MYP unit planner
Unit title
Brave New World
Teacher(s)
Bruno Gattuso
Subject and grade level
English B, Phase 5
Time frame and duration
3 periods of 75 minutes
Stage 1: Integrate significant concept, area of interaction and unit
question
Area of interaction focus
Significant concept(s)
Which area of interaction will be our focus?
Why have we chosen this?
What are the big ideas? What do we want our
students to retain for years into the future?
Health and Social Education
Awareness & understanding
ourselves in the wider society
more specifically in regards to
freedom.
A universal concept is not
interpreted in the same manner by
all. What might be considered as
utopian by some could easily be
seen as dystopian by others.
Reflection on relationships, sex
and death
Action:1) Making choices in terms
of ourselves in the wider society
including behaviour and ethics.
2) Understanding ourselves in
regards to needs and wants.
MYP unit question
What is your idea of utopia? If you were to
create a utopian society, what would it
resemble?
Assessment
What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question?
SÉBIQ Unit planner committee 2012-2013
What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show what they have understood?
The students will, in groups of 4, discuss what they consider to be a utopian society.
Does the novel Brave New World represent some kind of utopia? If so, to what
extent? How does the society described in the novel reflect our actual society? How
does it differ? What changes would turn our actual society utopian or dystopian?
After the discussion, they will, individually, write a 300 – 400 word text describing
their concept of a utopian society.
They will express their ideas, listen and react to those of their team-mates by
responding appropriately.
They will write a text in a comprehensible manner in which they will show an
understanding of the topic.
Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit?
The student will:
A Oral communication

Understand, analyse and respond to a range of spoken texts

Communicate information, ideas and opinions in social situations and some
academic situations

Use language appropriate to a range of spoken interpersonal and cultural
contexts

Use the appropriate range in informal communication

Use language accurately and effectively

Engage actively in oral production.
D Writing

Communicate information, ideas and opinions in academic situations

Use language appropriate to a range of interpersonal and cultural contexts


Understand and use language conventions accurately and effectively in
writing
Use appropriate register in formal written communication
Which MYP assessment criteria will be used?
Criterion A
Criterion D
SÉBIQ Unit planner committee 2012-2013
Stage 2: Backward planning: from the assessment to the learning
activities through inquiry
Content
What knowledge and/or skills (from the course overview) are going to be used to enable the student to respond to the unit
question?
What (if any) state, provincial, district, or local standards/skills are to be addressed? How can they be unpacked to develop the
significant concept(s) for stage 1?
Communicate information, ideas and opinions in social and academic situation both
orally and in writing.
Use language appropriate to a range of spoken interpersonal and cultural context.
Understand, analyse and respond to a range of spoken texts.
Use appropriate register in informal oral communication and formal written
communication.
Engage actively in oral production.
Understand and use language conventions accurately and effectively in writing.
MELS Competencies :
C1 : Interacts orally in English
C2 : Reinvests comprehension of texts
C3 : Produces texts
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?

Manage time allocated for the assessment task (Organization)

Work on clarity and coherence of the message (Organization)

Work in groups, accepting others (Collaboration)

Reference (Information literacy)

Use writing strategies to communicate clear and effective ideas
(Communication)

Plan a text: Make an outline or use a graphic organizer to arrange ideas in
the correct order and place information where needed. (Thinking)

Make connections (Transfer)

Use of reading strategies (Communication)

Select and organize information (Information literacy)

Reflect.
SÉBIQ Unit planner committee 2012-2013
Learning experiences
How will students know what is expected of them? Will they see examples, rubrics, templates?
How will students acquire the knowledge and practise the skills required? How will they practise applying these?
Do the students have enough prior knowledge? How will we know?
The students will refer to their copy of the MYP assessment criteria for phase 5.
They have prior knowledge of the said criteria since they have already been
assessed in other tasks using the same criteria.
Prior to this writing task students have had a lesson on writing opinion pieces in their
language B and language A classes and have written opinion pieces on various
topics.
Resources
What resources are available to us?
How will our classroom environment, local environment and/or the community be used to facilitate students’ experiences during
the unit?
The novel Brave New World by Aldus Huxley. If the task is not submitted for
moderation the students may make use of a dictionary, a list of cohesive devices and
idioms. If the task is submitted for moderation, the latter material should not be
used.
Ongoing reflections and evaluation
In keeping an ongoing record, consider the following questions. There are further
stimulus questions at the end of the “Planning for teaching and learning”
section of MYP: From principles into practice.
Students and teachers
What did we find compelling? Were our disciplinary knowledge/skills challenged in any way?
What inquiries arose during the learning? What, if any, extension activities arose?
How did we reflect—both on the unit and on our own learning?
Which attributes of the learner profile were encouraged through this unit? What opportunities were there for student-initiated
action?
Possible connections
How successful was the collaboration with other teachers within my subject group and from other subject groups?
What interdisciplinary understandings were or could be forged through collaboration with other subjects?
Assessment
Were students able to demonstrate their learning?
How did the assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate the learning objectives identified for this unit? How did I make
sure students were invited to achieve at all levels of the criteria descriptors?
Are we prepared for the next stage?
Data collection
How did we decide on the data to collect? Was it useful?
SÉBIQ Unit planner committee 2012-2013
The unit could be further expanded as an interdisciplinary unit in collaboration with
language A since students will have a lesson in languages A and B on writing an
opinion piece or with Humanities, as the students could do a research on the
concept of utopia in different cultures and religions across the world.
This unit could also be viewed through the Community and Service AOI.
The fact that part of the task was conducted in a cooperative setting, the students
had the opportunity to practice peer and self-evaluation throughout that part of the
task.
The attributes of the learner profile encouraged throughout this unit were: Inquirers,
open-minded, thinkers, communicators, risk-takers and reflective.
SÉBIQ Unit planner committee 2012-2013