Sticking with a Theme

In class today, we talked about using thematic units in the classroom, and how they benefit English Language Learners (ELLs). For the most part (especially in elementary school--not as much in high school) this means designing lessons in as many content areas as possible to fit within a certain theme. For example, I was working with a group to outline a potential thematic unit based on a book called The Day of Ahmed's Secret, which is about a boy living in Cairo, going about his day selling cans of gas for people's stoves, but the whole time he has this big secret that he can't wait to tell his family! I won't give away the ending, but it's definitely worth a read. Anyway, in putting together our thematic unit, we saw several directions in which this book could guide our instruction. In social studies, we could use the book to teach about jobs, geography, life in the city, and people from different cultures. For math, we noticed there was a lot of geometry in the illustrations, including the pyramids and some of the architecture of the buildings in the city. I won't go into every content area, but will just say that we found many ways to tie this book into a variety of subjects.

While it is typical for teachers to put together units in one subject area (for example, a math unit on geometry or a social studies unit on economics), it seems that most teachers do not create very many interdisciplinary thematic units such as this one. There are many reasons for that. For one, it can take a lot of work to put together thematic units. Also, as my group discussed in class, many schools or districts have specific programs that they are required to teach. For example, my school district teaches Math Investigations II, and for the most part we are supposed to teach every lesson in the program. It can be difficult to find time to teach math lessons that are not a part of that program, even if these lessons do address the curriculum standards. While I can see the benefits to using programs such as Math Investigations (cuts down on the time teachers need to spend planning lessons, creates more continuity from school to school) there are definitely drawbacks as well.

Creating a thematic unit can benefit every student, especially ELLs. Teachers should choose topics for thematic units based on the interests and experiences of students, even allowing for some student choice in the topic of the unit. This allows the students to take ownership of the unit, which will make them excited to learn more about it. It also makes their learning relevant to their own lives, which is so important for ELLs. Too many times they are expected to learn something that doesn't matter to them. Nobody enjoys learning about something they don't care about! Another benefit of using thematic units is that there is more continuity across subject areas. Usually, when moving from one subject to another, I often feel like there is an abrupt halt to the day where I'm saying something like, "Ok, we were just learning about how a seed germinates--now we're getting ready to work on writing personal narratives!" As a result, the students are basically struggling to get their brains switched over from science mode to writing mode, which I'm sure effects my amount of quality instructional time. With ELLs, this switch-over process probably takes even longer since they might still be struggling to figure out what different words mean, and so by this point, they are completely lost. My instructor pointed out that in a thematic unit, even the lowest ELLs--the ones that come into the school speaking no English at all--are able to tell you what the theme is because every lesson you do is connected with that theme.

I feel like there is so much more I could say about the benefits of thematic units. Even though it isn't practical for me to design units connected to every subject (due to the required curriculum resources) I do want to try to use themes more often in my classroom. I think it would help tie together the learning more smoothly. Do you use thematic units in your school? If so, are there any places you go to find resources for those units (specific websites, for example)?