InTASC Standard #7: Planning for Instruction. The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
The following lesson plan is an example of one of the many interdisciplinary lessons I have incorporated during my student teaching experience. In this lesson, students used close reading strategies that they learned in their English/IRLA class in order to closely read a source on John Adams. The students used annotations in order to summarize the text, find definitions to words they didn’t know, make emotional connections, make historical or current event connections, and highlight the important facts in the source. The students had already learned about making these annotations in IRLA, so they were able to transfer that knowledge into Social Studies with a mini-lesson that served as a refresher. This relates back to InTASC Standard #7 because as pre-service teacher I am learning to incorporate many interdisciplinary components to my lessons, and grow in my ability to add different skills into each lesson I create.
Washington to John Adams Lesson Plan 2/23/17
Objective:
Students will be able to evaluate their own close reading skills and pinpoint where they believe they need improvement.
Students will be able to compile research on John Adams and describe reasons why he is a strong or a weak president.
EQ: How did the leaders of the early Republic help us become the nation we set out to be?
GQ: How did George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe… uphold/deny the constitution, unite/divide the nation, support/threaten American Ideals, and set positive/ negative precedents for future leaders to follow?
Standards:
6.1.8.A.3.e = Explain how and why constitutional civil liberties were impacted by acts of government (i.e., Alien and Sedition Acts) during the Early Republic.
6.1.8.A.3.b = Evaluate the effectiveness of the fundamental principles of the Constitution (i.e., consent of the governed, rule of law, federalism, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, and individual rights) in establishing a federal government that allows for growth and change over time.
Formative Assessment:
Student’s completed research with notes and highlighting and T-charts with the Early Republic Presidents and Leaders. Student’s completed “Close Reading Rubrics”.
Procedure:
Students will be able to evaluate their own close reading skills and pinpoint where they believe they need improvement.
Students will be able to compile research on John Adams and describe reasons why he is a strong or a weak president.
EQ: How did the leaders of the early Republic help us become the nation we set out to be?
GQ: How did George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe… uphold/deny the constitution, unite/divide the nation, support/threaten American Ideals, and set positive/ negative precedents for future leaders to follow?
Standards:
6.1.8.A.3.e = Explain how and why constitutional civil liberties were impacted by acts of government (i.e., Alien and Sedition Acts) during the Early Republic.
6.1.8.A.3.b = Evaluate the effectiveness of the fundamental principles of the Constitution (i.e., consent of the governed, rule of law, federalism, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, and individual rights) in establishing a federal government that allows for growth and change over time.
Formative Assessment:
Student’s completed research with notes and highlighting and T-charts with the Early Republic Presidents and Leaders. Student’s completed “Close Reading Rubrics”.
Procedure:
- ANTICIPATORY SET: Students will pull up their T-Charts that they have been using to take notes on the the Early Republic Presidents and Leaders. Students will also open their documents from Station 4 of the George Washington Station activity that is in their google classroom.
- Teacher will point out that in the groups that were most effective in both Station 6, the Washington Farewell Address Station and Station 4, the Government use of force and whiskey rebellion station, were selective in their highlighting and highlighted key points. In ineffective groups, the highlighting has either been over the top, or not there at all.
- Teacher will announce that today they will be modeling close reading strategies. Looking at Station 4 on the smartboard, the teacher will look at the portion on the Battle of Athens. Students will pull up this source as well.
- Teacher will model metacognition of close reading:
- Highlighting:
- Read the section outloud, stopping to highlight these portions:
- repeated harassment by law enforcement
- organized their own political party
- ran several veterans for local office
- Summarizing: by looking at the first paragraph and summarizing the main points of what you highlighted: Rebels found a non-violent way to protest - different from Whiskey Rebellion violent clash
- Looking up words: use chromebooks and then add the definition to the margin
- Using post-it notes to make notes on things that you can’t write in
- Making emotional responses: “I didn’t like this, this reminded me of…”
- Making current event connections
- What do I want to know more about?
- Students will now use the rest of the period to apply these skills to the 2 stations they have not finished in the Washington Station activity from the previous lesson.
- Students who finish the Washington stations will move on to John Adams. For the John Adams portion, students will be doing independent research using the critical reading method.
- Students should have post-it notes and highlighters out for this activity and they will read a pre-printed packet on John Adams, highlighting and taking notes in the margins of their hardcopies
- WRAP UP: Students will then be called back together as a class to evaluate their close reading. They will be given the rubric added below.
- EXIT CARD: Students will hand in their completed rubrics after grading themselves on their close reading skills.