Interdisciplinary Statement

Doubet and Hocket (2016) state the importance of centering a unit on a framing concept that is
transferable both to other content areas as well as to students lives outside of the classroom. Teaching
for transfer requires teachers to move away from focusing only on students acquiring skills and
knowledge in their specific content area (a coverage approach).
AMLEs This We Believe states that in successful middle schools, Curriculum is challenging,
exploratory, integrative, and relevant (17). The integrative portion of this statement includes the idea
that an integrative curriculum revolves around important questions student ask, rather than around a
predetermined body of content (21). This We Believe also states that, Students and teachers are
engaged in active, purposeful learning (16). Part of this includes helping students develop the ability
to organize information into useful and meaningful constructs and grasp long-term cause and effect
relationships (16). Concepts give students a way to organize information and begin to make broad
connections.
Furthermore, developmental theorist Piaget explains that students around the middle school
age group are transitioning from concrete to abstract and hypothetical thinking. Using relatable
concepts will help students bridge this gap.
Teachers can work with their teams to pick a unifying concept that all content areas explore
over the course of a unit. Teachers can also pick one or two overarching concepts that are explored
throughout a semester or even a school year. Doubet and Hocket sum up the importance of using
concepts, stating:
Carefully selected concepts provide openings through which students can tunnel their way into
the core of a subject to discover its deep principles, issues, and controversies (35).

In my middle school language arts class, I would like to have a central and long-term focus on
perspective and dissonance.

Perspective
o In middle school, perspective is an extremely relevant concept. Drama is prominent, and
I can use the concept of perspective to help students begin to understand how to be
empathetic. With my focus on restorative justice practices and my incorporation of a
weekly circle, a focus on perspective will be powerful. Furthermore, a focus on
perspective will help students deal with the divide they are beginning to feel from their
parents.
 o In my content area, perspective is relevant to literature in both perspective of characters
and perspective of the author or poet. Perspective lends itself well to creative writing
prompts such as re-writing a story or poem from another characters point of view.
o Perspective is also a strong concept for an interdisciplinary unit in all content areas. For
example, in math, when learning about an equation or theorem, students can consider
the perspectives of different mathematicians as well as society of the time and how they
responded to that theorem. In teaching an interdisciplinary unit, any content area
teacher can incorporate multiple perspectives without having branch too far from
whatever content they are focused on.
o To introduce perspective, I would have students complete a Frayer model asking
students to define perspective, give an example, give a non-example, and describe a
time in their life when someone had a different perspective than they did.

Dissonance
o I like using dissonance instead of conflict because it is a little more specific.
Dissonance is defined as, a tension or clash resulting from the combination of two
disharmonious or unsuitable elements (dictionary.com). This again ties into the constant
drama of middle school as well as dissonance between parents and students as they
begin to declare independence; I think middle schoolers will certainly relate to the word.
o I think it would be powerful to teach a mini psychology lesson on cognitive dissonance
and give students some moral examples where they physically feel it. This would tie in
well to unit on conflict and exemplify internal conflict. Also in my content area,
dissonance can be used as a frame to explore man versus man conflict or man versus
society both in literature and non-fiction pieces.
o In creating an interdisciplinary unit with the rest of my team, dissonance works well. There
is obviously dissonance in history and I think exploring the cognitive dissonance of
controversial leaders (especially dictators) would be a powerful lesson. In science, there
is physical dissonance when different elements react. There also was dissonance
between different scientists (which incorporates perspective too). In math, dissonance is
a little harder to incorporate, but it could be tied in when considering the cognitive
dissonance that .999999999 = 1 or how continuous numbers such as pi exist.
o To introduce the concept of dissonance, I would play a selection of dissonant and
consonant music and have student free-write whatever the music makes them think of.
We will then focus on creating a list of adjectives describing dissonant music and finally
define dissonance.