Thursday, October 29, 2009

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan
Mystery Box: Statue of Liberty

Situating the Lesson:
At the start of the unit, after students have seen or heard of the Statue of Liberty in at least one other context, such as from a storybook, but before they have studied it in depth


Methods of Inquiry:
Students ask questions

Instructional Goals: Students should be able to recognize and identify the image of the Statue of Liberty and be able to describe its location.

Essential Questions:
What is the Statue of Liberty? Where is the Statue of Liberty? What does it represent?

State and/or Content Standards (indicate source):

2.5. Students describe the human characteristics of familiar places and varied backgrounds of U.S. citizens and residents in those places.
4. Understand the significance of the Statue of Liberty and how many people have come to the U.S., and continue to come here, from all around the world. (I, P, S)

Instructional Materials:
Miniature of Statue of Liberty, Chart Paper, Blackboard or Whiteboard and appropriate writing tool

Set Induction:
Tell students you have an on object in the mystery box that you want them figure out what it is. Review how the mystery box activity works, but it should be review as this works best if they have already played mystery box before.

Procedures: Students take turns asking descriptive yes or no questions, which the teacher in turn answers. When a question warrants a positive response, the teacher writes the descriptive feature of the mystery object on the board. After several descriptions are collected the teacher reviews them with the class and asks students to think silently about what the object might be. If some students feel that they know what it is, the teacher then asks them to ask three more questions that would help them and classmates narrow down the possibilities of what it is. In the end, after it seems that majority of students have figured it out, students are asked to write what they think it is on a piece of paper. Then the teacher records these responses on the board and finally announces the mystery object by showing the small representation of the Statue of Liberty. Then the teacher once again reviews what they have as a class deduced about it.

Assessment/Closure:
Authentic assessment can be done by taking notes on student behavior and questions throughout the activity. The end of the activity can become the beginning of the new unit by starting a KWL chart, with the descriptions students have garnered during the mystery box becoming the what they know section. Then open the discussion up to filling out the what students wonder about the Statue of Liberty (and Ellis Island). Throughout the rest of the unit go back to the chart to record information learned.

Curricular Unit Outline Rough Draft-Attempt 2

Rachel Socia
October 20, 2009
Social Studies Methods


2.5. Students describe the human characteristics of familiar places and varied backgrounds of U.S. citizens and residents in those places.

1. Distinguish traditional food, customs, sports and games, and music from other countries that can be found in the U.S. today. (P, S)
2. Describe beliefs, customs, ceremonies, and traditions of the varied cultures, drawing from folklore. (P, S)
3. Explain the ways in which we are all part of the same community, sharing principles, goals, and traditions despite varied ancestry. (e pluribus unum) (P, S)
4. Understand the significance of the Statue of Liberty and how many people have come to the U.S., and continue to come here, from all around the world. (I, P, S)





Date Topic Lesson Homework
Day 1 Introduction Mystery Box: Statue of Liberty

Read At Ellis Island Ask your parents where they/ grandparents/ancestors came from? Record answers on interview sheet
Day 2 Class Cultures Share family histories in a circle on the rug

While sharing have students keep a tally of where students’ families are originally from

Have students organize this data

Start Molly’s Pilgrim as read aloud
Bring in costume for Ellis Island activity
Day 3 Ellis Island Molly’s Priligrim read aloud

Students reenact what its like to go through Ellis Island, with some playing health inspectors, some immigrants
Day 4 Statue of Liberty/ Welcoming people to America Read Emma Lazarus’s New Collosssus and break down meaning

Students write their own inscriptions for Statue of Liberty onto work sheet with picture of SOL which they can then color (30 minutes)

Learn the Song “This Land is Your Land” (15 minutes)

Molly’s Pilgrim Read Aloud (10 minutes)


Day 5 E Pluribus Unum In pairs or groups of three, students make Venn Diagrams comparing themselves with each other, give students a list of questions to ask each other ( 20 minutes)

Students make life size self portraits writing important ‘about me’ details in designated spots
Day 6 Read The Talking Eggs

Learn the Song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”
Day 7 Sports and Games
Day 8 Read How Many Days to America?

Learn the Song Day-O
Day 9 The First Thanksgiving Learn the Song Over the River and Through the Woods (10 minutes)
Day 10 Class makes a list of their favorite foods then they teacher helps to label where each of the foods originally came from
Make list of five things that you are thankful for
Day 11 Make foods:

While ‘cooking’ play multicultural music Gather/make any additional dishes for class party (really HW for parents)
Day 12 Thanksgiving Party: Students eat foods they made, sing the songs they learned, and read their “ I am thankful for…”

Parents are invited to join Enjoy the Holiday!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Learning Processing Blog Post 2

While reading Takaki's A Different Mirror, I can't help compare each chapter to how I learned about each period and each group of people in past academic settings as well as in situations where I have learned about them on my own. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jamesville DeWitt public schools for the exposure to the many facets of American History they offered. My education wasn't perfect, but as I read Takaki's book, I realize that I have a foundation for everything mentioned so far. However, Takaki includes an overwhelming amount of details I had not previously been aware of.

Throughout my schooling, at a predominately white school (though it did have the distinction of being the most diverse in the county, based on what research and criteria I will never know), we spent what I would think counts as a considerable amount of time learning and discussing the roles of African-Americans in US society. In elementary school we sang slave spirituals in music class and wrote letters to Ruby Bridges. We discussed slavery and read lots of books about Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad. In forth grade we memorized MLK's I Have A Dream Speech and then recited it to the whole school and anyone whose parents could take the afternoon off work.

I'm not sure who came up with our currciulum or who decided we needed to be sure to know how Black Americans shaped US history, but I have a feeling it was some how realted to wanting to assauge White guilt for oppressing a race of people for so long. I've come to this conclusion becuase the way in whcih much of the material was presented also hyped how there were White people who helped Blacks. I'm from Upstate New York, so we learned plenty about the Underground Railroad as Syracuse was a busy operating station.

However, despite my exposure to Black history and culture, even as it was presented as part of my own history as an American, specifically as a Central New Yorker, I still feel uncomfortable talking about race. Would it just be easier to ignore it and focus on our similarities and hope that one day we will all completely integrate and become one blended race or is it better to try and preserve individual races and cultures and acklowedge/ clebrate our differences? I could try and sell myself as a person an open, culurally aware and sensitive and point out my multicolored friends. Everybody knows this person. They are all over AU and are the first to point how accepting and non-racisit they are becuase of thier token minority friends. And while I do have friends from different backgrounds and a handful or biracial cousins, when I evaulate who my closest friends are, they are white and upper middle class, just like me. And, of all the conversations I've had with black friends, I've only had one where we acknoledged how race, and society's preceptions and expectations of race, have determined much of the persons we have become.

It worries me a little then when I am in the classroom I will be more perceptive to the needs of students who are most like me and not to the ones with which I least identify. Yesterday, as it was picture day at my practicum site, I had the chance to see how race can divide a student from her peers and teacher without the teacher even realizing. While the class stood inline waiting their turn, the teacher helped several of the little girls run a fine toothed comb through silky straight hair. One little girl, with a gorgeous mane of course, textured curls, worn down as opposed to her usual braids for picture day, cried because she hated her hair. The teacher did nothing to calm her and seemed annoyed that she couldn't abide the photos like everyone else. Well, I'm not black so I don't know first hand about the relationship Black women have with their hair, but I do know, as it is often the subject of magazine articles and an upcoming documentary, it is a big deal. I also know what it is like to have different hair. It may seem like a trivial feature, but over the years I have felt isolated, left out, different and ugly because of it. When my elementary school teachers were fixing the other girls hair, no one was fixing mine. Being separated based on a physical trait, even when those discriminating are not cognizant of their actions, is still hurtful and confusing.

I'm not really sure how to relate reading Takaki with development of metacognition. While I find the book very interesting and thought provoking, I haven't noticed any new patterns in the way I think, absorb and process new material. I already know that I retain information best when I can relate it to something I already know. They one thing I did notice in terms of my thinking is that I have been trained to associate Abolitionism in the US with Women's Sufferage. This is not how Takaki organizes material, but it's how it was often presented throughout my schooling, so I kept anticipating him to include the struggle for women's rights within in the chapter. I don't know if other schools like for students to draw the parallels between the two movements, or if my school did because they both tie in heavily to local history, but in my mind they are intertwined and I am now cognizant of how my brain organizes these particular schema.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Curricular Unit Outline Rough Draft

Rachel Socia
Social Studies Methods
September 24, 2009
J Nickelson


Curricular Unit Outline

Unit 11.6 The Twenties and Thirties (c 1920-1930)

Content Standards: Students describe how the battle between traditionalism and modernity manifested itself in
the major historical trends and events after World War I and throughout the 1920s.

1. Trace the growth and effects of radio and movies and their role in the worldwide diffusion of
popular culture. (G, S)
2. Describe the rise of mass-production techniques, the growth of cities, the impact of new
technologies (e.g., the automobile, electricity, airplanes), and the resulting prosperity, expansion
of freedom (derived from the car and the building of roads/highways), and effect on the American
landscape. (G, E)
3. Describe the policies of Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover (e.g.
“associationism,” The Teapot Dome scandal, “New Era” politics). (P)
4. Analyze the attacks on civil liberties and racial and ethnic tensions, including the Palmer Raids,
the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the emergence of Garveyism. (P, S)
5. Trace the responses of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Anti-Defamation League to those
attacks. (P, S)
6. Explain the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the Volstead Act
(Prohibition). (P)
7. Analyze the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the changing role of women in society.
(P, S)
8. Describe the New Negro Movement/Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature (e.g., Zora
Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald),
and music, with special attention to the “Jazz Age” (e.g., James Reese Europe, Duke Ellington,
Louis Armstrong). (I)
9. Describe forms of popular culture, with emphasis on their origins and geographic diffusion (e.g.,
professional sports, flappers). (G, S)

Skill Standards:

1. Students compare the present with the past, evaluating the consequences of past events and
decisions, and determining the lessons that were learned.
3. Students show the connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical events and larger social, economic, and political trends and developments.


Personal Stake: I’m not sure that I have an overwhelming personal stake to any of the many, many units that comprise the DCPS secondary social studies curriculum. Several of the brief overviews piqued my interest, however I chose this one because this is a period in American History I’ve had an interest in for many years. This is largely in part because the years of my schooling in which we covered 20th century American History, I was fortunate to have exceptional teachers. A lot of what I have decided to include in my unit is inspired by selected materials and activities of my own teachers.

Enduring Understanding:

Assesment: Throughout the unit students will complete a number of journal entries related to covered material which will allow a chance to demostrate their undersntading of concepts. At the end of the unit there will be a unit exam, which will be comprised of a variety of styled questions, including multiple choice, short answer and an essay question. Also, at the beginning of each class, the students will be asked one question about yesterday’s topic that can be answered in two sentences or less. Each correct response will be worth ¼ of a bonus point to add to unit exam.

Date Topic Lesson
Day 1 What do you know about the 1920s in the US? KWL Chart

Overview of Unit
Distribute packet of key terms/names

Introduce Ragtime
Assign each student 1-2 historical characters to research

Start Ragtime as read aloud


Homework: look up assigned character, write brief biography in journal
Day 2 New Technologies/
Growth of Cities

Students share character bios

Assembly line activity: small groups build something with some groups using assembly line fashion, others with parts non-standard, ill fitting parts

Class Discussion: Benefits of assembly line

In journal-list of daily/weekly places you go in a car

Record key points on board, and have students copy

Read Aloud: Ragtime

Homework:
In Journal -
search your home and make a list of the top ten technological conviences you can’t live without
Growth & Effects of Radio

Collect class data on how students receive news, small groups organize data then present to class

Listen to Orson Wells’ War the Worlds & discuss the panic that ensued

Discuss people’s faith in techonolgy and media
Compare media consumers of today with that of 1920s/30s could a WoW panic happen today?

Homework: Read chapter on Harding and the page on Coolidge from A Treasruy of Great American Scandals
Day 4 Presidential Policies/Attacks on Civil Liberties

Lecture
Teapot Dome
Palmer Raids

Read Aloud: Ragtime


Homework:
In journal-
Compare (in paragraph, list or graphic organizer form) Alien & Sedition Acts of 1917 with those of 1798, and the Patriot Act, may require some research and/or text reading
Day 5 Attacks on Civil Liberties/Racial & Ethnic Tensions

Share last night’s journal entries

Lecture/Notes
NCLU, NAACP

Read Aloud: Ragtime

Homework: none
Day 6 Prohibition

Read Aloud: Ragtime
Homework
Day 7 Changing role of women/Right to Vote

Think/Pair/Share on expectations of women today, ask students to describe their moms’ day to day life if they are stuck

Brief Lecture/Notes

Read Aloud: Ragtime
Homework
Day 8 Watch Ironed Jawed Angels

No Read Aloud
Homework: none
Day 9 Watch Ironed Jawed Angels

No Read Aloud
Homework: 1 page journal response to film
Day 10 Flex Day

Finnish Ragtime

Homework: In journal-write a response to Ragtime

Day 11 New Negro Movement/ Halrem Renaissance
Read Aloud: Langston Hughes Poem
Read/Act a scene from Raison in the Sun
Discuss in relation to what they have learned about discrimation
Homework:
In Journal-Write a letter to an organization asking for help as one of the characters discriminated against

Day 12 Pop Culture

Listen to Jazz Age Music
-Louis Armstrong
-Duke Ellington
-Ella Fitzgerlad & Chick Web Band “A Tisket, A Tasket”

Discuss students’ tastes in music then draw conections to Jazz

Listen to theme from Thoughoully Modern Millie, discuss why women were raising their skirts and bobbing their hair, invite students to compare with modern trendsetters

Distribute packet of Flapper slang and have students write dialogues/skits to perform for class

Sports:
Put up figure comparing NBL stats with those of Negro League

Art Deco Slides



Finnish Ragtime

Homework: complete unit review packet, highlight questions to go over in class
Day 13 Unit Review

Answer questions

Class game of Jeopordy-with prizes

Homework: Study
Day 14 Assessment: Unit Exam
Homework: none

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Learning Processing Entry 1

While reading Takaki’s A Different Mirror, as well as my assigned chapter from the Zarrillo text, which happened to be on diversity, I couldn’t help but think of the apparent diversity in my practicum classroom. There are students of a wide variety of complexions that have parents from quite the array of cultural backgrounds. What I find most interesting is not only is the class population very heterogeneous, but many of the kids themselves are a blend of several races and cultures. As of right now, from what I have observed at least, culture and race does not seem to affect their interactions with one another. I’m curious if over time this will change or not. However, I think that because so many of them are being raised by parents of different backgrounds that in the future making and maintaining friendships with people different from themselves will be easier and much more naturally than for children raised in homogenous home and school environments.
I also kept thinking while reading about how individuals from diverse backgrounds, like many of my students, view themselves. Which culture do these kids more closely identify with now and will this change in the future? My parents come from different cultural backgrounds, and I have in the past felt conflicted about my own identity. My mom is Jewish (I realize some might object to Jewish being used to describe culture, but from my perspective it is) and my dad’s side of the family is more of a mixture, but predominately Irish and most are practicing Catholics. I’ve always identified myself as Jewish, as my overbearing mother and her equally overbearing parents made sure my sister and I connected with these roots and aligned our thinking to their way of thinking. While I am proud of this identity, my dad and I often don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and it hurts me to know that he is disappointed I am a reflection of my mom and her family and not of him. We have a lot of difference in opinion on familial roles that are influenced by norms of our respective cultures, which has caused a lot of fights and alienated ourselves from each other.
Also, I noticed that many of the portions of the book that caught my interest or prompted me to take note were passages or really the few quick sentences that were about Jewish people. I’m curious if individuals who identify with other cultures and races were more interested with details about their ‘own kind’ too.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Social Identity Inventory

I am a daughter...I know this because my mom is the first person I call if I have a problem
I am a big sister...I know this because I have answered many middle of the night phone calls that start with "come get me and don't tell mom"
I am a camp counselor/babysitter/friend to children...I know this because every summer I come home from work covered in grass stains and glitter with a smile on my face and can't go out in public without being greeted by at least one child
I am a student...I know this because I am always in class or doing homework
I am a Jewish American...I know this because I observe holidays and teach Hebrew school
I am a Syracusian...I know this because I'm not scared of a little snow
I am a swimmer...I know this because I get excited everytime I smell chlorine