Unit Title Accepting and Understanding Differences
Lesson Topic Beginning to understand the unit: Accepting and understanding differences
Type of Lesson Introductory
National Content Standard NCTE standard(s): Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
MD Core Learning Goal(s): The student will demonstrate the ability to respond to a text by employing personal experiences a critical analysis.
Judges Prior Knowledge(How do you know students are ready to learn the content in this lesson?) Freshman students are at the peak of their development where they know about these issues, but they need the opportunity to talk about them in order to better understand them and accept others.
Lesson Objective(s):
Objective 1 – Students will be able to learn and discuss vocabulary and concepts in order to be prepared for today’s activity and tonight’s reading.
Objective 2 – Students will be able to work with their partners in order to learn about a different culture and tell about their own.
Assessment(s):
Assessment for Objective 1 – (Describe assessment) This is an informal assessment where the class will learn and discuss vocabulary and concepts in order to better understand them for their activity and their upcoming reading. Students will be expected to participate in the class discussion and take notes as they need. I will walk around as the students are doing their second activity and check their notebooks for their notes. Students can take notes however they please as long as it makes sense to them and they understand the material. Each student that has his or her notes for the day will receive a check in my grade book.
Is this a formative or summative assessment? Formative
Would you characterize this assessment as a traditional or performance assessment? Performance assessment
Why did you select this assessment strategy to measure student learning? This activity was purely to prepare them for the upcoming activity and reading so they will have more background knowledge of the avenue of the lessons and the situations in the reading.
Assessment for Objective 2 – (Describe assessment) When students share their experiences with their partners and listen to their partners experiences they will have a worksheet to complete that asks them to summarize the main points of their partners story, the culture within their partners story, things the students may not have known about the their partners as well as their partners culture, things they found they had in common, etc. This assessment will ultimately help them learn about the different cultures that are present right in their own classroom. This worksheet will be turned in at the end of class and given a grade of satisfactory if the student demonstrates an understanding of their partners story and was able to make links and inferences into their culture, and an unsatisfactory if it appears the student did not make an effort to understand their partners story or make any links within the culture.
Is this a formative or summative assessment? Formative
Would you characterize this assessment as a traditional or performance assessment? Performance
Why did you select this assessment strategy to measure student learning? I chose to use the grading scale of satisfactory or unsatisfactory because I just want to see if students were working together and gaining an understanding of the activity and their partner’s culture. I do not feel that a grade of A-F would be appropriate for this activity because some students may have partners that did not give them much information to work with or vice versa.
Materials Needed for Lesson Notebook Pen Paper Worksheet
Lesson Development
Teacher
Drill/Warm-up/Motivational Activity – Students will be asked to think about different places and activities around the world. For example: Thailand and Mixed martial Arts. Pick a place and an activity, which do not necessarily have to be linked together, that you would like to learn about, travel to, or learn how to do. Write these down and reasons for why you picked them.
Transition – “I wanted you all to do this so it could get you thinking about different people and different ways of life around the world. Although many of you picked places outside of the United States, there are many different people and activities right here where we live. Today we are going to talk about culture and background.”
Activity 1 – I will have slides to help guide the students along while I ask them to help me define certain words and concepts. I will have them give several of their own definitions and then steer them into the direction of the definition I have on my slides. We will then talk about examples of each word or concept. Then, there are a few concepts that I will not ask them to define, but that I will define for them and then we will discuss them as a group. These concepts are: homosexuality, social status, and social groups. Afterwards, we will talk about why it is important to know about these things and how it will play a role in our upcoming activity and reading.
Key Questions: What is a culture? What types of cultures are there? What is a tradition? What is a belief?
Transition “Now that we understand what these words and concepts mean, it is time to learn about your classmate’s culture.”
Activity 2 – Students will pair up with their partner. Each will tell a story about their own culture, which can include but not be limited by their social group, family, interests, etc. After each student tells their story they will complete the worksheet about their partner’s culture and what they have learned.
Transition: “Now that we have learned more about the cultures in our own classroom, let’s share some interesting things we have learned.”
Activity 3: Students share interesting things they have learned about their peers and their peer’s culture.
Summary/Closure/Revisit Objective: “Today we have learned what culture is and how many different things can be defined as a culture. Remember all the things you have learned today as you start to read ‘Annie on my Mind’ tonight for homework.”
Safety Valve: I will tell the students a story about/from my own culture and relate it to the lesson.
Students
Students will brainstorm to their selves and write down their answers. Ex: “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy and learn how to make real pizza!” “I’ve always wanted to learn how to belly dance in India!” “I’ve always wanted to go to the learn how to surf and maybe even go to the Bahamas!” A few students will share their answers.
Students will listen and discuss as a class as well as take notes individually.
Students will work with their partners and complete their worksheet.
Students discuss what they have learned as a class.
Time
7 minutes
2 minutes
1 minutes
13 minutes
15 minutes
5 minutes
2 minutes
Differentiation: (Describe what you did in this lesson to differentiate learning and to accommodate all learners)
In this lesson, I have paired students with students that will I believe will compliment and help each other. Not necessarily students that have things in common because that would defeat the whole purpose of the activity, but students that can help one another through the activity.
Reflection– Assume that after you have taught this lesson and assessed student learning you find that students did not meet the objective(s). How would you plan future instruction on this lesson’s content and skills to ensure student mastery and application?
I would have students go about the partner interviews a different way. Maybe tell different or more specific types of stories and use a different worksheet.
9th class; Standard; inclusive; racially diverse; 28 students; 17 girls & 11 boys; 5 IEP’s
Accepting and Understanding Differences
Beginning to understand the unit: Accepting and understanding differences
NCTE standard(s):
Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
MD Core Learning Goal(s):
The student will demonstrate the ability to respond to a text by employing personal experiences a critical analysis.
Freshman students are at the peak of their development where they know about these issues, but they need the opportunity to talk about them in order to better understand them and accept others.
Objective 1 – Students will be able to learn and discuss vocabulary and concepts in order to be prepared for today’s activity and tonight’s reading.
Objective 2 – Students will be able to work with their partners in order to learn about a different culture and tell about their own.
Assessment for Objective 1 – (Describe assessment) This is an informal assessment where the class will learn and discuss vocabulary and concepts in order to better understand them for their activity and their upcoming reading. Students will be expected to participate in the class discussion and take notes as they need. I will walk around as the students are doing their second activity and check their notebooks for their notes. Students can take notes however they please as long as it makes sense to them and they understand the material. Each student that has his or her notes for the day will receive a check in my grade book.
Is this a formative or summative assessment?
Formative
Would you characterize this assessment as a traditional or performance assessment?
Performance assessment
Why did you select this assessment strategy to measure student learning?
This activity was purely to prepare them for the upcoming activity and reading so they will have more background knowledge of the avenue of the lessons and the situations in the reading.
Assessment for Objective 2 – (Describe assessment)
When students share their experiences with their partners and listen to their partners experiences they will have a worksheet to complete that asks them to summarize the main points of their partners story, the culture within their partners story, things the students may not have known about the their partners as well as their partners culture, things they found they had in common, etc. This assessment will ultimately help them learn about the different cultures that are present right in their own classroom. This worksheet will be turned in at the end of class and given a grade of satisfactory if the student demonstrates an understanding of their partners story and was able to make links and inferences into their culture, and an unsatisfactory if it appears the student did not make an effort to understand their partners story or make any links within the culture.
Is this a formative or summative assessment?
Formative
Would you characterize this assessment as a traditional or performance assessment?
Performance
Why did you select this assessment strategy to measure student learning?
I chose to use the grading scale of satisfactory or unsatisfactory because I just want to see if students were working together and gaining an understanding of the activity and their partner’s culture. I do not feel that a grade of A-F would be appropriate for this activity because some students may have partners that did not give them much information to work with or vice versa.
Notebook
Pen
Paper
Worksheet
Lesson Development
Drill/Warm-up/Motivational Activity – Students will be asked to think about different places and activities around the world. For example: Thailand and Mixed martial Arts. Pick a place and an activity, which do not necessarily have to be linked together, that you would like to learn about, travel to, or learn how to do. Write these down and reasons for why you picked them.
Transition – “I wanted you all to do this so it could get you thinking about different people and different ways of life around the world. Although many of you picked places outside of the United States, there are many different people and activities right here where we live. Today we are going to talk about culture and background.”
Activity 1 – I will have slides to help guide the students along while I ask them to help me define certain words and concepts. I will have them give several of their own definitions and then steer them into the direction of the definition I have on my slides. We will then talk about examples of each word or concept. Then, there are a few concepts that I will not ask them to define, but that I will define for them and then we will discuss them as a group. These concepts are: homosexuality, social status, and social groups. Afterwards, we will talk about why it is important to know about these things and how it will play a role in our upcoming activity and reading.
Key Questions:
What is a culture?
What types of cultures are there?
What is a tradition?
What is a belief?
Transition “Now that we understand what these words and concepts mean, it is time to learn about your classmate’s culture.”
Activity 2 – Students will pair up with their partner. Each will tell a story about their own culture, which can include but not be limited by their social group, family, interests, etc. After each student tells their story they will complete the worksheet about their partner’s culture and what they have learned.
Transition: “Now that we have learned more about the cultures in our own classroom, let’s share some interesting things we have learned.”
Activity 3: Students share interesting things they have learned about their peers and their peer’s culture.
Summary/Closure/Revisit Objective: “Today we have learned what culture is and how many different things can be defined as a culture. Remember all the things you have learned today as you start to read ‘Annie on my Mind’ tonight for homework.”
Safety Valve: I will tell the students a story about/from my own culture and relate it to the lesson.
Students will brainstorm to their selves and write down their answers.
Ex: “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy and learn how to make real pizza!”
“I’ve always wanted to learn how to belly dance in India!”
“I’ve always wanted to go to the learn how to surf and maybe even go to the Bahamas!”
A few students will share their answers.
Students will listen and discuss as a class as well as take notes individually.
Students will work with their partners and complete their worksheet.
Students discuss what they have learned as a class.
7 minutes
2 minutes
1 minutes
13 minutes
15 minutes
5 minutes
2 minutes
In this lesson, I have paired students with students that will I believe will compliment and help each other. Not necessarily students that have things in common because that would defeat the whole purpose of the activity, but students that can help one another through the activity.
I would have students go about the partner interviews a different way. Maybe tell different or more specific types of stories and use a different worksheet.