Developing and Maintaining Expertise (Grades 9-11)

Students read two texts that explore the relationships and tensions among practice, learning, expertise, and efficiency. They also extend their understanding of how to navigate long and complex texts and practice working from moments within and across texts to develop interpretations, draw conclusions, and make generalizations. Two informational texts 2-3 weeks instruction Argument writing What is this unit about? In this unit, students read two texts: “The Learning Curve” by Atul Gawande and “The Great Forgetting” by Nicholas Carr. Both Gawande and Carr explore the relationships and tensions among practice, learning, expertise, and efficiency. They do this by drawing conclusions from multiple narrative cases and research from high-stakes professions in which knowledge, practice, and efficiency exist within practical and ethical tensions. In “The Learning Curve,” Gawande, a surgeon, anchors his ideas in narrative cases, research, and examples from medicine. He discusses how sur