In order to plan well for my unit, I considered the contextual

factors affecting 6th graders at Southwest Community Campus (SWCC).

My students are between 11 and 12 years old. About 85% of students
are Hispanic, 10% African American and 5% other. Many students are
English language learners, about 2/3 of the class speaks Spanish at
home. The others have learned Spanish through their time at SWCC.
The unit was originally planned in Spanish, but then adjusted to English
after considering how many units we needed to fit in a small amount of
time. My mentor teacher and I decided it was better to stay consistent
in language with so many changing math topics.

SWCC is a bilingual, dual-immersion school where students start

in Spanish speaking classrooms from kindergarten. My students
currently have science classes in Spanish and social studies and
specials are taught in English. The residential area surrounding the
school is inhabited by mostly Hispanic residents and has a variety of
automotive shops, restaurants, churches, and community development
organizations.

Within the next few years, the Roosevelt Park neighborhood will
be working on a community center called Plaza Roosevelt. It will be a
combination of a school, cafeteria, and possibly stores and businesses.
The new school would include a high school to continue SWCCs
bilingual dual-immersion program throughout grades 9-12.
Considering this high school would be a fantastic context for teaching
geometry. Currently, they are in the planning process and are
consulting members of the community about what they would like to
see out of Plaza Roosevelt. When planning my unit, I realized that
because there was no set location or accessible plans, it would be
difficult to plan for this part of the unit. Although it is a meaningful
topic for students, they will most likely not be able to attend the high
school because it will not be completed for a few more years. I
decided against it because I felt that creating all information scratch
and using the idea rather than real information wouldnt make it as
meaningful for students.

Within my mentor teachers classroom, there are high expectations

for all students. A math homework packet it passed out at the
beginning of each week and students are required to complete the
homework packet and any other assignments with excellence. In the
past, students have worked a little bit with area and perimeter.
Hopefully, we can spend a short amount of time on those topics and
then move on to other topics in geometry. (After students took the
pretest, I realized we would need to spend more time on area and
perimeter than expected.) During my unit, I will continue with daily
homework practice and possibly practice for the M-Step as well. I will
continue to expect hard work and strong effort from students in class.