MYP unit planner
Unit title
Three Cups of Tea
Teacher(s)
Aria Campbell
Subject and grade
level
Language A Level 2 (7th Grade)
Time frame and
duration
Five Weeks
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?
Students will learn the importance of
One person can have an enormous effect
on others and the world
Community and Service
Students will participate in a Service Project
To raise money for school supplies
For students less fortunate than
themselves.
MYP unit question
Can I or a small group of people affect change in an entire
country or area of the world?
Assessment
What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question?
What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show what they have understood?
Students will write a letter to Greg Mortenson requesting that he build a school in their
village. Students will share their understanding about how important it is to be literate.
Students will make up the details of their village and the villagers that live there.
Students will show creativity and an understanding of a culture other than their own.
Students will write using correct letter format and will use correct spelling and word
usage.
Students will learn about students in Pakistan and Afghanistan-students will identify
where those countries are and describe the life situation of many of the children in those
countries.
Students will choose three projects from a Tic Tac Toe page to demonstrate their
understanding of the book-see attached Tic Tac Toe Sheet
Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit?
• Express an informed personal response to literature and demonstrate the ability to
approach works independently
• Express ideas with clarity and coherence in both oral and written communication
• Use and understand an appropriate and varied range of vocabulary and idioms
• Use correct grammar with appropriate and varied sentence structure
Which MYP assessment criteria will be used?
Language A Content Criteria A-Essay and Oral Response
Criteria B Organization
Student’s letters will be assessed using the Language A Content Criteria for Level 2
Students will be aware of rubric when assignment is given and will know how they will
be assessed.
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? Students
will work in small groups to read and lead class discussions on assigned
chapters of the book, Three Cups of Tea
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? See
Below for Local and MYP standards and skills
MYP
Express an informed personal response to literature and demonstrate the ability to
approach works independently
Express ideas with clarity and coherence in both oral and written communication
Use and understand an appropriate and varied range of vocabulary and idioms
Use correct grammar with appropriate and varied sentence structure
NCSCOS
Summarize the main points of works that are read heard or viewed.
Make connections between what I read, myself, and the world around me.
Determine the main idea of what I read.
Proofread, edit, and write a final draft that is free of spelling, punctuation,
capitalization and organization errors.
*International Connections-Students will learn about life in Afghanistan and Pakistan
through reading Three Cups of Tea and Junior Scholastic magazine. Students will
discuss and identify similarities and differences in all three cultures,
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?
Approaches to Learning
Students will work collaboratively and independently.
Students will lead discussions and will write about their experiences as they read and discuss
Three Cups of Tea.
Group work (starting in small groups 2-3, then groups of 4,
then finally 5+ students)
Respecting others’ views, opinions, beliefs, ideas, etc.
Listening to others and sharing ideas freely
Learning to discuss ideas, themes, etc.
Discussing to learn about ideas, themes, etc.
Developing a sense of responsibility to self and others
Developing a sense of empathy
Encouraging contributions of others
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?
Students will set goals and have access to
rubrics and checklists for completing
projects and writing the essay.
Teaching strategies
How will we use formative assessment to give students feedback
during the unit?
What different teaching methodologies will we employ?
How are we differentiating teaching and learning for all? How have
we made provision for those learning in a language other than their
mother tongue? How have we considered those with special
educational needs?
Students will work with groups while reading and
responding to what is read.
Students will work with peer conference groups
while writing, revising and editing.
Students will conference with the teacher during the
process of writing the essay.
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?
All students have purchased Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Students have read the book and identified the learner profile traits of the major characters in the
book.
Students have identified vocabulary that they are not familiar with. Students used dictionaries to
gather definitions students also used unfamiliar words in sentences. Dictionaries – personal,
library, online?
What about community resources in relation to the project?
Students will use community resources; parents, stores, religious organizations, schools etc to
help raise funds to purchase school supplies.
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?
Students were amazed that Greg Mortenson would change everything about his life to
help these people who he barely knew because he saw that the need was so great. The
students were surprised that Greg Mortenson insisted that girls be allowed to attend the
schools that he built in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
What inquiries arose during the learning? What, if any, extension activities arose?
The students wondered about Muslims and terrorism. They had assumed that all
Muslims were terrorists and were surprised that through the book, they learned that
Muslim people were just ordinary people like us.
How did we reflect—both on the unit and on our own learning?
We discussed the book in groups and as a whole class, the focus of the discussions were
community service and why it is so important and that people around the world are
more like us than they are different and we as human beings have a responsibility to
help when we can. People in developing countries have families and desire futures just
as we do. People in many places around the world have a much harder bringing their
dreams to fruition than do we.
Which attributes of the learner profile were encouraged through this unit? What opportunities were there for student-initiated
action?
Students had to think outside the box. We in the United States have been at war with
countries in the region of the world that we learned about by reading the book for most
of the lives of these students, they were surprise and a bit ill at ease at first with the
content. That the people in the book were Muslim.
Students were encouraged to be risk takers-to try to trust that people and believe that
they are well intentioned unless you have reason to think otherwise. Certainly the
students understood that we can’t classify whole groups of individuals as “terrorist” or
as unfriendly to Americans, because it just isn’t appropriate or true.
To be caring-Student were impressed with Greg Mortenson’s character and they
wanted to emulate that kind of behaviour.
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?
I collaborated with the Humanities teacher in that the part of the world where this book
takes place is part of the level 2 curriculum for humanities. Next time I teach this unit I
will collaborate more and possibly connect with the art and humanities teachers to
allow the students to develop a more in depth appreciation of the culture of Pakistan
and Afghanistan
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?
Students met the challenge overwhelmingly and 95% of students earned at
least 85% for their letters.
Letters were to include
Use of persuasive language
Use of argument
Correct letter format
Details from the text explaining why a school was needed.
A connection to the people in the book through reerence
Correct mechanics, language usage, punctuation, capitalization and spelling.
Are we prepared for the next stage?
Data collection
How did we decide on the data to collect? Was it useful?
95% of students earned 85% or higher on assessment. It was very useful, it showed that
students have mastered many essential curriculum and we know which of the essential
curriculum we need to focus on.
We will use the PDSA Cycle to determine how to learn the material.
We will use the student letter and follow the MYP rubric criteria for content to determine success.
Figure 12