Examples: Human Rights Unit

Civil and Human Rights are a social science standard in California schools, and December has Human Rights Day, so I did a quick unit with grades 4-6 about this important topic. It would foreshadow discussions of inalienable rights that fifth graders would have later in the school year when studying the origins of the Revolutionary War.

I started with introducing them to the rights of children. The UN had some nice things, but even their plain text version of the Rights of the Child, had language that would not be easily understood by elementary level language learners. I did a video to help with this:

Download Video: Posted by mizmercer at TeacherTube.com.

I also asked them what rights they thought children have. Some of it was about the usual right to do whatever I want, but many had ideas about rights to education. Here is their writing:

Fourth Graders

Fifth Graders

Sixth Graders

In addition, the sixth graders starting a unit on taking a stand shortly after this. We have a large Hmong immigrant population, so I shared a local story about how recent changes in immigration rules could bar some from immigration or citizenship because they might be considered terrorists. Here is what they wrote about that.

All of these activities involved reading, writing, and higher level thinking.

Examples: Exploring Ideas

Open Court, the language arts program in my district, uses a construct to tie together ideas from reading selections in a unit called the Concept and Question board. Mathew Needleman describes this as a “second cousin twice removed” to the K-W-L chart. I prefer to call it a Question and Concept because I believe questions come before ideas. You can read more from Mr. Needleman about C & Q here. I have taken these organizers to the Internet using an application called VoiceThread which combines images/video with audio commentary. Here are some that I have done with my classes:

Third Grade Money Unit

Third Grade Country Life Unit

Fifth Grade Revolutionary War Unit (Making a New Nation)

Sixth Grade Music Unit (Beyond the Notes)

Open House

At my current school, there is a pattern. Back to School night, because it is at the beginning of the school year, tends to be teacher directed. Open House is more kid driven. Here is what we did:

First, we worked as a class to make this video:

The students suggested the titles, and picked the music, and the pictures are from photos that many of them took.
tour guide Next, we made up a list of things to show parents. Student were then expected to take their parents on a tour through the class.

I documented things with pictures, and set up a mini studio with my laptop to have students and visitors leave messages using My Chingo online voicemail

Sample Unit

Not all curriculum comes from a textbook. I work in a district with no science text, but my students (fifth graders) are tested on this subject by the state. I have a number of resources (workbooks, science kits, online resources), but I have to bring it all together into a coherent whole.

Here is what I did on the Water Cycle and Weather as part of an Earth Science unit:

Earth Science Unit Planner First, I created a planner with objectives and the instructional tools I would use.

Water Cycle Organizer Next, I created this graphic organizer in Inspiration to guide my discussions with students and provide study notes at the end of the unit.

And this slideshow introduces concepts to students, and is kept online for them to review:

In addition, students viewed content based “cartoons” on BrainPop (which include quizzes at the end of each show), reading and worksheets, and hands on experiments.

Sample Lesson

I use the curriculum and text provided by my school district, but my instructional goals are to follow the state standards, which the texts alone do not always meet. This means that I supplement the texts by asking more deeper questions. I also pay attention to the feedback I’m getting from my students (blank stares, blank work pages, puzzled looks, poor test scores), and adjust my teaching.

But how do I teach? What does a typical lesson look like? It varies, but here is an example:

Introduction of the weekly selection from Open Court
(click on graphics to see full size version)

Preview the week’s spelling words with a pretest. Correct and discuss the sound/spelling pattern.
spelling

Word Knowledge done from a PowerPoint projected for the class to see.
wordknowledge

Vocabulary, also from a PowerPoint. I highlight the clues in the sample sentences by underlining the projected text on the whiteboard.
vocabulary

Background taken from the teacher’s edition, but I often add my own information, including pictures and maps. This is also on PowerPoint.
background

Two part organizer that ties their experience/prior knowledge to the story being taught. They fill out the first part of the organizer (the left column) answering questions from their own experience.
organizer

Clues, Problems, Wonderings:
CPW
Students browse the selection, then fill in at least three clues, and two wonderings, plus any problem words they run across. I have them do this on a paper organizer. I circulate, and type in the problem words, with definitions into the projected organizer. I then take student responses by table group on the Clues and Wonderings. We will review what we came up with on Thursday after we have completed the selection.

This is the preview process I go through each week with Open Court stories. The last 40-45 minutes of my language arts block is spent on what Open Court calls workshop time, and is also called independent work time, or centers. The students work in their table groups on worksheets (which they do together), activities, group projects, or on computers. I either do pull-outs, or circulate the room to check and help students. I make this time three to four days a week to ensure that they are not just listening to me lecture, or doing silent seat work. My goal is to have them work together, and learn from each other and increase engagement.

Here is a screencast of a similar lesson (warning, turn down the sound, I was using my instructional voice with a mic):

Building a Positive Classroom Environment

Much of my work in this area is built on personal relationships that I build with, and between my students. While technology assists me with this, it is grounded in relationships that are built face-to-face.

First, I always work to have clear expectations and guidelines. These rules and procedures are taught explicitly to the students.  Here are slide shows that are part of that instruction. My first week of class is spent going through the rules and procedures, discussing them, finishing up with a Jeopardy style quiz on what they’ve learned. I also use this page to orient new students to my classroom.

Next, I teach character education explicitly.  Our morning writing is based on a word-of-the-week, so we can discuss what good behavior and character look like, and why they are important. This year, our campus has started using Second Step, to improve students behaviors. This program gives students explicit instruction in how to deal with anger, frustration, etc.

Last, I hold weekly class meetings to assist with conflict resolution. This gives students the opportunity to participate in their own problem solving and be part of a democratic process. I have incorporated the “compliments” portion of the meetings in the class website (look at the lower right column). 

My students are not perfect, but many conflicts have been averted and we our classroom focus is on learning.

Podcasting to build literacy

I began podcasting because I enjoyed listening to podcasts myself, and found them an interesting medium. When I began podcasting, I thought it would mostly inspire my “talkers”, the boys and girls in the class who have leadership skills, but aren’t always sure how to make the best use of them. These students do enjoy podcasting, but the surprise I had was seeing how many of my quiet students found their voices with podcasting. I keep an archive of the podcasts I do with my class. There are basically two types of podcasts, the weekly ones, which go out over the phone via ConnectEd to parents to let them know what is happening in our class. The other podcasts are the weekly discussions of our Open Court selection. My students have done an excellent job this year of tying themes, and events from our stories to their own experience, and the experience of their classmates. Quite frankly, they have humbled me.

The process for implementing this in my classroom:

  1. I began by doing the first class podcast myself with my son reading the script (so the students could see it was possible)
  2. Next, I then wrote the scripts and had students read from it.
  3. Currently, I give students an outline, and have them write the script. Another groups of students are the newsreaders.
  4. I hope to have them coming up with the topics in the future.

Group writing projects and wikis

The third unit of Open Court has the theme of Heritage, and focuses on culture. Many of the students have lived their home culture, but at their age they may not have thought about it much, and not in an analytical way. I had the students get in homogenous groupings of 3-4 on a wiki to answer some basic questions about their own homes and families. Then the answers were grouped together for each ethnic group in the class. The final results were put up as blog posts, and the class then commented on each others’ work and cultures. This let them learn about their culutre, and then share it with their classmates, making it a more authentic experience for everyone involved.

Technology in ELD Instruction

I have an ELD exchange class with mostly Intermediate level ELLs, and EOs who are below grade-level (some are receiving speech and language services).  I have started to use Avenues Level F with students. I try to have have a culminating activity at the end of each two weeks for the class. I try to take activities that are given from the text, but extend them into cyberspace.  If there is a play or radio play, we do a podcast. If there is artwork, I post it on the website. I have worked from words (having them write a script from an outline) to speech, and from pictures (self-portraits) to written words and speech, so that students have an opportunity to fully express themselves.