Grammar Unit

i apologize for being somewhat behind. I went out of town this past weekend for parents weekend at NC State, and have been playing catch up ever since. I have 126 papers to respond to this week, and so far I've read 18. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

After reading over the units in Imaging Grammar, I chose three I liked.

Friendship, Identity, and Adolescent Conflict with Authority.

I chose these because I think they have a universal appeal that reaches from elemetary school , past college and into the workforce. Students don't always like class, but they might like going to school. There are days I don't always like my job, but I enjoy coming to work to socialize with colleagues and see friends.

I think students are always interested in the social aspects of language, and as a teacher if I can tie the social aspect into the Learning aspect i have their attention.

The concepts of frieinship can cut across all three of these units as well. What is friendship? How do we choose friends, why do we keep them, and what happens to friendships? Why do so many fade over time? In this construct we can discuss things like cliques, both in and out of the classroom, ostracism, meanness, and the concept of aceptance and belonging.

Identity- who are we? How do we define ourselves, and crossing over, do we define ourselves by the number and type of reinds we have, or do we define ourselves in a larger cultural context, family, ethnicity, etc.

Adolescent Conflict with Authority- adolescents naturally have conflict with authority and the burecratic set up of middle and high school only perpetuate the animosity between students and adminstration at times. Adolescents question authority as part of the growth process, in order to break away from parental influence.

Each unit laid out a plan to accomplish specific goals, why each unit was planned in a certain manner, and provided materials to help instructores fulfill the objectives of the unit. The units also provided information as to the relevance of the activities.

The Friendship Unit by Scott Morgan and Maria Sciara explores the reasons students form friendships and how they develop relationships at this point in their lives and genavbles themn to relate passages from literasture to their own lives.

The identity Unit by Shawn Pace encourage students to look at themselves and establish their own identity.

Adolescent conflict with Authorty talks abotu struggles students have with authority, how they fit into the larger world and how to navigate that tricky period between childhood andf adulthood.

some unique resources that interested me were a letter to the author about a letter a character wrote in a novel, and Dr. Phil ( which surprised me as I am not a fan)