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Teaching English By Design: How To Create And Carry Out Instructional Units (2007)

by Peter Smagorinsky(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0325009805 (ISBN13: 9780325009803)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Heinemann Educational Books

review 1: I was really excited about this book after stumbling upon his students' units... unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.The Good: This text helped me clarified my idea of conceptual units, and through exploring his library of grad student units, I've honed my own skills at designing units. He provides many practical suggestions for activities, projects, and unit planning.He gives examples of prompts that could be used for a unit assessment or activity.He lays out the process (important stuff) you need in a unit plan.The Bad: It's pretty boring. I felt a bit like I was holding my breath trying to take notes down and get through most of this book. I think a lot of the explanations/theory could be easily cut without taking away from the effectiveness/information.... more It's a rehash of credential program theory, but doesn't bring anything new to the table. I feel that the audience who is reading this book (middle/high school English teachers) has been there/done that. The Ugly: I don't feel that this is super well-organized in terms of building from one topic to the next... I feel like it could have been a lot simpler. I will most likely continue to revisit my notes, but I don't believe I will want to open this book again and search through the chapters for what I need. I'm not necessarily just looking for a list of pre-made units or a bullet point list of practical applications in a PD book, but I still think this could have been a lot more user-friendly.
review 2: Teaching English by Design is a good book about designing units from back to front with the end results, i.e. the instructional goals for the students in mind. In this book, Smagorinsky advocates taking this type of planning even farther, extending it through the semesters and the whole school year, advocating the use of overarcing themes and concepts that will guide the curriculum. He strongly advocates a constructivist learning approach, one in which learning is social and collaborative. The learning approach is an ideology that not every teacher will find palatable or perhaps even practical for their classroom and yet Smagorinsky uses research and personal experience to back up his arguments and his tactics of teaching units by design is a valuable strategy. The types of strategies Smagorinsky advocates are largely in use and taught in my teacher education program so his ideas were familiar and comfortable to me. This is a good book for preservice teachers or teachers looking for new strategies to bring to their classrooms. less

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