Instruct Design Online Learning

Instructional Design Model: Creative Writing

Short Story Unit

February 2, 2025 (extension: February 9, 2025)

Video Rationale

 

What is your subject, level of instruction, and intended audience?

The class is an English Language Arts elective class in Creative writing.  The class is intended to help students gain their original voice by giving them choices in subject matter and content in synthesizing original pieces of literature.  This course is offered to students in ninth through twelfth grades and the intended audience is those students.

 

What are the key institutional documents (i.e. syllabus, outline, accreditation standards, etc.) that will influence your design process?

As a teacher in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I will utilize the PA Common Core standards for Reading, Writing. Speaking, and Listening; the district-approved curricula documents; and the course outlines and materials the English department has adopted in creating and updating this course. Students are given a course-specific syllabus at the beginning of the semester. Google Classroom is the district’s LMS system utilized most at the secondary level in both our academic and Career and Technical Education Programs. Students will be given rubrics at the beginning of each unit of the Creative Writing class.

 

What design approach have you chosen? Why?

            I have chosen to utilize the Blended Classroom approach for this course. I look to advance Blending Learning with the flex model approach.  By using online, self-paced, project-based learning, small group and one-on-one conferencing, I want to promote increased positive student engagement through peer and self-critiques. I hope this model will increase student responsibility for their learning while using the COVA model, providing students with choice, ownership, and voice through and in authentic learning experiences.  This mode of instruction aligns with my district’s adoption of the four “C’s”: critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity.

 

Who controls the learning?

            Once the foundational information has been reviewed, the students are in control of their learning.  By using the COVA + CSLE concepts, students will use their judgment as to what and when they will utilize to complete the course assignments.  Students will be encouraged to speak with classmates, their parents, and others, use textual and video resources to gauge their progress, and use the teacher-mentor as a “last resource” when all others have failed to provide  students with the information they are looking for. The teacher-mentor will be available for in-person one-on-one meetings during each class meeting and email and text communication during office hours. Students will be encouraged to set aside daily writing time. This will allow students to pace their learning while committing to assignment/ project completion.

 

Are you using competency-based education (CBE) or outcome-based education (OBE)? Why?

            I plan on utilizing both CBE and OBE in the course. Successful writers instinctively know how to use rhetorical techniques and when to violate the standards set by the conventions of Standard Written English (SWE) for good fiction. Ensuring that students are aware of the basics of SWE and how creative writing and fiction writing may violate the rules of SWE allows the students to develop critical thinking and learn to “switch” between the requirements of formal essays and creative writing tasks.

 

How will you balance assessment Of/For/As learning?

Assessment Of Learning - Summative: quizzes, progress checks

Assessment For Learning – Formative: exit tickets, and class discussions

Assessment As Learning - Self-reflections and peer reviews where growth is evaluated

 

Are you moving your learners into deeper learning? If not, why not?

Yes.  Students will work under the COVA+CSLE environment throughout this unit and the course. Empowering students to work independently, at their pace, and utilizing the experience of their peers before approaching the teacher-mentor with questions allows students to engage in critical thinking, self-reflection, communication, and creativity. These are skills that self-directed auto didacts need to be successful in the future. Students today need to be problem-solvers- able to utilize the tools and people at their disposal without asking the teacher, “Is this right?” It allows them to fail and learn from those failures, not abandoning the task because they have failed.

 

BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL (BHAG): At the end of the unit, ninth through twelfth-grade students will create at least one selection of original fiction and build their self-reflection, rhetorical, and academic communication skills. Students will begin to consider the layout and structure of a literary magazine as an end-of-course project.

 

Fink's 3 Column Table

 

Schedule:

 

Week 1:

  • Course Introduction
    • Teacher- Mentor- “Who Am I?”
    • Syllabus review
    • Classroom expectations
    • Classroom expectations: students present ideas concerning the day-to-day operations of the classroom, and those ideas are discussed, modified, and refined between students and the teacher-mentor to align with district, school, and best practices and standards.
    • Student presentation- “Who Am I?”
    • Instruction on P.O.W.E.R. writing system
    • Freytag Model review

 

Week 2:

  • Video lessons on the elements, construction, figurative language, and conventions of Standard Written English (SWE) and Standard English Conventions (SEC)
  • Lesson on the differences between the short story, novella, and novel.
  • Students complete Quick Writes on “Givens-” short scenarios that allow the students to practice the concepts reviewed in the video lessons.
  • Exit Tickets

 

Week 3:

  • Small group work on dissecting the structure and elements of a published short story
    • Groups will share through the use of Google Slides, Prezi, Canva, hard copy presentations, or other presentation means and compare the analysis of groups to each other.
  • Students create alternate endings or extend the conclusions of the dissected stories.
  • Students engage with the teacher-mentor in one-on-one conferences and with each other to present ideas for their first piece of original fiction.

 

Week 4:

  • Students work to synthesize their original short stories. Students will engage in
    • Drafting
    • Walk and talks
    • Conferences with teacher-mentor as needed
    • Re-watching videos on structure and rhetorical techniques
    • Random check-ins with the teacher-mentor.

 

Week 5:

  • Students continue the work begun in week 4 through the writing lab/ workshop.
  • Students will pair-share with each other on the drafts in progress and complete exit ticket reviews on the stories they reviewed

 

Week 6:

  • The students will continue drafting their short stories seeking critiques and feedback using the same techniques utilized in weeks 4 and 5.
  • The teacher-mentor will hold one-on-one meetings with students to review drafts and provide support and guidance as needed.

 

Week 7:

  • Students will submit final writings for evaluation by teacher-mentor and peer critiques in a “Coffee and Critique” format.
  • Students will participate in self-reflections on their work and the processes focusing on self-commendations and recommendations for improvement in future tasks.

 

Course Syllabus:

 

REFERENCES

 

Bates, A.W. (2022). Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and Learning.

      https://pressbooks.pub/teachinginadigitalagev3m/chapter/section-2-4-does-technology-change-the-nature-of-        knowledge/

 

Finks Taxonomy & 3 Column Table Resources –    

         https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gMqxX2SEtWmnQ37m4UxWUcWxy0w87rWj?usp=sharing

 

Harapnuik. D. (2021). Assessment Of/For/As learning.  https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=8900

 

Harapnuik, D. (2018, July). COVA. https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6991

 

Harapnuik, D. & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA: Inspire Learning through Choice, Ownership,

       Voice, and Authentic Experiences. Amazon.com Services.

 

Harapnuik. D. (2020). Feedforward vs. Feedback. https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=8273

 

Top 7 Instructional Design Models to Help You Create Effective Learning Material. (2021).

        https://creately.com/blog/diagrams/instructional-design-models-process/