Unit Plan and Lesson Plan

CityUniversity

of Seattle

Teacher Certification Programs

Lesson Plan

Teacher Candidate:

Denise McLean

Date Taught:

Grade/Subject:

9/10 Humanities

Lesson Focus

Standard(s) Addressed:

PS 1 – Identifies and analyzes pre-history trends in arts, crafts, and human innovation

Learning Target for this Lesson:

I can use my knowledge of the paleolithic period to interpret an artifact from that time period.

Learning Intentions and Goals for this Lesson:

In this lesson, students will practice connecting observations, hypotheses, and questions or presented artifacts. These transferable skills are the building blocks of inquiry centered learning and thinking. Additionally, students will start a scaffolded reading process to build content knowledge to apply in later lessons and project work.

Essential or Driving Questions:

How did early humans live, and what can we learn about our world from their society?

Your Students’ Strengths

(Your students already have the knowledge and lived experience to contribute to the learning experience.)

Assessed Prior Knowledge (Strengths)

What strategies can you use during this lesson to create space for students to access knowledge/skills related to this lesson?

Strengths and Interests

What strategies can you use to center their strengths and interests?

Funds of Knowledge

What strategies can you use during this lesson to create space for students to access their funds of knowledge?

Students have utilized the See-Think-Wonder protocol. They are adept at making detailed, specific observations.

Students are also able to connect information between related texts. They can react, question, comment, and connect within and across texts.

Students are also able to self-identify levels of needed support and appropriately choose

Students in most periods are interested in learning about different cultures and societies, historical and modern.

Many students are adept in connecting historical points or concepts to the modern world.

Students are interested in learning about how people in societies work together and are quick to point out injustices or biases in social structures.

Students also enjoy looking at art or cultural artifacts from various time periods. They get much from seeing images over text alone.

Several students from 1st and 3rd period have families who work in the farming industry and who move frequently to accommodate seasonal work.

Several students are artistic and have quite a bit of knowledge and many ideas about how art reflects society.

Your Students’ Needs

(What do you know about your students’ needs and triggers that you need to support in instruction?)

Assessed Prior Knowledge (Gaps)

What knowledge/skills related to this lesson might need scaffolding or chunking for your students?

Needs for Individuals/Groups of Students

Consider the individuals or groups of students in your class who might need extra support. What are those supports? (Also include 504/ELL/IEP needs).

Majority of students across all classes read at least one grade below level. Given the provided textbook is written at a 10th grade level, scaffolding of texts is needed in order to allow students access to the content and information they will need to complete the rest of the project and unit.

Academic vocabulary is particularly low for students in the second period. To support this, we will utilize previously learned physical movements to connect to vocabulary, and we will take an additional 10 minutes for new words as identified by students when previewing the text.

All students will use 3 texts which summarize the paleolithic time period and its societies. The texts are leveled as such:

A (roughly 6th grade level)

B (roughly 9/10 grade level)

C (12th grade level)

All students will go through all texts. Students with MLL/IEP accommodations will focus on Texts A and B (C will be available but not required).

Small group, teacher-facilitated read-aloud support will be offered for all students. Students with the accommodations will be directed to this space prior to the start of the lesson (though all students have the option available).

Students may respond verbally rather than written with a teacher, para, or to Flip

Learning Tasks

(List the steps of what you will do from start to finish in the lesson. Depending on your own needs and strengths, your mentor teacher or field supervisor may ask you to script out what you will say for various steps or modify it in some other way.)

Check off the following items as you include them in your sequence (you should use these in the rationale column, in addition to research and/or theory):

❑ Leveraged student assets  Antiracist teaching  Culturally sustaining teaching ❑ Scaffolds for student needs

❑ Classroom Culture/Social-Emotional Learning ❑ Vocabulary/academic language supports ❑ IEP/504 Accommodations

Activities/Tasks: Describe the steps that the teacher and students will take through the duration of the lesson. Include specific activities, directions, and redirection plans in case of student needs or questions.

Ignite/Launch (30 minutes)

1. Students will enter the classroom and the assigned student will distribute class notebooks.

2. (10 minutes) Student will complete the Do Now question on the screen:

a. Identify one thing you learned about the Paleolithic era from yesterday’s research.

b. What question were you most interested in exploring through this unit? Why are you interested?

c. Create a prediction: What was the function of cave art, such as the example below?

3. After reviewing and sharing responses to the questions, the teacher will go over the target of the day and ask students their predictions about cave art paintings.

a. This will include going over the academic vocabulary in the target and the do now question (predict) using physical movements previously taught.

b. This will also include a review of our class agreements and how we demonstrate them in working sessions.

4. (15 minutes) Tables will be given an image of cave art from various regions around the world. They will complete a “See-Think-Wonder” protocol in table groups. The teacher will set the pace and keep time for each section of the protocol (5 minutes for each section of the protocol).

5. The teacher will display each image on the screen and ask the assigned group to share their insights.

6. (5 minutes) The teacher will pose the following questions:

a. What did hearing about all the different examples help you learn?

b. How did your prediction from the do now questions hold up? What new information has changed your thinking?

c. How did what you learned yesterday impact the way you analyzed these artifacts?

7. Alert students that throughout the unit, they will be looking at images of primary sources and making inferences given the lack of written record. As students read informational texts, we will connect to primary source materials as much as possible.

Chunk and Chew (30 minutes w/ brain break)

1. The teacher will share three texts of increasing complexity that cover Paleolithic societies:

a. TEXT A: 6th grade level World Civilizations Chapter 1

b. TEXT B: 10th grade level World History Chapter 2

c. TEXT C: The Human Story by James C. Davis, Chapter 1

2. Students will receive a blank PEERS chart with guiding questions about each category of information (political, economic, education, religion, social).

a. They also have access to sticky notes to write information/facts on and categorize later if they or their group choose to do so.

3. All students will read all three texts over the next several days, starting with TEXT A. Students can choose from the following 3 forms of support and work structure:

a. Level 1: Small group instruction with the teacher. Read alouds with pauses for reflection with the group.

b. Level 2: Peer support; pair up and read through the text, working together to categorize information.

c. Level 3: Independent work; requires a teacher check halfway through worktime to remain independent to ensure understanding and focus.

4. Students select their choice with the goal of completing the TEXT A by the end of the 30-minute window.

a. At 15 minutes all students are given a 60 second brain break to stretch. The teacher will check on independent students and pairs during that window and suggest changes for structure as needed.

Reflect and Assess (15 minutes)

1. (10 minutes) After the reading time is over, students will have two tasks to work through at tables:

a. Identify core terms they saw in the reading (nomadic, hunter-gatherer, etc.) A rep from each table will bring these terms to the teacher.

b. Review the questions on the KWLH chart. Identify what questions were addressed today and add to the L column with text reference.

2. (5 minutes) Exit Ticket:

a. How did the cave art connect to what we learned in today’s reading? OR

b. Draw an image that represents what you learned about Paleolithic societies today.

Rationale: Describe how your lesson contains the following elements and pedagogies. Use specific examples from the lesson and learning theory to support your choices.

Leveraged Student Assets:

The lesson leverages assets of students by focusing on their interests in cultural art and looking at how societies function. The PEERS structure is a categorization system to help students organize their learning. There are also many places for students to reflect and think about their learning utilizing protocols and systems that allow them to focus on thinking and questioning over memorization and fact recall. This lesson will also serve as a scaffold to more robust and higher-level thinking (DOK/Bloom’s) about the relationships between art, stories, and society throughout the unit.

Antiracist Teaching:

By starting with art and visual artifacts, the lesson challenges notions that only “writing” societies can be considered “civilized” or “complex.” The EDUCATION section of the PEERS chart emphasizes how information or culture is passed down within a society, and that written language is not the primary vehicle for cultures in both the past and the present. (German, Okun)

Culturally Sustaining Teaching:

Similarly, the lesson and the intervention for misconceptions (described above) emphasize the use of questions and protocols to prompt thinking and mental shifts over explicit instruction. This allows students to connect to their own understandings of societies and cultures and look for connection points. They can also look at differences through a lens of inquiry over a lens of judgement or comparison. Students are also able, through the metacognitive questions and consistent reflection, identify their learning and gaps in an explicit way which will support them learning in a space of productive struggle. (Hammond)

Scaffolds for Student Needs:

There are several core scaffolding techniques demonstrated in this lesson:

1. Visible Thinking Protocol (See-Think-Wonder). This protocol helps students build their thinking around new stimuli or content by progressing students from observations to questioning. (Richart)

2. Scaffolded Reading. By having all students read through the series of texts, all students build foundational understanding of paleolithic societies with an accessible text. This supports students based on reading level needs, current schema connections, and language acquisition.

3. Work Support Options. Students can choose their work style based on their comfort/confidence in the task. Check-ins from the teacher help ensure students make choices based primarily on learning needs. (Vgotsky)

Classroom Culture/Social-Emotional Learning

Classroom culture is developed and sustained in this lesson by:

1. Anchoring in protocols. This gives all students support in their thinking and emphasizing collective making of meaning and questioning. (Hammond)

2. Utilizing reflective questions throughout. Reflective questions prompt metacognitive thinking and discourage the centering of fact-based recall. In this way, the classroom demonstrates values of critical thinking, questioning, and exploration. (German)

SE Learning is supported in the lesson in the use of brain breaks and reviewing the class agreements. By explicitly directing students to them at the beginning of each class, agreements and community health are centered. This will be extended in later lessons when students are asked to create a list of “Paleolithic society agreements” they extrapolate from their research and learning.

Vocabulary/Academic Language Supports:

This lesson supports vocabulary and academic language development by utilizing strategies such as word walls, reading groups, and content graphic organizers. By surrounding the classroom with cues and anchor tools, working memory for students will be able to center and connect higher order thinking (application, categorization) to lower order skills (memorization, fact-building). (Bloom’s)

Additionally, by attaching physical movement to academic vocabulary (such as predict or categorize), neural pathways are further strengthened and recalled to support students engaging in their learning activities. (GLAD)

IEP/504 Accommodations and Differentiation strategies:

Accommodations will be met in the following ways:

1. Students may have modified PEERS charts with fill-in-the-blank sections.

2. Students may limit to only TEXT A and TEXT B, and will be provided additional time for each text.

3. Students may be provided a premade vocabulary list with images and space for definitions.

4. Students may provide verbal responses to questions rather than written either to a staff member or using Flip

Differentiations include:

1. Exit Ticket choice

2. Groupings and directions for support levels

Assessment Strategies – How will you figure out if your teaching was successful?

Include at least three assessments that reflect a snapshot of your assessments through the lesson in a variety of formats (e.g., verbal, written, kinesthetic, etc.) and at a variety of cognitive levels (e.g., recall, application, etc.) Assessments can include questions you plan to ask, observations you plan to make, exit tickets, etc. These strategies should also appear in your activities/tasks above. (please add rows for each new reflection):

Objective(s)/Learning Target(s)/Intention(s)

Activity

Prompt

Accommodations

Connect to prior learning and create predictions

Written; recall and predict

Do Now

1. Identify one thing you learned about the Paleolithic era from yesterday’s research.

2. What question were you most interested in exploring through this unit? Why are you interested?

3. Create a prediction: What was the function of cave art, such as the example below?

Verbal responses to teacher/para or Flip

Analyze a primary artifact

Written/verbal; observe, infer, question

See-Think-Wonder

1. What can you see or observe in the image?

2. What do you think the image communicates? What do you think it’s purpose might be?

3. What does the picture make you wonder about paleolithic societies?

Document with sentence stems and numbered spaces for observations, inferences, and questions

Organize information

Written/kinesthetic (accommodation/scaffold option); categorize, evaluate

Reading and PEERS chart

Select work structure and read TEXT A using the PEERS chart to organize information you learn.

Direction to small group space for first half; eligible for partner work based on comfort moving forward

PEERS chart with fill in the blank sentence stems to target specific information from texts.

TEXT C as optional but not required; additional time provided for TEXT A and TEXT B

Connect artifacts to newly learned information

Written/drawn; connect, reflect

Exit Ticket

a. How did the cave art connect to what we learned in today’s reading? OR

b. Draw an image that represents what you learned about Paleolithic societies today.

Verbal responses to teacher/para or Flip