Laying the Foundation for a Coherent ELA Unit
This workshop is part of a three-day institute, Building Your First ELA Unit with Structured Writing Activities. Join us for this individual workshop, join the full institute or mix and match days and to build a personalized experience.
This workshop establishes the blueprint for a strong ELA unit by helping educators set clear learning goals, develop essential questions, and select meaningful texts that anchor instruction and build student knowledge from the start. Educators will explore how to plan scaffolds that support students before, during, and after instruction — ensuring every learner has access to the curriculum from day one. In the afternoon, in-person participants begin drafting their own ELA unit by identifying priority standards, defining learning goals, and selecting the central text or text set that will drive their instructional sequence.
Key Learning Objectives
- explain the core components of an effective ELA unit, including learning goals, essential questions, and scaffolds to support student success
- analyze students’ prior knowledge and identify opportunities to build background knowledge while addressing potential misconceptions
- align unit planning with foundational skills programs, writing curricula, and standards-aligned texts
- plan text analysis routines that incorporate reading, discussion, and writing tasks to support comprehension and meaning-making
- begin drafting a coherent ELA unit by defining learning goals, creating essential questions, and choosing central texts or text sets
Date: Monday, August 10
Presenters: Alison Leveque, PhD; Kinjal Nicholls, MA; Dana Carr-Ford, MA, MsEd; Betsy Duffy MsEd
Grades: 3-9
NYCTLE credits – 5 hours per full-day workshop, 3 hours per morning workshop
Participate in-person (9 a.m.–3 p.m. ET) on our Westchester Lower School campus or virtually (9 a.m.–12 p.m. ET) Flexible options designed to fit your schedule.
