#6: Stage 1 - Unpacking Standards

Explicit or implicit in a learning standard are the Knowledge and Skills that students need to acquire. While some teachers are able to read and examine a standard and break it down into such learning components, many may find the following process helpful when unpacking a standard.

• Identify Knowledge and Skills
• Here, we seek to articulate the concepts and skills that the standard is indicating students should be able to know, understand and do. One useful way to start the exercise is identify the nouns the verbs in the standard. One way to do this is to color code the nouns red and the verbs green.
• Identify Types of Learning Targets
• Here, we examine the nouns and verbs in the context of the standard to determine the type of learning targets they imply. For example are they knowledge targets, or skill/performance/reasoning targets.

Let's look at an example by unpacking knowledge and skills from the following Literacy Standard: Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not.

First, we color code the nouns and verbs in the standard: Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not.

From the above, we can draw out the types of learning targets specified by the standard.

Knowledge Targets (Students will know ...)

how to define the concepts of argument, claim and evidence.

Skill/Performance/Reasoning Targets (Students will be able to ...)

evaluate an argument.

distinguish between supported and unsupported claims.

trace an argument in a text.

Once we have unpacked the standard into Knowledge and Skills, we are then able to complete Stage 1 of UbD by identifying Enduring Understandings and developing Essential Questions. Both of these are drawn from the knowledge and skills unpacked. Here are some examples of Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions that could be associated with the chosen learning standard.

Enduring Understandings
An argument backed by evidence is more convincing than just an opinion
Being able to support a claim with evidence is a useful life-long skill

Essential Questions

Why is evidence important?

Why is it important to be able to distinguish between an argument supported by evidence from one that does not?

In general, Enduring Understandings are not explicitly made known to the students. They are recognized (best through aha moments) during and by the end of the unit. They are arrived at through the engagement with thought provoking Essential Questions throughout the course of the unit. Enduring Understandings can be the answers to the Essential Questions.