KTIP Pilot Project Lesson Plan Format

 

 

Name: Damien Sweeney Date: 06/2006 Age/Grade Level: 9-12

 

# of Students:  12  # of IEP Students: 12  # of GSSP Students: 0____

 # of LEP Students:  0

 

Subject: English   Major Content:  Reading & Writing_______  Lesson Length:  2 days

 

Unit Title:  Compassion- 45 747’s  Lesson Number and Title:  Compassion- 45 747’s

Context

This lesson plan focuses on an attempt to look at the lack of compassion in the world in order to create a sense of urgency for compassion

• The lesson asks students to take a look at poverty by doing Internet research on both African nations and the United States
• Students will respond to their research along with responding to the findings and responses of their peers
• Students will read Thank You, Ma’am by Langston Hughes and respond to this
• Students will complete a summative persuasive piece

 

• Previously, students watched the movie Pay It Forward and were introduced to the idea of compassion.  This introduction was minor and students were simply told what compassion was and why it was needed.
• Students that will be participating in this lesson are students at an at-risk school.  With this said, at times, students struggle with understanding why they have been born and raised in unfortunate circumstances.  Students sometimes wonder if being compassionate is even possible or necessary with their past histories in mind.

 

Objectives

• As a result of this lesson, students will be able to do show more understanding and care.  Students will be able to see, appreciate, and actively participate in acts of compassion.  After completing multiple formative assessments, students will be able to create a project based transactive piece explaining how they plan to create an act of compassion.  This piece will be based on the research, readings, activities, and discussions that we have previously considered as a class along with the virtual field trip that we will take as a class.

 

• Students create a summative project (similar to the project given in the film Pay it Forward):

Create a way to make our world a better place.  This project can be very personal or objective (it can have to do with certain people that the student knows or people in general).  You are trying to fix a social problem by creating an opportunity for compassion.  This project should be attempted.  Whether you succeed or not is of little consequence as long as an effort was easily observable and clearly valiant.  

 

Connections

 

ELA Reading EI 246 Academic Expectations 1.2 Students make sense of the variety of materials they read.	Program of Studies ELA-EI-R-1 Students will read and analyze informational material (e.g., biographies, autobiographies, periodicals).	Core Content RD-H-2.0.9  Analyze the organizational patterns in a passage: cause and effect, comparison and contrast, sequence, and generalizations. RD-H-2.0.13 Analyze the content as it applies to students lives and/or real world issues.
ELA- Writing - EII 60 Academic Expectations 1.11 Students write using appropriate forms, conventions, and styles to communicate ideas and information to different audiences for different purposes. 1.10 Students organize information through development and use of classification rules and systems. 6.3 Students expand their understanding of existing knowledge by making connections with new knowledge, skills, and experiences.	Program of Studies ELA-EII-W-1 Students will use writing-to-learn strategies such as notetaking, reflective response, response journals, and logs to make personal connections, to form ideas, and to complete tasks (additional supporting Academic Expectations 1.10, 6.3).	Core Content
ELA- Writing - EII 62 Academic Expectations 1.11 Students write using appropriate forms, conventions, and styles to communicate ideas and information to different audiences for different purposes.	Program of Studies ELA-EII-W-3 Students will write transactive pieces (writing produced for authentic purposes and audiences beyond completing an assignment to demonstrate learning) that demonstrate independent thinking about content and structure observed in practical/workplace and persuasive reading.	Core Content WR-H-1.4 Transactive Writing Transactive writing is informative/persuasive writing that presents ideas and information for authentic audiences to accomplish realistic purposes like those students will encounter in their lives. In transactive writing, students will write in a variety of forms such as the following; letters, speeches, editorials, articles in magazines, academic journals, newspapers, proposals, brochures, other kinds of practical/workplace writing. Characteristics of transactive writing may include; text and language features of the selected form, information to engage/orient the reader to clarify and justify purposes, ideas which communicate the specific purpose for the intended audience, explanation and support to help the reader understand the author's purpose, well-organized idea development and support (e.g., facts, examples, reasons, comparisons, anecdotes, descriptive detail, charts, diagrams, photos/pictures) to accomplish a specific purpose, effective conclusions.

 

Resources, media, and technology

• DVD player, DVD (Pay It Forward), The Internet
• Students will complete a virtual field trip using the following websites: www.one.org, http://www.payitforwardmovement.com/individuals.html, http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/hughesthankyou.html, http://www.diaryproject.com/

Procedures

• Students will be engaged in a variety of strategies and activities which will help them accomplish their objectives.  These strategies and activities include the following:

 

(1)Journal exercise:

Students write a journal (10 minutes) and answer the following:

There are clearly social issues (consider poverty, our educational system, etc.) in both the United States and the African continent.  As U.S. citizens, should we hold as much importance on the issues in Africa as we do the issues in America?  Explain.

 

(2)Upon responding to the journal prompt, students exchange journals and respond (5 mins.) to their peers’ entry.

 

(3)Students do virtual field trip online.  Students look at and consider the impact that compassion can have. 

(a)Students navigate www.one.org, students identify three issues that the continent of Africa must face. Students look at and consider the different articles given throughout the site which discuss the extreme deprivation of Africa (this could be with water, corruption, AIDS, education, food, etc.).  Students discuss the difference in the way Americans struggle vs. the way Africans suffer in their journals (30 mins.).

(b)Students discuss the differences between the effects and re-respond to the original journal prompt (Students write a journal (10 minutes) and answer the following:

There are clearly social issues (consider poverty, our educational system, etc.) in both the United States and the African continent.  As U.S. citizens, should we hold as much importance on the issues in Africa as we do the issues in America?  Explain.)

 

(c)Students navigate to http://www.payitforwardmovement.com/individuals.html and check out four to five stories of individual compassion.

 

(d)Discussion on compassion:

-discuss what compassion is

-why compassion is necessary

-options we have to become more compassionate

 

(e)Upon reading four to five stories of compassion and discussing the meaning and importance of compassion, students write a journal discussing the story that stuck out to them the most explaining why this story made such an impression on them.

 

 

 

 

(f) Students navigate to http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/hughesthankyou.html. and read Langston Hughes’ short story “Thank you, Ma’am”. 

(g) Students create a final formative assessment in their journals answering the following prompt:

How is “Thank you, Ma’am” a story of compassion?  What is different about the way the woman responds to the boy’s actions from the way that most people in our society would respond?  Was her response appropriate or inappropriate?  Explain.

(h) Students navigate to http://www.diaryproject.com/.  Students respond to an entry by one of their similar age peers showing compassion.  By this, I mean that students need to try and help the student or show them understanding in some way, shape, or form.

 

(4) Students create a summative persuasive essay (similar to the project given in the film Pay it Forward):

 

You are trying to fix a social problem by creating an opportunity for compassion.  Create a way to make our world a better place.  This project can be very personal (subjective) or objective (it can have to do with certain people that the student knows or people in general). This project should be attempted.  Whether you succeed or not is of little consequence as long as an effort was easily observable and clearly valiant.  

 

Goals: Students will write a persuasive essay showing their understanding of compassion

Assessment Plan

 

                                      Objective/Assessment Plan Organizer

 

Learner Objective Number	Type of Assessment	Description of Assessment	Adaptations and/or Accommodations
Objective 1: Students create an essay which attempts to fix a social problem	Summative	Persuasive Essay	Extra time IEP students, do no score for punctuation/spelling/grammar for IEP students