit 451) Click HERE

Observation 1 Plan Click HERE and Procedure Click HERE

Observation 2 Plan Click HERE and Procedure Click HERE

Observation 3 Plan Click HERE and Procedure Click HERE

Observation 4 Plan Click HERE and Procedure Click HERE

Teaching English in the Secondary Schools

Voices of Japanese Americans During Internment from 1942-1946 ELA Grade 10 Unit Click HERE

Ricanstruction (Lesson) Click HERE

American Street (Lesson) Click HERE

Community-Building Exercise (Lesson) Click HERE

Writing for Secondary Teachers

Internment (Lesson) Click HERE

Curriculum and Methods for Teaching in the Secondary School

The Odyssey ELA Grade 12 Unit - PDF version Click HERE

Comprehension in the Content Areas

Horror in Children's Literature ELA Grade 10 Unit - PDF version Click HERE

Children's Illustrated Texts

Beowulf ELA Grade 10 Unit - Click HERE and PDF version Click HERE