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“Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change”

How Can I Create Change in a World

Where Authority Reinforces Conformity?

A Thematic Unit Plan on Youth Activism within the Local Community

Presented by Erica Smith

On December 14, 2009 for AED 541

|Stage 1 – Desired Results |

|Established Goals: |

|What relevant goals (e.g., content standards, course or program objectives, learning outcomes) will this design address? |

|Students will locate countries on a map |

|Students will look at multi-cultural poems and songs that deal with conflict |

|Students will be able to see advocacy as a way to express their beliefs in the local community. |

|Students will be able to self reflect on their own beliefs. |

|I am assuming that students do not believe that they have any influence in the world, in a large part because of the authoritarian school |

|environment. By the end of the unit, I want the students to see that there are many ways to support a cause or to uphold the beliefs that |

|they have and to have a positive influence and make a change to a) their school b)their community c) society. The students should have a |

|deeper understanding of globalization, multiculturalism, diversity, resistance movements and how these four areas play a significant role in |

|their lives now, as well as in the future. |

|Understandings: |Essential Questions: |

|Students will understand that… |What provocative questions will foster inquiry, understanding, and |

|What are the big ideas? |transfer of learning? |

|What specific understandings about them are desired? | |

|What misunderstandings are predictable? | |

|Essential understandings and essential questions are opposite sides of the same coin. Therefore, include one essential understanding and its |

|correlate single essential question per line across. Be sure to list both topical and overarching essential questions and understandings. |

|Add additional rows to this section by highlighting an entire blank row (two cells across); click on Table from the Word menu above; select |

|Insert > Rows Below” and repeat as many times as necessary. |

|I am assuming that students do not believe that they have any |What should the students be able to take away from this unit? |

|influence in the world, in a large part because of the authoritarian | |

|school environment. By the end of the unit, I want the students to | |

|see that there are many ways to support a cause or to uphold the | |

|beliefs that they have and to have a positive influence and make a | |

|change to a) their school b)their community c) society. The students| |

|should have a deeper understanding of globalization, multiculturalism,| |

|diversity, resistance movements and how these four areas play a | |

|significant role in their lives now, as well as in the future. | |

|Pictures are included within the brochure. |What are the primary formal characteristics of this writing that |

| |distinguish it from other kinds of writing? |

|It is persuasive | |

| | |

|Brochures are used to promote events for a certain cause. | |

| | |

|There is a format that must be followed (front cover, back cover, | |

|folds) | |

| | |

|Facts are used to promote events (facts about the organization | |

|sponsoring the event and the event itself). | |

|Students will understand how to read many genres by making personal |How will students analyze and synthesize information from different |

|connection. |sources by making connections and showing relationships to other |

| |texts, ideas, subjects, and the world at large? |

|Students will realize the value in group work and collaboration. |How will students engage in a variety of collaborative conversations, |

| |such as peer-led discussions, paired reading and responding, and |

|Students will recognize the importance of connecting their own |cooperative group discussions, to make applications of the ideas in |

|personal experiences to the texts that they are reading. |the text to other situations, extending the ideas to broaden |

| |perspectives? |

|The students will be able to perform research and use the library for |How will students locate and use school, public, academic, and special|

|information. |library resources for information and research? |

|Students will understand that they have biases and that they must be |How will students check consistency of hypothesis with given |

|sure that they understand the difference between being objective and |information and assumption? |

|subjective. | |

|Students will be able to read many texts and use adaptable reading |How will students read and interpret literary texts from a range of |

|strategies to understand many different genres of writing. |authors, genres, and subjects? |

|That metaphors and similes carry significance. |How will students define the meaning of and understand the |

| |consequences of plagiarism? |

|That poems and songs are similar. |How will students share the process of writing with peers and adults; |

| |for example, write a condolence note, get-well card, or thank-you |

| |letter with writing partner(s)? |

|That standing up for one’s belief can make a profound global impact, |How will students interpret and analyze information from media |

|but still be non-forceful |presentations, such as documentary films, news broadcasts, taped |

| |interviews, and debates? |

|Students may think that resistance movements need to be led by |How will students evaluate the impact of the medium on the message? |

|important people (such as celebrities) in order to be successful. | |

|Students may think that resistance movements can only be used for |How will students express opinions and make judgments about ideas, |

|huge, controversial issues such as gay rights, abortion/etc. |information, experiences, and issues in literary, scientific, and |

| |historical articles, in public documents, and in advertisements? |

|That there is a strong tie between resistance movements, |How will students use social communication in workplace settings to |

|globalization, diversity, and multiculturalism. |foster trust and build goodwill? |

|That there is a way to express beliefs through advocacy in the |What are the components to writing a persuasive piece? |

|community. | |

| |How can I better express myself when I write? |

|Overarching Understandings Overarching Questions |

|The students will recognize the importance of studying popular culture|How do I learn about other cultures through popular culture? |

|from other countries to identify parts of that culture. | |

|The students will understand some of the freedoms that we have in |Why is America such a great place to live? |

|America as opposed to other countries. | |

| | |

|The students will recognize the importance of having a voice that is | |

|allowed to be heard. | |

|The students will recognize the conflicts (both internal and external)|How does history affect me even if I was not a part of the conflict? |

|that arise from colonialism | |

| | |

|The students will be able to compare situations in other countries to | |

|America. | |

| | |

|The students will be able to identify societal problems that are | |

|founded on historical conflicts, but are just as relevant today. | |

| | |

|The students will recognize their part in these conflicts and discuss | |

|how they need to be resolved. | |

|The students will recognize the importance of putting texts, authors, |Why do we need to place things in context? |

|countries into context in order to understand the underlying meaning. | |

|The students will recognize that there are different methods used to |What are methods used to get beliefs across? |

|get beliefs across and that some methods work better than others. | |

|The students will identify their own stereotypes and stigmas in |Why are we ignorant Americans? |

|regards to people with AIDS, refugees, and immigrants in America. | |

| | |

|The students will understand the importance of locating countries on a| |

|map. | |

| | |

|Students will understand different perspectives in regards to America;| |

|they will be able to see why other countries feel that we are | |

|ignorant. | |

|The students will have an understanding about why there are stigmas |Why do we hate immigrants in America? |

|against immigrants in America. | |

| | |

|The students will recognize their own biases and realize why they hold| |

|these stereotypes. | |

|The students will be able to identify and critically analyze conflicts|What conflicts do we have in America? Why do they concern us? |

|in America. | |

| | |

|The students will be able to identify why these conflicts concern | |

|them, directly and indirectly. | |

| | |

|The students will be able to critically think about solutions to these| |

|problems; they will be able to locate local groups that help to deal | |

|with pervasive problems in the United States. | |

|The students will understand the affects of globalization on their own|How do we become empowered and competitive with other countries? |

|lives. | |

| | |

|The students will understand that they must learn about other cultures| |

|in order to become competitive and empowered in the global market. | |

| | |

|The students will recognize that advocacy creates empowerment. | |

|Students will be able to identify groups or organizations that have |How can I make a difference in my community? |

|the same beliefs that they do and they will be able to work | |

|collaboratively with these groups. | |

| | |

|Students will recognize that advocacy gives people a voice. | |

|Students will be able to identify and analyze problems within society.|What should change in our community? |

|Students will recognize that songs are a type of poetry. |How do we create songs from our poetry? |

| | |

|Students will be able to recognize the power of music and sound. | |

|The students will be able to recognize their passions. |What am I passionate about? |

| | |

|Students will be able to define their beliefs, based on their | |

|passions. | |

|Students will be able to define an opinion and recognize when an |What is an opinion? |

|opinion is being used. | |

|Students will be able to define a fact and recognize when an opinion |What is a fact? |

|is being used. | |

|Students will be able to recognize the differences between facts and |What is the difference between a fact and an opinion? |

|opinions, and they will be able to tell which one is appropriate to | |

|use in certain situations. | |

|The students will be able to create their own podcasts and have a |How do I create a podcast? |

|better handle on technology use. | |

|Students will be able to see the usefulness of a podcast in creating a|What will a podcast enable me to do? |

|wide audience and allowing students to express their beliefs. | |

|The students will be able to see how their actions and being advocates|How will this make a difference? |

|for a cause can make a difference in society. | |

|Students will know… |Students will be able to do…. |

|What skills will students acquire as a result of this unit? |What should they eventually be able to do as a result of such |

| |knowledge and skills? |

|How to locate countries on a globe (through a Google lit trip) |Take a map quiz |

|How to create a brochure and the components that comprise a brochure |Create their own brochure for a non-profit organization |

|How to effectively use similes and metaphors |Write their own songs |

|What globalization is and how diversity and multi-culturalism are a |Write about their own stereotypes in their writer’s notebook from what|

|part of it. |they have learned in class. |

|How to read and write songs and poetry |Write their own song |

|How to find the underlying meaning in songs and poetry through |Create their own resistance songs and poems. |

|contextualization. | |

|How to look through a different perspective |Analyze texts from other countries that reflect their sentiments |

| |towards Americans. |

|Their own beliefs and why they value them |Self reflection |

|How to use resistance movements to make a change that they believe is |Create their own resistance songs |

|necessary to all people. | |

|How to find information at the library |Collaboratively create a research paper on a non-profit organization. |

|That plagiarism is wrong, but it can be prevented. |Create research papers that are free of plagiarism. |

|There own values and passions |Find a local, non-profit organization that holds the same values and |

| |beliefs to do research for the research paper and then later create a|

| |brochure for the same non-profit. |

|How to advocate for something that they are passionate about |Aid a local, non-profit organization that holds the same values that |

| |the students do by creating brochures |

|How to voice their opinion in a non-aggressive way |Create their own resistance songs and poetry. |

|That there are many societal problems in the United States |Aid in local agencies to fight these problems. |

|Step 2 – Assessment Evidence |

|Performance Tasks: |Other Evidence: |

|Through what authentic performance tasks will students demonstrate the|Through what other evidence (e.g., quizzes, tests, academic prompts, |

|desired understandings? |observations, homework, journals,) will students demonstrate an |

|By what criteria will the performances of understandings be judged? |achievement of the desired results? |

| |How will students reflect upon and self-assess their learning? |

|Creating brochures for local, non-profit organizations (these will be |Map Quiz |

|judged through set criteria in a rubric) | |

|Songs that they have composed through an enhanced Podcast (these will |Writer’s notebook |

|be evaluated by a set rubric) | |

|Students will create their own commercial ads using the influence of |Webquest homework that will be collected weekly. |

|persuasion and the characteristics of persuasion. | |

| |Quizzes |

| |Self assessments on beliefs and songs. |

| |Research papers on non-profit organizations |

|Step 3 – Learning Plan |

|What learning experiences and instruction will enable students to achieve the desired results? How will the design: |

| |

|W = Help the students know Where the unit is going and What is expected? Help the teacher know Where the students are coming from (prior |

|knowledge, interests)? |

|H = Hook the students and Hold their interests? |

|E = Equip students, help them Experience the key ideas and Explore the issues? |

|R = Provide opportunities to Rethink and Revise their understandings and work? |

|E = Allow students to Evaluate their work and its implications? |

|T = Be Talilored (personalized) to the different needs, interests, and abilities of the learners? |

|O = Be Organized to maximize initial and sustain engagement as well as effective learning? |

|GRASPS Task Design Prompts |

|Goal |Your task is to create a brochure that will promote a |

| |local, non-profit organization. |

| |The goal is to make a brochure that will promote an |

| |event or a local non-profit organization and to |

| |cultivate a sense of duty to the community through the |

| |beliefs and passions that we possess. |

| |The problem or challenge is allowing the students to see|

| |that they are capable of making a change in the world |

| |around them and reflecting on their own stereotypes and |

| |biases. |

| |The obstacles to overcome are the stereotypes of |

| |diversity, multiculturalism and globalization as well as|

| |the preconceived notions that the students have about |

| |different problems in society. |

|Role |You are a member of society that needs to understand how|

| |useful your beliefs are and you need to understand that |

| |you hold certain biases and stereotypes that reinforce |

| |discrimination and stigmas. You need to advocate for |

| |what you believe in within your own community. |

| |You have been asked to create a brochure for a |

| |non-profit organization of your choice and to work with |

| |a group to promote this organization. |

| |Your job is to notice positive ways of resistance, view |

| |and honor different perspectives, and to notice |

| |stereotypes that you may have in regards to diversity |

| |and multiculturalism. |

|Audience |Your clients are the clients of the organizations that |

| |we choose to help. |

| |The target audience are is the general public (the local|

| |community). |

| |You need to convince the organization that you are |

| |serious about what you believe and convince yourself |

| |that you are capable of making a change. |

|Situation |The context you find yourself in is that you are a |

| |student trying to make a change in the community through|

| |an organization. You have chosen the organization based|

| |on your own beliefs and the beliefs that the |

| |organization upholds. |

| |The challenge involves dealing with an advisor from the |

| |organization of your choice, students that do not want |

| |to cooperate with one another, and promoting an |

| |organization that may have communal stereotypes. |

|Product, Performance, and Purpose |You will create an enhanced podcast, as well as a |

| |brochure in order to demonstrate biases in the media, |

| |promote community learning, and promote an organization |

| |within the community. |

| |You will create a brochure in order to promote a local, |

| |non-profit organization, based on the beliefs of the |

| |organization as well as our own beliefs. |

| |You need to develop your own personal beliefs and |

| |stereotypes so that support a cause through a local |

| |organization. |

| |You need to develop a plan for the brochure so that you |

| |can create an effective brochure that demonstrates the |

| |need that the community has for the organization. |

|Standards and Criteria for Success |Your performance needs to follow the format of the |

| |genre: brochure; you will have a rubric to follow to get|

| |this as concise as possible. |

| |Your work will be judged by how creative you are in your|

| |podcast, as well as how well you followed the |

| |individualized guidelines of the brochure rubric. |

| |Your product must meet the following standards: It |

| |follows the rubric of a brochure, it is able to promote |

| |a local organization , and it is perfected so that it |

| |may be mass produced and distributed to the public. |

|Week 1 |

|Day 1: Why is America such a great place to live? |I play the keynote speech by Martin Niemoller, “First They Come.”|

| |This speech talks about the importance of having a voice and |

| |using it, even when it is not the popular thing to do. |

| |We will discuss the topic of this unit and begin to look at |

| |conflicts in other countries. |

| |I will explain that throughout the unit I will have guest |

| |speakers come in from organizations within our community to talk |

| |about conflicts happening right around us. I want the kids to |

| |see how real this topic is and to become involved in the issues. |

| |After the guest speakers have all come in, we will decide as a |

| |class which organization we would like to help and then we will |

| |come up with a fundraiser for that group. |

| |I will hand out maps of the seven continents so that the kids can|

| |keep track of countries as we discuss them in class, through the |

| |readings that we will be doing. There will be a few map quizzes |

| |as we progress. |

| |Every new country that we discuss will have a place in the |

| |writer’s notebook. The students must write pre-conceived notions|

| |and stereotypes that they have about the countries that we will |

| |be studying. |

| |For homework, the students are to read the lyrics to Conflict |

| |Diamonds by Lupe Fiasco. They must write down their initial |

| |reaction as soon as they are done reading the lyrics and pick one|

| |part of the song that most intrigued them. The students must |

| |also mark their African maps with the specified countries on the |

| |Webquest. This must be done by Friday so that the students can |

| |take a map quiz on Monday. |

|Day 2: How do I learn about other cultures through popular |We spend the first 10 minutes of class discussing the lyrics to |

|culture? |the diamonds song. I ask the students why we should know about |

| |conflicts in other countries. What is the point if we can’t stop|

| |what is going on? How could we help out these countries, from an|

| |individualistic and collaborative perspective? |

| |I then show the students the video; there are clips of young |

| |children with guns and Africans that are enslaved. |

| |How do the students feel after watching the video? What is |

| |different between just reading the lyrics and watching the video?|

| |I want the students to start thinking about voice and how we can |

| |make changes through our beliefs. |

| |I ask the students for characteristics of songs. I write this on|

| |the board and the students record this in their notebooks. We |

| |discuss songs that have meaning and how we can convey meaning |

| |through songs (literary devices, word choice, and music). What |

| |does this song contain that makes it so persuasive? What was the |

| |meaning behind writing this song? |

| |I ask why Lupe Fiasco would write a song about the diamond trade.|

| |He’s rich and loves diamonds so why does he care about people |

| |that he will never know? Does this song sway our opinion about |

| |diamonds? |

| |Who has the power in the song? |

| |I want the students to each choose one part of the song that they|

| |do not understand (a concept or name within the song). I want |

| |them to research this topic to present to the class in three days|

| |(Friday). They only need to write a page, double-spaced about |

| |the topic that they found. I also want the students to write |

| |about their favorite meaningful song and why it holds meaning to |

| |them. We will share these over the course of the next week. |

|Day 3: How does History Affect Me Even if I was not a Part of the|We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

|Conflict? |about their most meaningful songs |

| |We will start looking at colonialism and how the native culture |

| |has resisted the new culture. We will start by looking at Once |

| |Upon a Time. I want the students to underline all of the parts |

| |within the poem that indicate the beliefs of the author. How |

| |does the author convey his message? Is it clear to the reader |

| |what is happening? |

| |The students should have looked at the background information on |

| |the Webquest to understand the history of this poem. |

| |How does a history affect a person, even if they were not a part |

| |of the conflict? Are there any examples of this in the United |

| |States? |

| |Write in writer’s notebook ideas that you could use for your own |

| |poem on any conflict that bothers you in either in school or in |

| |the community. What are some things that you feel need to be |

| |changed? |

|Day 4: How do I learn about other cultures through popular |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

|culture? |about their most meaningful songs (We are able to do 4 students |

| |for each 15 minute increment). It is important that we share |

| |with one another so that we can start to build tolerance and |

| |respect for one another. |

| |I ask the students what they feel are the rights of all people |

| |and I write them on the board. I will make a handout to |

| |distribute to the students to remind us of these innate rights. |

| |I have the student’s mark where Angola is on their map. I ask |

| |the students to write about what they think of this part of the |

| |world. Have they ever heard of Angola? What have they heard? |

| |We now look at a story, one of our “touchstone texts”, Western |

| |Civilizations. This poem begins to explore the servitude role |

| |that Angolans played for Western cultures. We first begin by |

| |talking about the history of Angola and how colonization affected|

| |the Angolans (I give out the background handout sheet). I ask |

| |the students to write about a time that they have felt like they |

| |were put in a role of servitude. How did they feel? What would |

| |it be like to live your whole life for somebody else? |

| |We look at how the writer used their words to influence the |

| |reader to see what they felt. |

| |What rights were violated? How does the writer make us feel? |

| |Why does the writer try to invoke these emotions? Why do we need|

| |to know this? |

| |I want the students to go onto the Web Quest and move around from|

| |all of the different countries that we will be looking at in |

| |class. Every Monday for the rest of this unit, I will be |

| |collecting a printout of what they have completed on the |

| |Webquest. This will guide them in their own preparation outside |

| |of class for what we will be working on in class. |

|Day 5: Why Do We Need to Place Things in Context? |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

| |about their most meaningful songs |

| |Today we will look at Nissim Ezekiel’s poem, In India. We will |

| |talk about the background information from the Webquest and why |

| |this is pertinent to the poem. How does the background |

| |information make us more aware of what is happening? |

| |We will discuss why a resistance movement would be needed in this|

| |instance. What does the author hope to invoke through his poem? |

| | |

|Week 2 |

|Day 6: Why Are we Ignorant Americans? |The kids have to take their first map quiz on Africa. |

| |I collect the first round of work from the Webquest. |

| |I want the students to analyze the stereotypes that they have |

| |been writing in regards to the authors that we have been looking |

| |at. What do they notice about their first interpretations and |

| |how they feel now? |

| |I am going to give a lesson on stereotypes and why we feel about |

| |certain ethnic groups. |

| |We will watch Daniel Tosh’s clip on different ethnicities. |

| |We will discuss the “I” generation and how this has contributed |

| |to some of the conflict within the United States. |

| |The kids need to write questions for the guest speaker coming in |

| |tomorrow for STAP. I also want the students to write down the |

| |first ideas that come to mind when they hear the word AIDS, |

| |drugs, and needle exchange. |

|Day 7: Why Are we Ignorant Americans? |We have a guest speaker from STAP come in to talk about AIDS and |

| |the myths that surround AIDS. We will talk about how AIDS is a |

| |serious problem in countries, such as Africa, and why it has |

| |become so prevalent. We will also talk about the drug problem in|

| |the United States. |

| |We will talk about the seriousness of the disease and the |

| |prevalence within our own community. |

| |We will then discuss the role of STAP and how they help not only |

| |people with AIDS, but also people with drug problems. We will |

| |talk about the needle exchange program that STAP has and the |

| |controversy surrounding it. |

| |For homework, I want the students to write a refection about the |

| |experience today. I want them to reflect back on their initial |

| |stereotypes of the words AIDS, drugs, and needle exchange and to |

| |look at how this organization benefits the community. Is there |

| |any way that this non-profit hinders the community? What could |

| |be done about this? |

|Day 8: Why Are we Ignorant Americans? |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

| |about their most meaningful songs |

| |We will continue to discuss the STAP program today and the |

| |students will talk about their reactions to the program. I will|

| |ask the kids how many of them knew where the countries were on |

| |Africa before I gave them the map quiz. Why are Americans not |

| |interested in learning about other countries? Is it important to|

| |learn about other cultures? How do other cultures affect our |

| |community and how we live? |

| |We will now move onto refugees in America. The students will |

| |write their preconceived notions for homework on what they feel |

| |about immigrants in America. Why do they feel this way? How do |

| |their families feel about immigrants in the United States? Why? |

|Day 9: Why Do We Hate Immigrants in America? |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

| |about their most meaningful songs |

| |We will start by discussing Assia Djebar’s There is No Exile. |

| |We will discuss the stereotypes of immigrants in the United |

| |States (from “they’re taking our jobs” to “they smell.”) I want |

| |the students to have an understanding of what it would be like to|

| |be an immigrant. |

| |We will look at the conflict of the Algerian Revolution and the |

| |turmoil that it caused. We will discuss war and how it affects |

| |millions of helpless people that have nowhere to go. |

| |I want the students to write down the things that they do every |

| |day and how they know how to do these things (examples would be |

| |read road signs in English, pump gas, take a shower, etc). How |

| |would they feel if they moved to England and they were told to |

| |get on the lift? What if they were in France and found a funny |

| |looking toilet called a bidet? What if they were moving to |

| |America and did not speak English? How would this affect their |

| |lives? |

| |We will study MIA’s background so that we understand the type of |

| |music that she writes and sings. We will discuss how it sounds |

| |so different from American music and why this may be. |

| |We will now look at MIA’s song Airplanes and analyze the words. |

| |What is MIA saying? Why are there different noises in the |

| |background? Do they have any meaning? We will look at the |

| |lyrics of the song and discuss what MIA is saying. What would it|

| |be like to be a refugee, according to MIA’s song? |

| |The students need to write questions for the guest speaker coming|

| |in tomorrow from the Civic Center. |

|Day 10: Why Do We Hate Immigrants in America? |We will listen to the woman from the Civic Center explain the |

| |goal of the center and the benefits that immigrants received from|

| |the services provided by the Civic Center. We will also look at |

| |the immigrant population: where are a lot of immigrants coming |

| |from? Why are they leaving their home counties? |

| |I want the students to write a one page reflection about this |

| |experience for homework. Have any of their preconceived notions |

| |changed? Why? What have they learned? What do they want to |

| |change about the stereotypes that exist about immigrants? |

|Week 3 |

|Day 11: What conflicts do we have in America? Why do These |The kids have to take their first map quiz on the Middle East. |

|Concern Us? |I collect the work from the Webquest. |

| |We discuss problems in America, ranging from the gap of the |

| |wealthy to the poor, what to do about old people, recessions, job|

| |stability, etc. |

| |The students and I will look up various organizations that deal |

| |with some of these problems in our own community. Some examples |

| |would be the Salvation Army, nursing homes, MDA, DSS, etc. |

| |I want the students to break into groups of 4 (counting off by |

| |fours) and move into the group for that organization. They are |

| |going to work together to answer some questions that I have in a |

| |handout to give a brief presentation to the class. The kids will |

| |work on this today and tomorrow; they will present on day 13. |

|Day 12: Research on Organizations |The students go to the library and work on their research for |

| |their specific organization. The group will decide how they want|

| |to enter the information to our website. It must be uploaded by |

| |tomorrow. |

| |The students need to review the Webquest to discuss Peter Seeger |

| |tomorrow. |

|Day 13: Presentation on Organizations/What Tools Can I Use to |The students will give brief presentations on their |

|Become Empowered in Expressing my Beliefs? |organizations. |

| |We will start to look at resistance songs and poetry in the |

| |United States. |

| |We will read and listen to Peter Seeger’s Waist Deep in the Big |

| |Muddy. What was Seeger writing about? What tone is conveyed |

| |through the song? How does he express his emotions? Do you think|

| |that song and poetry can make a difference in changing the |

| |actions that are going on in the world? Why or why not? If not,|

| |what is the point of writing it? |

| |We will discuss characteristics of resistance songs and poetry. |

| |I will first have the students tell me the characteristics that |

| |they see and then I will make them a handout. |

| |I will have the students look at the picture of The Tank Man. |

| |They will write down their initial reactions (5 minutes) and we |

| |will talk about them. Does this resistance seem like it will |

| |make a change? We will discuss the importance of the Tank Man |

| |and how that inspired the world. |

| |I want the students to write their own resistance songs, starting|

| |with a poem. They need to have rough drafts by tomorrow. |

|Day 14: How Can I Better Express Myself When I Write? |We discuss our poems and songs and why they are so valued. I |

| |want the students to question one another and really discuss the |

| |importance of the topics that they have chosen to write about. |

| |I now want to discuss the use of metaphor and similes in songs |

| |and poetry. I explain that these literary devices aid in getting|

| |our message across, sometimes in a more powerful way than if we |

| |just talked about the issue. |

| |I have the students look over the poem “Metaphor” by Sylvia |

| |Plath. I want the students to look at each individual metaphor |

| |and see what they each represent. The students will do this in |

| |small groups of 4. They will then try to figure out what the |

| |poem is about. |

| |I want the students to include a few similes and metaphors in |

| |their own poems to add power and interest. This will be done as |

| |homework. |

|Day 15: How do We Create Songs from Our Poetry? |We will discuss the use of music with the poems that have been |

| |created. We will listen to MIA’s song Paper Planes to see how |

| |she adds certain sounds to the song to create a powerful |

| |statement. |

| |The first time that the song is played, the students will write |

| |down what they hear and make a symbol for each sound. |

| |The second time, the students will look at the lyrics as they |

| |listen to the song and use their symbols to mark where the sounds|

| |are appearing next to the words. |

| |I want the students to get into groups of two or three and |

| |discuss why certain sounds were placed in the song. What do |

| |these sounds remind you of? How is this meaning altered or |

| |reinforced with the words? |

| |I now want the students to exchange poems and write down sounds |

| |that come to mind while reading the poems of their peers. What |

| |songs/sounds do they think of as they are reading the poetry? |

| |They are to write these suggestions next to the words that |

| |epitomize the sounds/music that they are thinking of. |

| |The poems now need to be exchanged with somebody else. What |

| |images come to mind as the poem is being read? Write these |

| |images next to the words and phrases. |

|Week 4 |

|Day 16: Podcasting |Today, I will give a lesson on how to create enhanced podcasts |

| |and I will have the students create their own podcast for their |

| |songs. These songs are going to be placed on our class Ning |

| |after they have been downloaded to YouTube. |

| |I will go over the rules for plagiarism so that the students do |

| |not commit this heinous act. |

| |The students will first record their poem; at this point the poem|

| |will be read only. The students will do the poem two lines at a |

| |time so that every two lines are marked in GarageBand. |

| |The students will work on finding images that work with the poem |

| |(they must be sure to record the sites that the images are taken |

| |from). They will add these images to their Podcast. The last |

| |page of their podcast will be a works cited page. |

| |Then the students will add music and sounds to their resistance |

| |song. After the students have completed this task, they may |

| |change the spoken poem to a singing version. |

| |I will walk around to be sure that everybody is staying on task. |

|Day 17: Day 2 of Podcasting |I will collect the work from the Webquest |

| |The students will take a map quiz on Australia. |

| |The students will spend the period finishing their Podcasts. |

| |The students will post their podcasts to the class wiki. I will |

| |assign partners and hand out Peer Review sheets. The students |

| |will give feedback to one another by tomorrow. |

|Day 18: How Do We Become Empowered and Competitive with Other |We will now talk about the importance of everything that we are |

|Countries? |learning. |

| |I will tell the students that the world is becoming much more |

| |diverse and globalization is become a key element in our society.|

| |I will give the students a handout with some information about |

| |globalization. We will think of examples and write down how |

| |globalization affects us, our families, and our society. |

| |We will talk about the importance of diversity and respecting |

| |other people. We will discuss the biases that we have written |

| |about in our notebooks and how our ignorance is turning into |

| |knowledge. |

| |The students need to correct their podcasts for their |

| |presentations over the next two days. |

|Day 19: How Can I Make a Difference in My Community? |We will begin to discuss the final project for this unit. I will|

| |give the students a handout and rubric for the culminating |

| |project. The students will decide which local organizations try |

| |to help a cause that the students are passionate about and they |

| |will work with the organization to create brochures for an |

| |upcoming event. |

| |The students will present their podcasts to the class. |

|Day 20: Day 2 of Presentations on Podcasts |The students will continue to share their podcasts with the rest |

| |of the class. I will bring in popcorn (not made with peanut oil)|

| |and drinks. |

|Week 5 |

|Day 21: What Am I Passionate About? |Students do an exercise that allows them to discover their own |

| |biases and stereotypes. |

| |Students are going to do self reflections about their own beliefs|

| |in their writer’s notebooks throughout this unit. |

| |Students are asked to write about their passions with guiding |

| |questions such as: What makes me angry? What is unfair? What |

| |rules in the community would I change if I could? What rules in |

| |the world would I change if I could? What rules in school would |

| |I change if I could? |

| |Students are to go home and record commercials that they see on |

| |TV: why are the commercials so appealing to kids? What tricks |

| |are being used to persuade us to buy something? |

|Day 22: How Do I write a Persuasive Piece? |We will discuss the students’ beliefs and why they have these |

| |values. |

| |We will then have a class discussion on persuasion and the media.|

| |What did the kids discover about the tricks used to entice them |

| |to buy things? |

| |I will have the students define the characteristics that |

| |persuasion entails throughout out classroom discussion. |

| |I will give the students a persuasive essay to compare to the |

| |commercials that they have been watching. They will discuss, in |

| |small groups, the similarities. They will also look at the |

| |characteristics in a persuasive essay. |

| |We will reunite as a class and talk about the characteristics in |

| |the essay and how this compares to the commercials. |

| |For homework the kids have to think of a common, household |

| |product that they would want to advertise in a commercial. |

|Day 23: Creating my Own Persuasive Piece |Collect work from Webquest |

| |The students will have their next map quiz on on Asia |

| |The students will work 2 to a group to make their own |

| |commercials. They will work on their 30 second script, and if |

| |they have time, they will start recording their commercials. |

|Day 24: Commercials continued |The students will continue to create their commercials through |

| |YouTube. I will take all of the students’ videos and add them to|

| |our wiki. We will use the second half of class to watch the |

| |videos. |

|Day 25: What Should Change in our Community? |The students will have to answer the question: why are rules |

| |created? What are the criteria governing rules that are fair to |

| |all? |

| |Students will identify problems in our community that need to be |

| |changed. I want the students to choose an organization in our |

| |community that deals with the problem that they feel needs to be |

| |changed. |

| |They will compare/contrast how these organizations follow their |

| |own beliefs or go against their stated beliefs from their |

| |notebooks. What would they do to help the individuals in the |

| |community through this organization? |

| |The students will work in small groups or three to discuss |

| |different ways to change the problem that they see in our |

| |community. |

| |These groups of three will work on the specific organization that|

| |they have chosen and will continue to work together on their |

| |research. |

| |The students must start to look for good and bad examples of |

| |brochures. They will have to bring in one example of each to |

| |share with the class. This will be due in five days. |

|Week 6 |

|Day 26: Evidence to Defend Beliefs |Meet in the library |

| |Get pointers on research and have library staff give presentation|

| |on researching sources, plagiarism, and effective research |

| |methods. |

|Day 27: Researching at the Library |Students will take what they have been writing in their writer’s |

| |notebooks and do research on the organizations that they have |

| |been working on in class. They will also research the problem in|

| |the community and try to find various ways of helping the |

| |organization through their research. They will gather evidence |

| |to support why the problem that they have chosen is a cause for |

| |concern and solutions to aid the organization in combating the |

| |problem. |

|Day 28: There Are No Opinions, Only Facts |The students will have their next map quiz on North America. |

| |I will collect the homework from the Webquest. |

| |We will discuss facts and opinions together as a class. We will |

| |define what makes a fact and what forms an opinion. |

| |We will then go through the various motivations that students |

| |have written in their writer’s notebooks and discuss which ones |

| |are facts, and which are opinions. |

| |We will look at how our opinions may have been shaped by the |

| |original stereotypes that the students had written in their |

| |writer’s notebooks on Day 1. |

| |We will talk about why facts are so important, as opposed to |

| |opinions. |

| |We will also look at the research that we have done and verify |

| |that it is all facts, no opinions. |

|Day 29: Testing the Students’ Understanding |The students will work in class, taking their small group |

| |research and organizations that they want to support. We will |

| |analyze how their beliefs are being upheld through the changes |

| |that they want implemented. |

| |Each group will try to persuade the other groups that their |

| |organization needs our help (the classes’ help) and various |

| |fundraisers and activities that they have thought of to support |

| |their organization. They will be drawing on their knowledge of |

| |persuasion as well as the facts versus opinions. |

| |We will vote on who was the most persuasive, who used the most |

| |information to support their opinion, and who was best able to |

| |present their organization. These will be announced on our Wiki.|

| | |

|Day 30: What are the Characteristics of a Brochure? |The students will get into groups of three and write a list of |

| |why the good brochures that they found were good and why the bad |

| |ones were bad. This list will comprise a handout that I will |

| |create for the students on good and bad characteristics of a |

| |brochure. |

| |After the students have had 15 minutes to discuss this, we will |

| |assemble again, Socratic Seminar style, and discuss our findings.|

| |I will write these on the board. It is the responsibility of |

| |each group to create a copy of their characteristics on our Wiki.|

| |This will be due tomorrow. |

| |We will now look at examples of brochures from the local |

| |organizations that were researched. We will look for the good |

| |and bad characteristics that we have noted. |

| |I will hand out the events that the organizations want us to work|

| |on. I will give each group the upcoming event for their |

| |organization. |

| |The students will get into their groups and start to brainstorm |

| |things that they would like to put into their brochures. |

|Week 7 |

|Day 31: How Do I Create a Brochure on the Computer? |I will give a lesson on Microsoft Publisher and how to use the |

| |program for brochures. |

| |I will have the students explore Publisher so that they are |

| |comfortable with the process. |

| |I will hand out a rubric for the students to follow for the first|

| |draft of their brochures. I will explain that the second draft, |

| |and the second rubric, of the brochures will be based on the |

| |feedback that they receive from the organizations that they are |

| |working with. |

|Day 32: How Do I Organize a Brochure? |The students will have their next map quiz on South America. |

| |I will collect the homework from the Webquest. |

| |The students will continue to work on their brochures. |

| |I will give a mini-lesson on how to organize a brochure; where |

| |things should go and the approximate length that things should |

| |be. I will give the students a handout on organizing brochures. |

| | |

| |The students need to decide how to organize their brochure. What|

| |goes on the front cover? What goes on the back cover? How |

| |should the information be organized within the brochure, but |

| |still be interesting? What images would go well with the |

| |brochure? |

|Day 33: Producing the Brochures |The students will continue to work on their brochures. |

| |I will walk around and see if the students are struggling with |

| |something in particular. If they are, I will create a mini |

| |lesson to address the problem and I will teach the mini lesson |

| |plan the next day. |

|Day 34: Sharing and Revising |The students will share the drafts of their brochures with their |

| |fellow students. |

| |We will have a class review and offer suggestions for |

| |improvements to the students working on the brochures. |

|Day 35: How Will I Know What is Expected From My Brochure? |The students will add to their brochure. |

| |The students will send their drafts to a designated person from |

| |the non-profit organization that they are working with to get |

| |feedback. |

| |I will collect this draft of the brochure; I will take the |

| |information that the non-profits give the students as feedback |

| |and I will create an individualized rubric for the final draft of|

| |the brochure based on this information. |

| |The students will correct the brochures, as advised by the |

| |organization. |

|Week 8 |

|Day 36: How Do I Know When My Brochure is Complete? |Student will continue to add to the brochure. They should be |

| |just about done with their brochures at this point. The |

| |brochures will be due the next class period. The students must |

| |use their rubrics as the guides to a complete brochure; they must|

| |check off each detail from the brochure. I will be collecting |

| |the rubric as well as the brochure from each student. |

|Day 37 : Publishing & Promoting |The students will have their next map quiz on South America. |

| |I will collect the homework from the Webquest.tru |

| |The brochures are due. |

| |The students present their brochures to the rest of the class as |

| |well as the organizations that they have been working with. The |

| |advisors from the organizations will be joining the class on the |

| |presentation day. |

| |The students will then be taking this project and adding it to |

| |our wiki. |

|Day 38: The Middle School Audience |The students will present this project to a middle school class |

| |to promote the idea of community learning and civic engagement. |

| |Students will need to write a one page self-reflection about the |

| |unit. What have they learned about themselves throughout this |

| |unit? What are they passionate about? How can they use their |

| |passions to promote advocacy in the community? |

• Facet 1: Explanation: Those who understand can provide thorough and verifiable accounts of phenomena and other data from the studied material.

o The students will need to know how to create a brochure from the characteristics and the layout in order to create their own.

o Students will be able to recognize their own beliefs and passions. This will motivate the students to discover the non-profit organizations that are helping the causes that the students care about.

• Facet 2: Interpretation: Those who understand can see patterns across data related to the topic.

o How is representation of persuasion in commercials similar to persuasion used in brochures and resistance songs? The students have to take the persuasion from the commercials and transfer it to the brochures and resistance songs.

o The students will also look at opinions and facts to compare/contrast their initial beliefs to what is fact and what is opinion in their belief system. They will have to analyze their stereotypes and see how their biases are tied to opinion and not fact.

• Facet 3:Application Those who understand will powerfully use, transfer, and adapt what is known in a variety of contexts.

o The students will be able to take their knowledge in persuasion to persuade people to follow their example and to actively lead the way to change, while also persuading others to follow. This will also allow the students to be more knowledgeable and to realize that the media is all about persuasion; students will become more conscience consumers.

o Students will understand that their beliefs are important and that they are capable and competent of making changes in the world, one community at a time. They may be more willing to be activists for causes that they believe in, knowing that they really are making a difference.

• Facet 4: Perspective: Those who understand will critically perceive and respect multiple points of view to see the big picture of how different points of view weigh in on the topic.

o Through persuasion, the students will be able to other people’s beliefs and values as well as the advantage to helping out organizations in the community that are trying to alleviate societal problems.

o The students will be able to recognize the importance of contextualization in order to understand multicultural popular culture, such as poetry and songs.

• Facet 5: Empathy: Those who understand will respect and “find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior direct experience”

o The students will be looking at the motivations behind the resistance songs and poetry and they will gain a perspective that will lead to sympathy towards immigrants and refugees.

o In the unit, the students will be looking at various places around the world to gain knowledge into conflicts that are occurring in places outside of the United States.

o Students will be able to see what local, non-profit organizations are doing in the area to alleviate societal problems that we discuss in class; this may lead to empathy that are experiencing the problems caused by American society.

• Facet 6: Self-Knowledge: Those who understand possess the ability to reflect on, consider, critique, and revise their own thinking.

o The students will be keeping a writer’s notebook to track their own beliefs and biases. We will continuously reference their beliefs throughout this lesson.

o Students will better be able to see their own biases through the unit. We will study other cultures and nations to see why we feel a certain way about them, and then study the turmoil that is ensuing in these countries. This will help the students to identify their stereotypes and to gain the knowledge to clear up the ignorance that led to the biases.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY……………..23

OBJECTIVES……………23

STANDARDS…………..27

RATIONALE…………..28

RESEARCH…………….29

INTERDISCIPLANRY JUSTIFICATION………30

RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCE……………….30

ASSESSMENTS………………….30

TEXT SET…………………..32

UNIT PLAN SCHEDULE…………………34

LESSON PLAN: LISTENING………………..49

LESSON LAN: VIEWING…………………..57

LESSON PLAN: READING…………………..63

LESSON PLAN: SPEAKING………………..71

LESSON PLAN: WRITING………………….78

PERFORMANCE TASK……………………..83

RUBRIC……………………………….85

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………..86

CLASS HANDOUT…………..87

UNIT OVERVIEW

SUMMARY

In this unit, students will be learning about stereotypes and biases that they possess in regards to cultures and people that are foreign to America. Students will begin to understand the need for advocacy and will see that there are peaceful ways to advocate for beliefs. The students will learn about their own passions and beliefs and will utilize these beliefs to promote a non-profit organization in the local community.

OBJECTIVES

Topical Essential Questions: Topical Essential Understandings:

|How will students analyze and synthesize information from different |Students will understand how to read many genres by making personal |

|sources by making connections and showing relationships to other |connections. |

|texts, ideas, subjects, and the world at large? | |

|How will students engage in a variety of collaborative conversations, |Students will realize the value in group work and collaboration. |

|such as peer-led discussions, paired reading and responding, and |Students will recognize the importance of connecting their own |

|cooperative group discussions, to make applications of the ideas in |personal experiences to the texts that they are reading. |

|the text to other situations, extending the ideas to broaden | |

|perspectives? | |

|How will students locate and use school, public, academic, and special|The students will be able to perform research and use the library for |

|library resources for information and research? |information. |

|How will students check consistency of hypothesis with given |Students will understand that they have biases and that they must be |

|information and assumption? |sure that they understand the difference between being objective and |

| |subjective. |

|How will students read and interpret literary texts from a range of |Students will be able to read many texts and use adaptable reading |

|authors, genres, and subjects? |strategies to understand many different genres of writing. |

|How will students define the meaning of and understand the |Students will understand what plagiarism is and the consequences of |

|consequences of plagiarism? |plagiarizing. |

|How will students share the process of writing with peers and adults; |Students will be able to create projects for an intended audience and |

|for example, write a condolence note, get-well card, or thank-you |they will be able to demonstrate the use of the project in front of |

|letter with writing partner(s)? |the designated audience, using the proper tone of voice and manner. |

|How will students interpret and analyze information from media |Students will understand how to interpret the media and recognize that|

|presentations, such as documentary films, news broadcasts, taped |biases exist with all types of writing, especially writing for ad |

|interviews, and debates? |campaigns. |

|How will students evaluate the impact of the medium on the message? |Students will be able to recognize different mediums create a |

| |different impact on the message to the viewer. |

|How will students express opinions and make judgments about ideas, |Students will be able to express their opinions and make judgments on |

|information, experiences, and issues in literary, scientific, and |many genres based on information that they currently have self |

|historical articles, in public documents, and in advertisements? |reflection and the ability to research and look up new information. |

|How will students use social communication in workplace settings to |Social communication will be fostered in the classroom and then |

|foster trust and build goodwill? |performed in situations outside of the classroom. |

|What are the components to writing a persuasive piece? |Students will understand the art of persuasion. |

| |Students will see the value in using persuasion |

| |The students will recognize when persuasion is being used. |

|How can I better express myself when I write? |Students will learn how to properly express themselves so that others |

| |are interested to listen. |

| |Students will develop the skills necessary to express themselves in |

| |different mediums. |

Overarching Questions: Overarching Understandings:

|How do I learn about other cultures through popular culture? |The students will recognize the importance of studying popular culture|

| |from other countries to identify parts of that culture. |

|Why is America such a great place to live? |The students will understand some of the freedoms that we have in |

| |America as opposed to other countries. |

| |The students will recognize the importance of having a voice that is |

| |allowed to be heard. |

|How does history affect me even if I was not a part of the conflict? |The students will recognize the conflicts (both internal and external)|

| |that arise from colonialism |

| |The students will be able to compare situations in other countries to |

| |America. |

| |The students will be able to identify societal problems that are |

| |founded on historical conflicts, but are just as relevant today. |

| |The students will recognize their part in these conflicts and discuss |

| |how they need to be resolved. |

|Why do we need to place things in context? |The students will recognize the importance of putting texts, authors, |

| |countries into context in order to understand the underlying meaning. |

|What are methods used to get beliefs across? |The students will recognize that there are different methods used to |

| |get beliefs across and that some methods work better than others. |

|Why are we ignorant Americans? |The students will identify their own stereotypes and stigmas in |

| |regards to people with AIDS, refugees, and immigrants in America. |

| |The students will understand the importance of locating countries on a|

| |map. |

| |Students will understand different perspectives in regards to America;|

| |they will be able to see why other countries feel that we are |

| |ignorant. |

|Why do we hate immigrants in America? |The students will have an understanding about why there are stigmas |

| |against immigrants in America. |

| |The students will recognize their own biases and realize why they hold|

| |these stereotypes. |

|What conflicts do we have in America? Why do they concern us? |The students will be able to identify and critically analyze conflicts|

| |in America. |

| |The students will be able to identify why these conflicts concern |

| |them, directly and indirectly. |

| |The students will be able to critically think about solutions to these|

| |problems; they will be able to locate local groups that help to deal |

| |with pervasive problems in the United States. |

|How do we become empowered and competitive with other countries? |The students will understand the affects of globalization on their own|

| |lives. |

| |The students will understand that they must learn about other cultures|

| |in order to become competitive and empowered in the global market. |

| |The students will recognize that advocacy creates empowerment. |

|How can I make a difference in my community? |Students will be able to identify groups or organizations that have |

| |the same beliefs that they do and they will be able to work |

| |collaboratively with these groups. |

| |Students will recognize that advocacy gives people a voice. |

|What should change in our community? |Students will be able to identify and analyze problems within society.|

|How do we create songs from our poetry? |Students will recognize that songs are a type of poetry. |

| |Students will be able to recognize the power of music and sound. |

|What am I passionate about? |The students will be able to recognize their passions. |

| |Students will be able to define their beliefs, based on their |

| |passions. |

|What is an opinion? |Students will be able to define an opinion and recognize when an |

| |opinion is being used. |

|What is a fact? |Students will be able to define a fact and recognize when an opinion |

| |is being used. |

|What is the difference between a fact and an opinion? |Students will be able to recognize the differences between facts and |

| |opinions, and they will be able to tell which one is appropriate to |

| |use in certain situations. |

|How do I create a podcast? |The students will be able to create their own podcasts and have a |

| |better handle on technology use. |

|What will a podcast enable me to do? |Students will be able to see the usefulness of a podcast in creating a|

| |wide audience and allowing students to express their beliefs. |

|How will this make a difference? |The students will be able to see how their actions and being advocates|

| |for a cause can make a difference in society. |

STANDARDS

Grade 12:

ELA Reading Performance Indicators:

• Locate and use school, public, academic, and special library resources for information and research (Standard #1)

• Analyze and synthesize information from different sources by making connections and showing relationships to other texts, ideas, subjects, and the world at large (Standard #1)

• Recognize and analyze the relevance of literature to contemporary and/or personal events and situations from short stories, novels, plays, film and video productions, poems, and essays (Standard #2)

• Select, reject, and reconcile ideas and information in light of beliefs (Standard #3)

• Analyze and evaluate the intellectual and/or emotional impact of specific texts on the reader (Standard #3)

• Share reading experiences with a peer or adult; for example, read together silently or aloud, and discuss reactions to texts (Standard # 4)

• Consider the age, gender, social position, and cultural traditions of the writer (Standard #4)

ELA Writing Performance Indicators:

• Define the meaning of and understand the consequences of plagiarism; investigate college and university policies (Standard # 1)

• Use resources such as personal experience, knowledge from other content areas, and independent reading to create literary, interpretive, and responsive text (Standard #2)

• Share the process of writing with peers and adults; for example, write a condolence note, get-well card, or thank-you letter with writing partner(s) (Standard # 4)

ELA Listening Performance Indicators:

• Interpret and analyze information from media presentations, such as documentary films, news broadcasts, taped interviews, and debates (Standard # 1)

• Interpret and respond to texts from a variety of genres, authors, and subjects (Standard # 2)

• Evaluate the impact of the medium on the message (Standard # 3)

• Participate as a listener in social conversation with one or more people who are friends, acquaintances, or strangers (Standard # 4)

ELA Speaking Performance Indicators:

• Prepare and give presentations to a variety of audiences on a range of informational topics, using a variety of techniques, such as multimedia, group presentations, and dramatic approaches (Standard #1)

• Present interpretations and responses to literary texts and performances in presentations to school and public audiences (Standard #2)

• Express opinions and make judgments about ideas, information, experiences, and issues in literary, scientific, and historical articles, in public documents, and in advertisements (Standard #3)

• Present reasons, examples, and details from sources such as films to defend opinions or judgments (Standard #3)

• Respond to constructive criticism (standard #3)

• Use visuals and technology to enhance presentation (Standard #3)

• Speak informally with familiar and unfamiliar people, individually and in group settings (Standard #4)

• Use social communication in workplace settings to foster trust and build goodwill (Standard #4)

RATIONALE

Administrators

The skills taught in this unit correspond with the required New York State ELA skills and the New York State Regents skills, such as an in-depth analysis of persuasion, self reflections to explore biases and stereotypes, reading and analyzing several different genres of literature, and performing community service learning.

Students

Don’t you want to learn how you can put your beliefs into action? Through the use of persuasion, technology and passion, you will be able to learn how to influence the community that you live in and how to express your opinion in a non-aggressive way that will have a wide audience.

Critical Pedagogues

Critical thinking is the ultimate goal within this unit plan. The students will learn how to think critically about the media, and to perform self critical evaluations in which they can regard the stereotypes and biases that they possess, possibly without ever even knowing it! This unit will allow students to explore their passions and discover their beliefs so that they can be become advocates within their community.

RESEARCH

The main focus of this unit is to give students transferable skills that relate to the community in which they live. This unit allows students to become active members, with an authentic project and a real audience. Gallagher maintains that “we should be emphasizing those skills that would make our students ‘expert citizens’: ‘creativity, common sense, wisdom, ethics, dedication, honesty, teamwork, hard work, knowing how to win and how to lose, a sense of fair play, and of lifelong learning” (13). This unit allows the students to test out their skills within society and allows them to have a voice. The students will be able to make sense of the multicultural readings because everything will be tied into their own personal experiences and lives. This, according to Gallagher, will allow reader’s to make sense out of texts (33).

This unit provides a social context for the students, through both the classroom group work experience and in the form of the presentations to a wide audience of classmates, organization advisors, and the middle school students and teachers. Smith and Wilhelm contend that the social aspect of an activity allows students to feel comfortable with one another and allows students to feel enjoyment at the tasks being performed (13). The students need to practice having a voice among themselves first so that they are comfortable enough to make a stance in front of unfamiliar people. We will practice this throughout the unit and I will show the students different ways to voice a belief in a non-aggressive, but clear, way. IN order for students to latch onto the reading that will be done in class, it is imperative that the students understand all aspects of the texts that we read. I will be encouraging the flow of reading many different kinds of texts by providing context to every poem and song that is being studied. This follows the mantra that Smith and Wilhelm stated, “It’s not the text, but the context!” (55).

Overall, I feel that the true and most potent intention of this unit is passion about “social justice, democracy, cosmology, human possibility, and the still unexplored depths of education and students” (Kincheloe 70). I want to contextualize my teaching so that the students see the value of what I am teaching them. I try to enforce the authenticity of the unit by providing a chance for the students to reflect on their own lives ever step through the daily schedule. The transferability will only take place if the students are able to see the value of what they are taught and to see the applicability to their own lives. This is my ultimate objective. I want the students to understand that they can be advocates for a cause, and that this will allow them to have a voice in society. I want to “connect them [students] to various dimensions of the world” (Kincheloe 70). I provide an authentic culminating activity to encourage creativity and diversity in the classroom; the students are able to work for organizations that they care about. This activity will enrich the students through “meaningful making” (Smith and Wilhelm 56); producing a project that will allow students to explore their place in the community and demonstrate that they are exemplar citizens.

INTERDICIPLINARY JUSTIFICATION

This unit will be used with the history teacher to go through the histories of the regions that we will be studying in class. Both the history teacher and myself will be sure that we cover all of the contextualization of the poetry and songs that we analyze in the ELA classroom. We will also discuss globalization throughout both classes so that the students have a better understanding and knowledge of the importance in knowing what it is about. This unit could also be blended with the math department. The math teacher could help the students find the statistics for the various organizations that the students will be working on for the brochures. The statistics could cover the funding received, the amount of people helped locally, etc.

RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCE

We will be thoroughly studying the importance of diversity and the recognition of stereotypes and biases that we each possess. The students will be able to critically evaluate why stereotypes exist in America and to look through a different lens through the use of multicultural literature when studying immigrants and refugees. Students will also have many opportunities to evaluate the appropriateness of language through the recognition of audience when they present their non-profit organizations and brochures to the non-profit advisors and the middle school classes.

ASSESSMENTS

Students will display their mastery of understanding the influence of media by creating their own commercial ads. The students will be assessed on their knowledge of the location of countries that are being studied through map quizzes on a weekly basis. The students will create their own resistance poems and songs to demonstrate their knowledge of the resistance characteristics that we have been discussing in class. The students will turn in Webquest homework on a weekly basis to demonstrate that they have been reading the contextualization for the poems and have taken the time to critically think about what we are discussing in class. There will be a research paper on the non-profit organizations to be sure that students understand how to find information, how to avoid plagiarism, and what the non-profit organization that they have chosen represents, people helped, problem that is being cared for, etc. The culminating activity will have the students using their knowledge of the non-profit organization, from the research paper, and applying this knowledge to a brochure that they will create. This will involve creativity, the ability to follow complicated instructions, organizational skills, as well as persuasive, concise, and fact-based writing. Writer’s notebooks will be checked intermittently throughout the unit to be sure that students are working on self-reflections. A self-reflection paper will be due at the end of the unit to see what the students have taken out of the unit from how their biases have evolved or disappeared to how they view the media.

TEXT SET

➢ Djebar, Assia. “There is No Exile.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 420-430. Print.

Short Story: This text looks at the effect that the Algerian Revolution had on a fictitious woman’s family and neighbor’s. The text shows the sense of loss of identity that the family feels as well as the resistance to just blend into the new culture. This text will give inside perspective into a refugee’s life and it will show how there are influences that have control over you, but that you can fight them through your own beliefs and resistance to the norms.

➢ Ezekiel, Nissim. “In India.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 568-570. Print.

Poetry: This poem compares the lives of the native Indians to those of the British that inhabit India. There is a sense of deprecation from the Indians, but this is what may have fueled the author to write about this incident. This is the type of text that would start the need for a resistance movement.

➢ Fiasco, Lupe. “Conflict Diamonds Lyrics.” , Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Song: This song looks at the illegal and dangerous blood diamond trade in Sierra Leone and how we, Americans, are inadvertently supporting the destruction. This song will enlighten the students that companies are all about self interest at the expense of human freedoms and it should also demonstrate the media influence on a negative subject. This should also show students that they can positively influence the need for change in a society outside of America, based on their beliefs and moralities.

➢ Fiasco, Lupe. Conflict Diamonds. , 2007. Video.

Video: This is the video that goes along with the music lyrics to Conflict Diamonds. I feel that the video adds more power to the message because there are visual images to go along with the lyrics as to the monstrosities that occur in Africa from the diamond trade.

➢ Louis Project: The Unrepentant Marxist. Louiseproject.. 1 June 2008. Web. 24 Oct, 2009.

Video: This blog site has a video embedded that shows a resistance song by Papa Wemba, entitled “Esclave.” The video has the subtitles in English and talks about the slavery that occurred in Africa and then got transferred to America. This song should allow the students to see how song can be a form of resistance , and that we, as citizens of the United States are held accountable for every action that occurs due to the decisions of the higher appointed officials.

➢ MIA. “Paper Planes Lyrics.” , 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Song: This song is quite controversial because it is talking about how American, through their stereotypes, view immigrants. The song talks about how the immigrants only want tot take Americans’ money and right when the kids start to speak, there is a gunshot in the background.

➢ Neto, Agostinho. “Western Civilizations.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 287. Print.

Poetry: Neto worked for the independence of Angola, and this poem reflects the hardships that the people in Angola had to endure as the servitude role for the Western civilizations.

➢ Niemoller, Martin. First They Came. Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. 1959. Keynote Address.

Speech: This speech is truly powerful in that it demonstrates the need to voice morality, even when it is not the popular thing to do. This would be a great way to start off the unit on change and why it is crucial to have a voice.

➢ Okara, Gabriel. “Once Upon a Time.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 332-333. Print.

Poetry: This poem looks at the cost of living in a colonized country and how superficiality can start to take the place of reality. This poem also studies how the two mixed cultures, African and Western, can unite out of differences. This would be great for the unit because it stresses the need for change in countries that have been dominated by a different culture for hundreds of years.

➢ Plath, Sylvia. “Metaphors.” . American Poems, 5 March 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Poetry: This poem is great because it demonstrates how to form metaphors, and the poem also contains a riddle to be solved. This would be great to show students how a metaphor works in a poem.

➢ Seeger, Peter. “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy Lyrics.” Allthelyrics.co. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Song: This song demonstrates the resistance to war and following a leader that is unwilling to rethink their opinions for the best interest of everybody involved. This would be beneficial to the unit on change because it emphasizes the need for change in America, and it shows how song and metaphor can accomplish this.

➢ “The Tank Man.” China Digital . 1989. China News Tagged with 1989 Protests. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Photograph: This picture accurately depicts a non-forceful form of resistance and it is a very powerful image. This will help the students to see that one person can take a stance (non-forcefully) against a decision of authority and be recognized for what he believes.

➢ We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement. The National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Website: This site is fantastic because it allows the students to explore a lot of locations on a map of the United States, and to see what events happened in various cities during the Civil Rights Movement. This allows for more independence on the students part.

UNIT PLAN SCHEDULE

(7 ½ WEEK UNIT)

|Week 1 |

|Day 1: Why is America such a great place to live? |I play the keynote speech by Martin Niemoller, “First They Come.”|

| |This speech talks about the importance of having a voice and |

| |using it, even when it is not the popular thing to do. |

| |We will discuss the topic of this unit and begin to look at |

| |conflicts in other countries. |

| |I will explain that throughout the unit I will have guest |

| |speakers come in from organizations within our community to talk |

| |about conflicts happening right around us. I want the kids to |

| |see how real this topic is and to become involved in the issues. |

| |After the guest speakers have all come in, we will decide as a |

| |class which organization we would like to help and then we will |

| |come up with a fundraiser for that group. |

| |I will hand out maps of the seven continents so that the kids can|

| |keep track of countries as we discuss them in class, through the |

| |readings that we will be doing. There will be a few map quizzes |

| |as we progress. |

| |Every new country that we discuss will have a place in the |

| |writer’s notebook. The students must write pre-conceived notions|

| |and stereotypes that they have about the countries that we will |

| |be studying. |

| |For homework, the students are to read the lyrics to Conflict |

| |Diamonds by Lupe Fiasco. They must write down their initial |

| |reaction as soon as they are done reading the lyrics and pick one|

| |part of the song that most intrigued them. The students must |

| |also mark their African maps with the specified countries on the |

| |Webquest. This must be done by Friday so that the students can |

| |take a map quiz on Monday. |

|Day 2: How do I learn about other cultures through popular |We spend the first 10 minutes of class discussing the lyrics to |

|culture? |the diamonds song. I ask the students why we should know about |

| |conflicts in other countries. What is the point if we can’t stop|

| |what is going on? How could we help out these countries, from an|

| |individualistic and collaborative perspective? |

| |I then show the students the video; there are clips of young |

| |children with guns and Africans that are enslaved. |

| |How do the students feel after watching the video? What is |

| |different between just reading the lyrics and watching the video?|

| |I want the students to start thinking about voice and how we can |

| |make changes through our beliefs. |

| |I ask the students for characteristics of songs. I write this on|

| |the board and the students record this in their notebooks. We |

| |discuss songs that have meaning and how we can convey meaning |

| |through songs (literary devices, word choice, and music). What |

| |does this song contain that makes it so persuasive? What was the |

| |meaning behind writing this song? |

| |I ask why Lupe Fiasco would write a song about the diamond trade.|

| |He’s rich and loves diamonds so why does he care about people |

| |that he will never know? Does this song sway our opinion about |

| |diamonds? |

| |Who has the power in the song? |

| |I want the students to each choose one part of the song that they|

| |do not understand (a concept or name within the song). I want |

| |them to research this topic to present to the class in three days|

| |(Friday). They only need to write a page, double-spaced about |

| |the topic that they found. I also want the students to write |

| |about their favorite meaningful song and why it holds meaning to |

| |them. We will share these over the course of the next week. |

|Day 3: How do I learn about other cultures through popular |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

|culture? |about their most meaningful songs |

| |We will start looking at colonialism and how the native culture |

| |has resisted the new culture. We will start by looking at Once |

| |Upon a Time. I want the students to underline all of the parts |

| |within the poem that indicate the beliefs of the author. How |

| |does the author convey his message? Is it clear to the reader |

| |what is happening? |

| |The students should have looked at the background information on |

| |the Webquest to understand the history of this poem. |

| |How does a history affect a person, even if they were not a part |

| |of the conflict? Are there any examples of this in the United |

| |States? |

| |Write in writer’s notebook ideas that you could use for your own |

| |poem on any conflict that bothers you in either in school or in |

| |the community. What are some things that you feel need to be |

| |changed? |

|Day 4: How does History Affect Me Even if I was not a Part of the|We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

|Conflict? |about their most meaningful songs (We are able to do 4 students |

| |for each 15 minute increment). It is important that we share |

| |with one another so that we can start to build tolerance and |

| |respect for one another. |

| |I ask the students what they feel are the rights of all people |

| |and I write them on the board. I will make a handout to |

| |distribute to the students to remind us of these innate rights. |

| |I have the student’s mark where Angola is on their map. I ask |

| |the students to write about what they think of this part of the |

| |world. Have they ever heard of Angola? What have they heard? |

| |We now look at a story, one of our “touchstone texts”, Western |

| |Civilizations. This poem begins to explore the servitude role |

| |that Angolans played for Western cultures. We first begin by |

| |talking about the history of Angola and how colonization affected|

| |the Angolans (I give out the background handout sheet). I ask |

| |the students to write about a time that they have felt like they |

| |were put in a role of servitude. How did they feel? What would |

| |it be like to live your whole life for somebody else? |

| |We look at how the writer used their words to influence the |

| |reader to see what they felt. |

| |What rights were violated? How does the writer make us feel? |

| |Why does the writer try to invoke these emotions? Why do we need|

| |to know this? |

| |I want the students to go onto the Web Quest and move around from|

| |all of the different countries that we will be looking at in |

| |class. Every Monday for the rest of this unit, I will be |

| |collecting a printout of what they have completed on the |

| |Webquest. This will guide them in their own preparation outside |

| |of class for what we will be working on in class. |

|Day 5: Why Do We Need to Place Things in Context? |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

| |about their most meaningful songs |

| |Today we will look at Nissim Ezekiel’s poem, In India. We will |

| |talk about the background information from the Webquest and why |

| |this is pertinent to the poem. How does the background |

| |information make us more aware of what is happening? |

| |We will discuss why a resistance movement would be needed in this|

| |instance. What does the author hope to invoke through his poem? |

| | |

|Week 2 |

|Day 6: Why Are we Ignorant Americans? |The kids have to take their first map quiz on Africa. |

| |I collect the first round of work from the Webquest. |

| |I want the students to analyze the stereotypes that they have |

| |been writing in regards to the authors that we have been looking |

| |at. What do they notice about their first interpretations and |

| |how they feel now? |

| |I am going to give a lesson on stereotypes and why we feel about |

| |certain ethnic groups. |

| |We will watch Daniel Tosh’s clip on different ethnicities. |

| |We will discuss the “I” generation and how this has contributed |

| |to some of the conflict within the United States. |

| |The kids need to write questions for the guest speaker coming in |

| |tomorrow for STAP. I also want the students to write down the |

| |first ideas that come to mind when they hear the word AIDS, |

| |drugs, and needle exchange. |

|Day 7: Why Are we Ignorant Americans? |We have a guest speaker from STAP come in to talk about AIDS and |

| |the myths that surround AIDS. We will talk about how AIDS is a |

| |serious problem in countries, such as Africa, and why it has |

| |become so prevalent. We will also talk about the drug problem in|

| |the United States. |

| |We will talk about the seriousness of the disease and the |

| |prevalence within our own community. |

| |We will then discuss the role of STAP and how they help not only |

| |people with AIDS, but also people with drug problems. We will |

| |talk about the needle exchange program that STAP has and the |

| |controversy surrounding it. |

| |For homework, I want the students to write a refection about the |

| |experience today. I want them to reflect back on their initial |

| |stereotypes of the words AIDS, drugs, and needle exchange and to |

| |look at how this organization benefits the community. Is there |

| |any way that this non-profit hinders the community? What could |

| |be done about this? |

|Day 8: Why Are we Ignorant Americans? |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

| |about their most meaningful songs |

| |We will continue to discuss the STAP program today and the |

| |students will talk about their reactions to the program. I will|

| |ask the kids how many of them knew where the countries were on |

| |Africa before I gave them the map quiz. Why are Americans not |

| |interested in learning about other countries? Is it important to|

| |learn about other cultures? How do other cultures affect our |

| |community and how we live? |

| |We will now move onto refugees in America. The students will |

| |write their preconceived notions for homework on what they feel |

| |about immigrants in America. Why do they feel this way? How do |

| |their families feel about immigrants in the United States? Why? |

|Day 9: Why Do We Hate Immigrants in America? |We spend the first 15 minutes of class listening to students talk|

| |about their most meaningful songs |

| |We will start by discussing Assia Djebar’s There is No Exile. |

| |We will discuss the stereotypes of immigrants in the United |

| |States (from “they’re taking our jobs” to “they smell.”) I want |

| |the students to have an understanding of what it would be like to|

| |be an immigrant. |

| |We will look at the conflict of the Algerian Revolution and the |

| |turmoil that it caused. We will discuss war and how it affects |

| |millions of helpless people that have nowhere to go. |

| |I want the students to write down the things that they do every |

| |day and how they know how to do these things (examples would be |

| |read road signs in English, pump gas, take a shower, etc). How |

| |would they feel if they moved to England and they were told to |

| |get on the lift? What if they were in France and found a funny |

| |looking toilet called a bidet? What if they were moving to |

| |America and did not speak English? How would this affect their |

| |lives? |

| |We will study MIA’s background so that we understand the type of |

| |music that she writes and sings. We will discuss how it sounds |

| |so different from American music and why this may be. |

| |We will now look at MIA’s song Airplanes and analyze the words. |

| |What is MIA saying? Why are there different noises in the |

| |background? Do they have any meaning? We will look at the |

| |lyrics of the song and discuss what MIA is saying. What would it|

| |be like to be a refugee, according to MIA’s song? |

| |The students need to write questions for the guest speaker coming|

| |in tomorrow from the Civic Center. |

|Day 10: Why Do We Hate Immigrants in America? |We will listen to the woman from the Civic Center explain the |

| |goal of the center and the benefits that immigrants received from|

| |the services provided by the Civic Center. We will also look at |

| |the immigrant population: where are a lot of immigrants coming |

| |from? Why are they leaving their home counties? |

| |I want the students to write a one page reflection about this |

| |experience for homework. Have any of their preconceived notions |

| |changed? Why? What have they learned? What do they want to |

| |change about the stereotypes that exist about immigrants? |

|Week 3 |

|Day 11: What conflicts do we have in America? Why do These |The kids have to take their first map quiz on the Middle East. |

|Concern Us? |I collect the work from the Webquest. |

| |We discuss problems in America, ranging from the gap of the |

| |wealthy to the poor, what to do about old people, recessions, job|

| |stability, etc. |

| |The students and I will look up various organizations that deal |

| |with some of these problems in our own community. Some examples |

| |would be the Salvation Army, nursing homes, MDA, DSS, etc. |

| |I want the students to break into groups of 4 (counting off by |

| |fours) and move into the group for that organization. They are |

| |going to work together to answer some questions that I have in a |

| |handout to give a brief presentation to the class. The kids will |

| |work on this today and tomorrow; they will present on day 13. |

|Day 12: Research on Organizations |The students go to the library and work on their research for |

| |their specific organization. The group will decide how they want|

| |to enter the information to our website. It must be uploaded by |

| |tomorrow. |

| |The students need to review the Webquest to discuss Peter Seeger |

| |tomorrow. |

|Day 13: Presentation on Organizations/What Tools Can I Use to |The students will give brief presentations on their |

|Become Empowered in Expressing my Beliefs? |organizations. |

| |We will start to look at resistance songs and poetry in the |

| |United States. |

| |We will read and listen to Peter Seeger’s Waist Deep in the Big |

| |Muddy. What was Seeger writing about? What tone is conveyed |

| |through the song? How does he express his emotions? Do you think|

| |that song and poetry can make a difference in changing the |

| |actions that are going on in the world? Why or why not? If not,|

| |what is the point of writing it? |

| |We will discuss characteristics of resistance songs and poetry. |

| |I will first have the students tell me the characteristics that |

| |they see and then I will make them a handout. |

| |I will have the students look at the picture of The Tank Man. |

| |They will write down their initial reactions (5 minutes) and we |

| |will talk about them. Does this resistance seem like it will |

| |make a change? We will discuss the importance of the Tank Man |

| |and how that inspired the world. |

| |I want the students to write their own resistance songs, starting|

| |with a poem. They need to have rough drafts by tomorrow. |

|Day 14: How Can I Better Express Myself When I Write? |We discuss our poems and songs and why they are so valued. I |

| |want the students to question one another and really discuss the |

| |importance of the topics that they have chosen to write about. |

| |I now want to discuss the use of metaphor and similes in songs |

| |and poetry. I explain that these literary devices aid in getting|

| |our message across, sometimes in a more powerful way than if we |

| |just talked about the issue. |

| |I have the students look over the poem “Metaphor” by Sylvia |

| |Plath. I want the students to look at each individual metaphor |

| |and see what they each represent. The students will do this in |

| |small groups of 4. They will then try to figure out what the |

| |poem is about. |

| |I want the students to include a few similes and metaphors in |

| |their own poems to add power and interest. This will be done as |

| |homework. |

|Day 15: How do We Create Songs from Our Poetry? |We will discuss the use of music with the poems that have been |

| |created. We will listen to MIA’s song Paper Planes to see how |

| |she adds certain sounds to the song to create a powerful |

| |statement. |

| |The first time that the song is played, the students will write |

| |down what they hear and make a symbol for each sound. |

| |The second time, the students will look at the lyrics as they |

| |listen to the song and use their symbols to mark where the sounds|

| |are appearing next to the words. |

| |I want the students to get into groups of two or three and |

| |discuss why certain sounds were placed in the song. What do |

| |these sounds remind you of? How is this meaning altered or |

| |reinforced with the words? |

| |I now want the students to exchange poems and write down sounds |

| |that come to mind while reading the poems of their peers. What |

| |songs/sounds do they think of as they are reading the poetry? |

| |They are to write these suggestions next to the words that |

| |epitomize the sounds/music that they are thinking of. |

| |The poems now need to be exchanged with somebody else. What |

| |images come to mind as the poem is being read? Write these |

| |images next to the words and phrases. |

|Week 4 |

|Day 16: Podcasting |Today, I will give a lesson on how to create enhanced podcasts |

| |and I will have the students create their own podcast for their |

| |songs. These songs are going to be placed on our class Ning |

| |after they have been downloaded to YouTube. |

| |I will go over the rules for plagiarism so that the students do |

| |not commit this heinous act. |

| |The students will first record their poem; at this point the poem|

| |will be read only. The students will do the poem two lines at a |

| |time so that every two lines are marked in GarageBand. |

| |The students will work on finding images that work with the poem |

| |(they must be sure to record the sites that the images are taken |

| |from). They will add these images to their Podcast. The last |

| |page of their podcast will be a works cited page. |

| |Then the students will add music and sounds to their resistance |

| |song. After the students have completed this task, they may |

| |change the spoken poem to a singing version. |

| |I will walk around to be sure that everybody is staying on task. |

|Day 17: Day 2 of Podcasting |The students will spend the period finishing their Podcasts. |

| |The students will post their podcasts to the class wiki. I will |

| |assign partners and hand out Peer Review sheets. The students |

| |will give feedback to one another by tomorrow. |

|Day 18: How Do We Become Empowered and Competitive with Other |We will now talk about the importance of everything that we are |

|Countries? |learning. |

| |I will tell the students that the world is becoming much more |

| |diverse and globalization is become a key element in our society.|

| |I will give the students a handout with some information about |

| |globalization. We will think of examples and write down how |

| |globalization affects us, our families, and our society. |

| |We will talk about the importance of diversity and respecting |

| |other people. We will discuss the biases that we have written |

| |about in our notebooks and how our ignorance is turning into |

| |knowledge. |

| |The students need to correct their podcasts for their |

| |presentations over the next two days. |

|Day 19: How Can I Make a Difference in My Community? |The students will have their next map quiz on Asia. |

| |I will collect the homework from the Webquest. |

| |We will begin to discuss the final project for this unit. I will|

| |give the students a handout and rubric for the culminating |

| |project. The students will decide which local organizations try |

| |to help a cause that the students are passionate about and they |

| |will work with the organization to create brochures for an |

| |upcoming event. |

| |The students will present their podcasts to the class. |

|Day 20: Day 2 of Presentations on Podcasts |The students will continue to share their podcasts with the rest |

| |of the class. I will bring in popcorn (not made with peanut oil)|

| |and drinks. |

|Week 5 |

|Day 21: What Am I Passionate About? |Students do an exercise that allows them to discover their own |

| |biases and stereotypes. |

| |Students are going to do self reflections about their own beliefs|

| |in their writer’s notebooks throughout this unit. |

| |Students are asked to write about their passions with guiding |

| |questions such as: What makes me angry? What is unfair? What |

| |rules in the community would I change if I could? What rules in |

| |the world would I change if I could? What rules in school would |

| |I change if I could? |

| |Students are to go home and record commercials that they see on |

| |TV: why are the commercials so appealing to kids? What tricks |

| |are being used to persuade us to buy something? |

|Day 22: How Do I write a Persuasive Piece? |We will discuss the students’ beliefs and why they have these |

| |values. |

| |We will then have a class discussion on persuasion and the media.|

| |What did the kids discover about the tricks used to entice them |

| |to buy things? |

| |I will have the students define the characteristics that |

| |persuasion entails throughout out classroom discussion. |

| |I will give the students a persuasive essay to compare to the |

| |commercials that they have been watching. They will discuss, in |

| |small groups, the similarities. They will also look at the |

| |characteristics in a persuasive essay. |

| |We will reunite as a class and talk about the characteristics in |

| |the essay and how this compares to the commercials. |

| |For homework the kids have to think of a common, household |

| |product that they would want to advertise in a commercial. |

|Day 23: Creating my Own Persuasive Piece |The students will work 2 to a group to make their own |

| |commercials. They will work on their 30 second script, and if |

| |they have time, they will start recording their commercials. |

|Day 24: Commercials continued |The students will continue to create their commercials through |

| |YouTube. I will take all of the students’ videos and add them to|

| |our wiki. We will use the second half of class to watch the |

| |videos. |

|Day 25: What Should Change in our Community? |The students will have their next map quiz on North America. |

| |I will collect the homework from the Webquest. |

| |The students will have to answer the question: why are rules |

| |created? What are the criteria governing rules that are fair to |

| |all? |

| |Students will identify problems in our community that need to be |

| |changed. I want the students to choose an organization in our |

| |community that deals with the problem that they feel needs to be |

| |changed. |

| |They will compare/contrast how these organizations follow their |

| |own beliefs or go against their stated beliefs from their |

| |notebooks. What would they do to help the individuals in the |

| |community through this organization? |

| |The students will work in small groups or three to discuss |

| |different ways to change the problem that they see in our |

| |community. |

| |These groups of three will work on the specific organization that|

| |they have chosen and will continue to work together on their |

| |research. |

| |The students must start to look for good and bad examples of |

| |brochures. They will have to bring in one example of each to |

| |share with the class. This will be due in five days. |

|Week 6 |

|Day 26: Evidence to Defend Beliefs |Meet in the library |

| |Get pointers on research and have library staff give presentation|

| |on researching sources, plagiarism, and effective research |

| |methods. |

|Day 27: Researching at the Library |Students will take what they have been writing in their writer’s |

| |notebooks and do research on the organizations that they have |

| |been working on in class. They will also research the problem in|

| |the community and try to find various ways of helping the |

| |organization through their research. They will gather evidence |

| |to support why the problem that they have chosen is a cause for |

| |concern and solutions to aid the organization in combating the |

| |problem. |

|Day 28: There Are No Opinions, Only Facts |We will discuss facts and opinions together as a class. We will |

| |define what makes a fact and what forms an opinion. |

| |We will then go through the various motivations that students |

| |have written in their writer’s notebooks and discuss which ones |

| |are facts, and which are opinions. |

| |We will look at how our opinions may have been shaped by the |

| |original stereotypes that the students had written in their |

| |writer’s notebooks on Day 1. |

| |We will talk about why facts are so important, as opposed to |

| |opinions. |

| |We will also look at the research that we have done and verify |

| |that it is all facts, no opinions. |

|Day 29: Testing the Students’ Understanding |The students will have their next map quiz on South America. |

| |I will collect the homework from the Webquest. |

| |The students will work in class, taking their small group |

| |research and organizations that they want to support. We will |

| |analyze how their beliefs are being upheld through the changes |

| |that they want implemented. |

| |Each group will try to persuade the other groups that their |

| |organization needs our help (the classes’ help) and various |

| |fundraisers and activities that they have thought of to support |

| |their organization. They will be drawing on their knowledge of |

| |persuasion as well as the facts versus opinions. |

| |We will vote on who was the most persuasive, who used the most |

| |information to support their opinion, and who was best able to |

| |present their organization. These will be announced on our Wiki.|

| | |

|Day 30: What are the Characteristics of a Brochure? |The students will get into groups of three and write a list of |

| |why the good brochures that they found were good and why the bad |

| |ones were bad. This list will comprise a handout that I will |

| |create for the students on good and bad characteristics of a |

| |brochure. |

| |After the students have had 15 minutes to discuss this, we will |

| |assemble again, Socratic Seminar style, and discuss our findings.|

| |I will write these on the board. It is the responsibility of |

| |each group to create a copy of their characteristics on our Wiki.|

| |This will be due tomorrow. |

| |We will now look at examples of brochures from the local |

| |organizations that were researched. We will look for the good |

| |and bad characteristics that we have noted. |

| |I will hand out the events that the organizations want us to work|

| |on. I will give each group the upcoming event for their |

| |organization. |

| |The students will get into their groups and start to brainstorm |

| |things that they would like to put into their brochures. |

|Week 7 |

|Day 31: How Do I Create a Brochure on the Computer? |I will give a lesson on Microsoft Publisher and how to use the |

| |program for brochures. |

| |I will have the students explore Publisher so that they are |

| |comfortable with the process. |

| |I will hand out a rubric for the students to follow for the first|

| |draft of their brochures. I will explain that the second draft, |

| |and the second rubric, of the brochures will be based on the |

| |feedback that they receive from the organizations that they are |

| |working with. |

|Day 32: How Do I Organize a Brochure? |The students will continue to work on their brochures. |

| |I will give a mini-lesson on how to organize a brochure; where |

| |things should go and the approximate length that things should |

| |be. I will give the students a handout on organizing brochures. |

| | |

| |The students need to decide how to organize their brochure. What|

| |goes on the front cover? What goes on the back cover? How |

| |should the information be organized within the brochure, but |

| |still be interesting? What images would go well with the |

| |brochure? |

|Day 33: Producing the Brochures |The students will continue to work on their brochures. |

| |I will walk around and see if the students are struggling with |

| |something in particular. If they are, I will create a mini |

| |lesson to address the problem and I will teach the mini lesson |

| |plan the next day. |

|Day 34: Sharing and Revising |The students will share the drafts of their brochures with their |

| |fellow students. |

| |We will have a class review and offer suggestions for |

| |improvements to the students working on the brochures. |

|Day 35: How Will I Know What is Expected From My Brochure? |The students will add to their brochure. |

| |The students will send their drafts to a designated person from |

| |the non-profit organization that they are working with to get |

| |feedback. |

| |I will collect this draft of the brochure; I will take the |

| |information that the non-profits give the students as feedback |

| |and I will create an individualized rubric for the final draft of|

| |the brochure based on this information. |

| |The students will correct the brochures, as advised by the |

| |organization. |

|Week 8 |

|Day 36: How Do I Know When My Brochure is Complete? |Student will continue to add to the brochure. They should be |

| |just about done with their brochures at this point. The |

| |brochures will be due the next class period. The students must |

| |use their rubrics as the guides to a complete brochure; they must|

| |check off each detail from the brochure. I will be collecting |

| |the rubric as well as the brochure from each student. |

|Day 37 : Publishing & Promoting |The brochures are due. |

| |The students present their brochures to the rest of the class as |

| |well as the organizations that they have been working with. The |

| |advisors from the organizations will be be joining the class on |

| |the presentation day. |

| |The students will then be taking this project and adding it to |

| |our wiki. |

|Day 38: The Middle School Audience |The students will present this project to a middle school class |

| |to promote the idea of community learning and civic engagement. |

| |Students will need to write a one page self-reflection about the |

| |unit. What have they learned about themselves throughout this |

| |unit? What are they passionate about? How can they use their |

| |passions to promote advocacy in the community? |

Lesson Plan: Direct Instruction

Teacher _____Erica Smith Class __ENG_ Date _12/14___Grade Level _____12_____

Room Number __________ Period ________ Unit Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change

Lesson Number _____15___ and Topic How do We Create Songs from our Poetry?_ __

Context

The students have been creating their own resistance poems after spending two weeks reading and listening to resistant movement pieces. The students are now going to begin creating resistance songs from the poetry that they have created.

|At the end of this lesson, students will UNDERSTAND: |Essential questions: |

| | |

|-the power of music and sounds in a song. |-How does music elicit a response from a listener? |

|-that their poems need to have music/sounds that have meaning in order |-How can I create a song from a poem? |

|to elicit the proper response from the listener. | |

| | |

|Students will KNOW: |Students will be able to DO (objective): |

| | |

|-that music and sound s within songs create an elicit response from the |Create their own songs from the resistance poems that they have been |

|listener |working on. |

|-that poetry can be turned into song through the aid of music and |Understand how music and sounds create an elicit response from the |

|sounds. |listener. |

Objectives

Short-range learning objective: By applying their understanding that music and sounds are chosen to elicit a response from the listener, students will be able to create their own songs from the resistance poems that they have created.

Long-range learning objectives:

- Students will be able to critically think about why they have an elicit response to certain music.

- Students will be able to clearly identify their beliefs and will be able to use various methods to transcribe them.

- Students will understand that there is underlying meaning in the music that is chosen for songs.

- Students will be able to gain an understanding of the underlying meanings that are hidden through music and sound in songs and transfer this knowledge to other aspects of literature so that they are able to become more proficient at reading, writing, and listening skills.

Rationale

Administrators: Students will be able to see that music and sounds are chosen specifically for songs and that they are chosen to create an elicit response from the listener. The students will be able to critically think about the purpose behind popular culture, such as songs, and to recognize that resistance songs are a form of non-aggressive advocacy for beliefs. Students will be able to transfer the knowledge of identifying the underlying meanings in songs and poems to other aspects of poetry and literature.

Students: Students will be able to share their beliefs over controversial issues and have their voices heard through the help of modern technology. Students listen to music everyday and may have never thought about why music is such a powerful trigger for emotional reactions and connections to the music. Students will be able to gain an understanding of the underlying meanings that are hidden through music and sound in songs and transfer this knowledge to other aspects of literature so that they are able to become more proficient at reading, writing, and listening skills.

Critical Pedagogues: This lesson will allow students to become empowered listeners, readers, and writers. Students will be able to find the underlying meanings to songs through the music and sounds within the songs; this will lead to transference of critically thinking to find implied meanings within texts that are not explicitly stated.

Background Knowledge and Skills

Students have already created their own resistance poems after spending two weeks listening to resistance poems and songs. The students have a handout on the characteristics that must be included in a resistance song and poem. We have listened to MIA’s song Paper Planes on day nine and we discussed how MIA was a refugee from Sri Lanka. We talked about how being a refugee has heavily influenced her music and created controversial and politically minded songs. I had the students write down their reactions to the song and what the song means.

Standards

NYS ELA Standard 1 : Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Listening___): Interpret and analyze information from media

presentations, such as documentary films, news broadcasts, taped interviews, and debates

NYS ELA Standard 2: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Listening___): Recognize how presentation styles affect the emotional responses of listeners

Summary

The students will listen to MIA’s song Paper Planes and write down the sounds and music that they hear throughout the song on a piece of paper. The students will then create a key with symbols that they have created to represent the sounds that they heard in the song. The students will then receive the lyrics and they will again listen to the song, but mark the exact words with the symbols that they have created. The students will get into groups and discuss the significance of the sounds and the placement of the sounds within the song. The students will then take their own poems and exchange them with a classmate to have the classmate write down the sounds that the poem reminds them of. The classmate will mark the exact words where the sound should go and answer some questions at the bottom of the page about why they thought those particular sounds should be placed in the song and if those sounds make the poem more powerful and have more meaning.

Procedure

|Anticipatory set |Time |

| |5 |

|In order to find out what the students think about music and sounds within songs, we will start the class by asking | |

|students a few questions. | |

| | |

|What does the music and sounds add to songs? | |

|What is your favorite song? | |

|Why is this your favorite song? | |

|How does music add to the response that you feel when you listen to a song? | |

| | |

|Imagine your favorite song as just a poem. Would this be your favorite poem? Why or why not? What does the music add | |

|to the song? | |

| | |

|Have the students share their reactions with the rest of the class. | |

|Instruction |10 |

|Announce objective: Today we will be focusing on music within songs and how this music elicits a response from the | |

|listener. We will start to understand how music and sounds in songs are deliberately added to make us feel a certain way,| |

|and that these sounds, especially within resistance songs, are used to imply implicit meaning. This means that the author| |

|or songwriter adds sounds to make us feel a certain way without actually telling us what the sounds are supposed to be | |

|adding to the song. | |

| | |

|(Say): Tell the students that we are going to be listening to MIA’s song Paper Planes to see what sounds and music were | |

|added to the song to create a response. Tell the students that you want them to go back through their writer’s notebooks | |

|and re-write how MIA”s song made them feel emotionally on the handout that you will be giving them. Explain that you will| |

|be collecting this handout as well as the lyrics to MIA’s song at the end of class; be sure to put your name and the | |

|period at the top of both sheets. | |

| | |

|Have the students listen to the song Paper Planes through YouTube *Do not show them the video clip – they need to hear the| |

|song, not watch it* Have the students write down what the sounds that they hear on the handout that you have provided | |

|them. After the song has ended, have the students create a key and symbols for the sounds that they heard in the song on | |

|the handout. | |

| | |

|Next, hand out the lyrics to MIA”s song so that the students can follow along as the song is played on YouTube. Have the | |

|students listen to the song again, but this time have the students mark the exact spots, with the symbols that they have | |

|created, on the lyric sheet where the sounds are taking place. | |

| | |

|Guided Practice |10 |

|Have the students get into groups of two or three. Have the students answer the following questions in their groups: | |

|“What patterns do the students notice with the sounds in the song?” | |

|“What sounds are played several times throughout the song?” | |

|“What do these sounds remind you of?” | |

|“How is the meaning to the words reinforced or altered because of the music and sounds?” | |

| | |

|The groups will reassemble and we will discuss the results as a class. | |

|Independent Practice |15 |

|Now, have the students switch poems with the person sitting next to them. | |

| | |

|(Say)”As you are reading the person’s poem, write down the music and sounds that you hear in your head next to the words | |

|that epitomize that sound. When you are done writing down the sounds, write a brief explanation why you think that these | |

|sounds should be included. You are doing this exercise because this will allow you to look over your poem and have ideas | |

|on sounds that will add to the power of what you are saying. This will create an implicit message that is not directly | |

|stated to the listener, but which will create a response to the song.” Tell the students to answer the following | |

|question : | |

| | |

|“How do these sounds make the poem sound more powerful?” | |

| | |

|“Why did you think of these sounds to go along with this poem?” | |

| | |

|Have the students switch poems one more time with another person sitting next to them. Have this person do the same thing| |

|to the poem and answer the two questions above. | |

| | |

|Closure |5 |

|What did you learn about the power of sounds and music in songs? | |

|Do you think that having somebody else suggest sounds and music to go along with your poem will make the transition from | |

|poem to song easier? Why or why not? | |

|What have you learned about the sounds and music that are in songs? | |

Special notes and Reminders to myself

Make sure that students are creating their own keys with symbols.

Do not show the YouTube video for MIA, just have the students listen to the music.

Have the students email copies of their poems to me so that I can print out copies in case they forget their own.

Materials and Resources needed

1 Teacher’s copy of the lyrics to Paper Planes by MIA

Computer to play YouTube: MIA Paper Planes

25 copies of the lyrics to Paper Planes

25 copies of the handout that I have created

Copies of the original poems created by the students

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs can still participate and be divided into groups along with other classmates. If the students with special needs were not able to create their own poem, I will have them work with another student in the class to add the sounds and music to a poem. This may encourage them and allow them to feel that they better understand the assignment.

Assessment of Student Learning

I will walk around the room and be taking visual notes on how the students are doing. I will collect the handout that the students have filled out as well as the MIA lyrics page that has been marked up. I will be collecting the poems that he students created, with the markings from their classmates, when the students have created their Podcast songs.

Reflection on or Evaluation of Lesson

The students seem to understand that the music and sounds add power and meaning to the song. They have successfully added music and sounds to their own poems and it appears that this activity has helped to transition the poems to songs. The worksheets were all handed in and seem to be filled out and marked up.

Name______________________________ Period______

Lyrics to MIA’s song Paper Planes

I fly like paper, get high like planes

If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name

If you come around here, I make 'em all day

I get one down in a second if you wait

[x2]

Sometimes I think sitting on trains

Every stop I get to I'm clocking that game

Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame

Bonafide hustler making my name

[x4]

All I wanna do is

And

And take your money

[x2]

Pirate skulls and bones

Sticks and stones and weed and bongs

Running when we hit 'em

Lethal poison through their system

[x2]

No one on the corner has swagger like us

Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless

We pack and deliver like UPS trucks

Already going hell just pumping that gas

[x4]

All I wanna do is

And

And take your money

M.I.A.

Third world democracy

Yeah, I got more records than the K.G.B.

So, uh, no funny business

Some some some I some I murder

Some I some I let go

Some some some I some I murder

Some I some I let go

Teacher’s Copt: Lyrics to MIA’s song Paper Planes

I fly like paper, get high like planes

If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name

If you come around here, I make 'em all day

I get one down in a second if you wait

[x2]

Sometimes I think sitting on trains

Every stop I get to I'm clocking that game

Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame

Bonafide hustler making my name

[x4]

All I wanna do is (gun banging three times)

And (sound: Ka…ching! As in a cash register)

And take your money

[x2]

Pirate skulls and bones

Sticks and stones and weed and bongs

Running when we hit 'em

Lethal poison through their system

[x2]

No one on the corner has swagger like us

Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless

We pack and deliver like UPS trucks

Already going hell just pumping that gas

[x4]

All I wanna do is (gun banging three times)

And (sound: Ka…ching! As in a cash register)

And take your money

M.I.A.

Third world democracy

Yeah, I got more records than the K.G.B.

So, uh, no funny business

Some some some I some I murder

Some I some I let go

Some some some I some I murder

Some I some I let go

This song is about the stereotypes that Americans have of immigrants: that immigrants and refugees are likely to be thinking that they want to kill you and take your money)

Name_______________________________ Period______

• How did you originally feel about MIA’s song when we heard it on Day 9?

• What sounds do you hear in MIA’s song?

*Create a key with symbols to represent the sounds that you heard. Use this key to mark up the lyrics paper that you will be provided with*

Key:

Lesson Plan Template: Direct Instruction

Teacher _____Erica Smith Class __ENG_ Date _12/14___Grade Level _____12_____

Room Number __________ Period ________ Unit Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change

Lesson Number ___2__ and Topic How do Visual Aids Persuade Me to Feel a Certain Way?

Context

I handed out the lyrics to the song Conflict Diamonds by Lupe Fiasco yesterday so that the students could read them and write down their initial reaction and mark one part of the song that most intrigued them.

|At the end of this lesson, students will UNDERSTAND: |Essential questions: |

| | |

|-what that visual aids can persuade us to feel a certain way. |How do songs convey meaning? |

|- the characteristics of “song” |How do music videos contain meaning? |

|- Meaning through song |How do visual aids persuade us to feel a certain way? |

| |What are the characteristics of songs? |

| | |

| | |

|Students will KNOW: |Students will be able to DO (objective): |

| | |

|That music videos are meant to be persuasive |Describe the characteristics of song |

|The characteristics of songs |Explain how visual aids persuade us to feel or act a certain way through|

|That songs convey meanings through the words and through the visuals of |the music videos. |

|the music videos. |Explain how music videos and song convey a meaning or purpose. |

Objectives

Short-range learning objective: By applying the knowledge that they have gleaned from the lyrics that they read for homework, students will be able to take the feelings that they have written down in their writer’s notebooks and compare them after they watch the music video on Conflict Diamonds. The students will be able to see how persuasion is used in music videos.

Long-range learning objectives:

- Students will be able to understand the characteristics of the song genre.

- Students will be able to explain how music videos use persuasion to make us feel or act a certain way.

- Students will be able to explain how music videos convey meaning or purpose.

- Students will be able to explain how songs convey meaning or purpose.

Rationale

Administrators: Students will be able to see how persuasion is used in music videos to manipulate the feelings of people watching. The students will be able to see how music videos convey messages (visual) versus how songs convey messages (oratory). This will allow the students to use their analytical skills while watching television to understand that there is a purpose behind visual aids. The students will be able to transfer the critical knowledge of analyzing the purpose behind the visual aids to any visual media.

Students: Students will be able to understand how media influences them through the use of visual aids. This will allow students to be more selective in what they choose to believe in television ads and it will allow them to create their own persuasive pieces in the commercial ads that they will be doing later on.

Critical Pedagogues: This lesson will allow students to become empowered viewers. The students will be able to think critically about any medium that contains visual aids; this will allow students to think critically about every source of media that they encounter before passing judgment about the informative value.

Background Knowledge and Skills

This is the second day of the unit. Yesterday, I had the students read the lyrics of Conflict Diamonds for homework.

Standards

NYS ELA Standard 2 : Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Reading___): Interpret multiple levels of meaning and subtleties in text.

NCTE Standard #12: Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Summary

The students will be writing about their initial reactions to the song lyrics that they read for homework and then they will be watching the video on Conflict Diamonds. The students will have to write down how the visual aids altered their perception from the lyrics that they read to their new understanding of the song from the video.

Procedure

|Anticipatory set |Time |

| |5 |

|Open up the class by asking the students what they thought about the song lyrics. What is the point of creating a song | |

|about conflict diamonds in Africa? How does this affect us? | |

| | |

|Allow the students to share their thoughts with the rest of the class. | |

|Instruction |10 |

|Announce objective: Today we will be watching the music video to the Conflict Diamonds song. Write down your thoughts and| |

|parts that you liked and disliked while watching the video. We will be discussing the influence of visual aids on our | |

|emotions and feelings. You will begin to see how visual aids can make you feel a certain way about whatever is being | |

|projected onto a screen. We will also be discussing the characteristics of the song genre; these traits will allow you to | |

|see what the components of the song that are able to influence you. | |

| | |

|(Say) Tell the students that they will be watching the music video of Conflict Diamonds. On the handout provided, first | |

|write down your initial reaction to the lyrics that you read for homework last night. What was the purpose of the song? | |

| | |

|Next, write down the thoughts and feelings that you have throughout the video. Make sure to write down how certain visual| |

|aids made you feel as you watch the video. Do you feel compelled to act in a certain way after the video? Why or why | |

|not? | |

| | |

|Show the video. | |

| | |

|Guided Practice |15 |

| | |

|Ask the students to list the traits of the song genre. Write these on the board. After the list has been written, | |

|distribute a handout with the characteristics of the song genre. | |

| | |

|Next, have the students get into groups of threes and discuss: | |

|What meaning the lyrics conveyed. | |

|What they found the most disturbing in the video and why | |

|The initial reaction to the lyrics that they read for homework. | |

|The reaction to the video. | |

|Comparing and contrasting the video and the lyrics. | |

|What they would have changed in the video to make it more powerful | |

|What meaning the video conveyed | |

|Which characteristics from your list create persuasion in songs? | |

| | |

|These thoughts will be shared out loud with the rest of the class. | |

|Independent Practice |10 |

| | |

|I want you to write a one page reflection on how visual aids are able to alter your perception about the meaning of songs | |

|and how they are able to toy with your emotions. Be sure to explain which traits of the song genre are best able to | |

|express persuasion in songs and explain your answers using examples from the song that we heard in class. If you do not | |

|finish in class, this will be homework. | |

|Closure |5 |

|How are the characteristics of the song genre able to persuade us? | |

|Is this good or bad? Why or why not? | |

Special notes and Reminders to myself

Don’t forget to collect the handouts from the students.

Materials and Resources needed

25 copies of handout to be filled out by students during and after the video.

25 copies: Traits of the song genre

A link to the YouTube video of Conflict Diamonds.

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs can still participate and be divided into groups along with other classmates.

Assessment of Student Learning

I will be collecting the handouts that the students filled out in class and I will be checking their writer’s notebooks later in the unit to be sure that they wrote their one page reflection from the lesson today.

Reflection on or Evaluation of Lesson

The students seemed to grasp the concepts of what I was teaching today. They all filled out their sheets and turned them in.

Name___________________________ Period______

Common Traits of “Resistance Songs”

• A “hook” that captures the attention of the listener.

• A chorus that is repeated throughout the song.

• There is a repeated beat.

• There are lyrics that are sung.

• There is a purpose/meaning to the song.

• The songs need to be contextualized to be fully understood.

• There is a political statement being made in the song.

• Metaphor and similes are common.

• A story is told about the events of a country.

• The artist is trying to persuade the listener to resist the event that is being sung about.

Name______________________________ Period_______

Conflict Diamonds

Initial reaction to the lyrics of Conflict Diamond:

• What do you think the purpose of this song was?

Thought and feelings throughout the video:

• How do you feel after watching the video? Why?

Group work:

1. What meaning did the lyrics convey?

2. What did you find to be the most disturbing in the video? Why?

3. What was your reaction to the video?

4. Compare and contrast the video and the lyrics.

|Compare |Contrast |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

5. What they would have changed in the video to make it more powerful

6. What meaning the video conveyed

7. Which characteristics from your list create persuasion in songs?

Lesson Plan Template: Direct Instruction

Teacher _____Erica Smith Class __ENG_ Date _12/14___Grade Level _____12_____

Room Number __________ Period ________ Unit Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change

Lesson Number _4 and Topic How Does History Affect Me Even if I Was Not a Part of the Conflict?

Context

The students have been analyzing how resistance poems and songs convey messages to the readers/listeners. We are now starting to look at how contextualizing these poems and songs will make them more accessible to the audience.

|At the end of this lesson, students will UNDERSTAND: |Essential questions: |

| | |

|- how to identify the key words within a text |How do I know which words are key words? |

|- how to use contextualization to create meaning in a text |How will putting things into context make the text easier to understand?|

| | |

|Students will KNOW: |Students will be able to DO (objective): |

| | |

|That putting texts into context makes the meaning easier to identify |Find the key words within a text in order to understand the meaning that|

|How to find key words while reading |is being conveyed |

| |Place readings in context to make the meaning easier to understand. |

Objectives

Short-range learning objective: By placing readings into context, students will be able to utilize a reading skill that allows the meaning of a text to become more transparent. The students will be able to identify the meaning of the text through the use of identification of key words and through placing the material into context.

Long-range learning objectives:

- Students will be able to transfer these reading skills to other texts

- Students will be able to understand the meaning of more difficult texts.

- Students will be able to use several different reading skills to identify meaning in difficult texts.

Rationale

Administrators: Students will be able to transfer these reading skills to more difficult texts. The students will have the tools to delve into the meaning that is conveyed by an author in a text, even if the text is difficult to decipher. The students will be able to read multicultural literature because they will understand that placing the author and literary text in context will allow for the meaning to become much more transparent.

Students: Do you hate struggling with the meaning of texts? If you find this frustrating, as most everybody does, you will want to build upon some reading skills that advanced readers use to read difficult or texts that are not relatable to their own lives. This will simplify the process of finding meaning in texts.

Critical Pedagogues: This lesson creates empowered readers. Students are able to build upon a confidence of finding meaning within texts and understanding that there are several methods for discovery into meaning conveyed within texts. Students will be able to utilize this skill in future readings and they will be able to build upon this competence as they advance in their reading level.

Background Knowledge and Skills

The students have been working on visual and listening skills the past three days.

Standards

NYS ELA Standard 4 : Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction..

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Reading___): Consider the age, gender, social position, and cultural traditions of the writer

NYS ELA Standard 3 : Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Reading___): Form opinions and make judgments about literary works by analyzing and evaluating texts from more than one critical perspective, such as a social perspective

Summary

The students will be working on developing their reading skills. The students will be taking a poem, circling the words that give it meaning and writing down what they think the poem means. I will hand out a sheet with background information on the author and the poem; the students will then re-write the meaning of the poem based on the context that they were given. The students will also circle words that appear to have more meaning after learning about the context of the poem.

Procedure

|Anticipatory set |Time |

| |5 |

|In order to become more effective readers, and to make the process of finding meaning within texts, I want to practice two| |

|different reading skills today. These will make the readings much easier to understand and they will build up your | |

|confidence in reading. | |

| | |

|On the board write: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis | |

| | |

|(Say) If you were asked to explain what this word means, what questions would you have about it? What would you want to | |

|know to figure out what it means? | |

| | |

|Give the students this word in a sentence: “I lived in Hawaii so long that I soon became inflicted with | |

|Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” | |

| | |

|( Ask)What do you think that this word means now? Why? | |

|Instruction |10 |

|Announce objective: We are going to work on reading skills today to understand the meaning in texts. | |

| | |

|What methods did you use to figure out what the word meant? Putting things in context means that you put them around | |

|other words or situations so that you are able to see how they fit into the sentence. You use the words and sentences | |

|around a word to understand the word itself. I am going to give you a poem to read and we are going to discuss the | |

|meaning of the poem. I want you to circle any words that help you to discover the meaning of the poem. | |

| | |

|After all of you have finished reading the poem, I am going to give you background information about the author and the | |

|poem. We will see if the meaning that you discovered changes depending on the information that you are provided. | |

| | |

|Hand out the poem to the students. | |

| | |

|Circulate throughout the room so that you can be sure that students are circling the words that seem to create meaning in | |

|the text. | |

| | |

|Guided Practice |15 |

| | |

|(Say)Now break into groups of three and go over the words that you discovered to find meaning in the poem. Write down | |

|what you think the poem means, as a group. | |

| | |

|(Say)I will then hand out a sheet with background information on this poet and his poem. I want you to read the passage | |

|carefully and then re-read the poem. Circle the words that now convey what you think the meaning of the poem is, based on| |

|the background information from the author. Re-write what you think the poem means. | |

| | |

|After 5 minutes of the students reading the poem, hand out background information. | |

| | |

|Have the students discuss their responses to this activity and compare/contrast the conveyed meaning before the text was | |

|put into context, and after it was placed in context. | |

|Independent Practice |10 |

| | |

|Have the students write a self reflection piece in their writer’s notebook about the new skills that they have learned. | |

|Give them this prompt: | |

| | |

|You are writing an article about the meaning of Okara’s poem Once Upon a Time. You must make the article understandable | |

|to everybody that reads the article. Write a one page paper about the meaning of Once Upon a Time and be sure to place | |

|the poem in context so that the readers will be able to understand the conveyed meaning by the author. | |

|Closure |5 |

|What did you learn about reading skills? | |

|You will be practicing these skills throughout our unit. I want several students to volunteer for every text read in this| |

|class and do some basic contextual research on the author and the text. You will present to the class on the day that we | |

|cover that poem. Sign up on the sign-up sheet at my desk. | |

Special notes and Reminders to myself

Make sure that students bring their writer’s notebooks. Supply loose-leaf paper just in case theyr forget.

Materials and Resources needed

25 copies of Okara’s Once Upon a Time

25 copies: background iforamtion on Okara and the poem

Chalk for the board

Loose-leaf paper

Sign-up sheet

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs can still participate and be divided into groups along with other classmates. They will be allowed to work with another students when doing the presentations on a poem/poet.

Assessment of Student Learning

I will be collecting the handouts that the students filled out in class and I will be checking their writer’s notebooks later in the unit to be sure that they wrote their one page reflection from the lesson today.

Reflection on or Evaluation of Lesson

The students seemed to grasp the concepts of what I was teaching today. I will see if they are grasping the concept tomorrow when we go through the next poem on our list. I will also have the students circle key words in the poem that they are reading for tomorrow.

Once Upon a Time

By GABRIEL OKARA  a Nigerian Poet

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes:

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow. 

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts:

but that’s gone, son.

Now they shake hands without hearts:

while their left hands search

my empty pockets. 

‘Feel at home’! ‘Come again’:

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice –

for then I find doors shut on me. 

So I have learned many things, son.

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses – homeface,

officeface, streetface, hostface,

cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,

when I mean ‘Good-riddance’;

to say ‘Glad to meet you’,

without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been

nice talking to you’, after being bored. 

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you. I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to relearn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror

shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs! 

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you. 

Contextualizing Once Upon a Time

Just as black writers in the United States and the Caribbean have faced the problem of how to express themselves in the language of those who enslaved them, black African writers have experimented with different ways of communicating in European languages the experience of colonization and the feel of their traditional cultures. Among the most famous West African writers working in the English language is Gabriel Okara, considered one of the founders of modern African literature. In his novel The Voice he constructed an unusual bridge over the divide between English and African languages: parts of the novel are written in a unique form of English that reproduces the patterns of Okara’s native Ijaw language. Okara’s equally well-known poetry is also poised between European and African modes of expression.

A descendant of a noble family of the Ijaw ethnic group and the son of a businessman, Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara was born on April 24 (or 21), 1921, in Bumoundi in British-occupied Nigeria. His family adhered to the Christian Scientist religion, and Christian imagery would play a part in some of his mature works although they were rarely explicitly religious in theme. After attending local schools, Okara entered Nigeria’s British-administered higher education system when he was 14. He attended Government College in the Nigerian city of Umuahia and later Yaba Higher College, studying art as well as writing. He is said to have been inspired to become a poet when he read the poem “Lines Written in Early Spring” by the British Romantic writer William Wordsworth.

Seemingly set, like several other modern African writers, for a career as a government employee, Okara found himself in conflict with some cultural aspects of the new Nigeria. The theme of the intellectual estranged from the world of power politics was one of the strands that made up Okara’s important novel The Voice (1964). “I wrote The Voice because of the inconsistencies of our rulers after the British had left Nigeria,” Okara was quoted as saying in Contemporary Authors. “In the fight for independence our politicians denounced certain measures and attitudes of the colonial government, only to perpetrate the same ones when they took over.”

Richly African in its subject matter, yet using symbolic methods gleaned from Okara’s study of European literature, The Voice stimulated controversy in both the African and the Western press. The novel features a young man named Okolo (which means “the voice” in Ijaw) who falls afoul of the people in his home town when he begins to search for an unnamed “it”—variously interpreted as faith, an inner voice, African destiny, and the meaning of life. “Everybody’s inside is now filled with money, cars and concrete houses and money,” Okolo says.

The most striking feature of the novel is its use of an Ijaw-English hybrid in some sections; Okara wrote them in his native Ijaw and translated the words one by one into English so as to replicate Ijaw syntax. For example, a sentence that meant “He is always speaking of change” came out as “Things changing how always he speaking.” Critical opinion was divided about Okara’s innovation—according to Modern Black Writers. Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka argued that the “self-conscious language [of The Voice] is the device of the narcissist, a subterfuge within which the hero can contemplate his creator’s navel while remaining himself impenetrable in the barrier of contrived language.” But the Nigerian critic Emmanuel Obiechina (also quoted in Modern Black Writers) praised Okara, contending that the Ijaw inflection “gives the action of the story a peculiarly heavy-footed and tortuous movement which again seems to fit the serious moral tone and pessimistic mood of the story.”

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Sign-Up Sheet (4 people per text)

1. In India by Nissim Ezekiel

2. There is No Exile by Assia Djebar

3. MIA – Paper Planes

4. Western Civilizations by Agostinho Neto

5. Peter Seeger –Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

6. The Tank Man photograph

Lesson Plan Template: Direct Instruction

Teacher _____Erica Smith Class __ENG_ Date _12/24 Grade Level _____12_____

Room Number __________ Period ________ Unit Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change

Lesson Number _20 and Topic Testing the student’s Understanding

Context

The students have completed their research, fact-based papers on their non-profit organizations. The students will now be debating which non-profit is the most beneficial to the community.

|At the end of this lesson, students will UNDERSTAND: |Essential questions: |

| | |

|- how to use persuasion in speech |How do I persuade people to see my side? |

|- how to have an oratory debate |What are the characteristics of oratory debates? |

| |What is the purpose of an oratory debate? |

| | |

|Students will KNOW: |Students will be able to DO (objective): |

| | |

|That oratory debates require research into the topic to defend answers |Have an oratory debate |

|The characteristics of an oratory debate |Use persuasion in speech |

|How to use persuasion in speech |Defend a topic, using research based facts and figures. |

Objectives

Short-range learning objective: By having an oratory debate, students will be able to defend a topic that they have done extensive research on. The students will understand how to persuade their peers to see their perspective.

Long-range learning objectives:

- Students will be able to defend a topic, using research based facts and figures (this can be transferable to writing)

- Students will be able to use persuasion in speech, and to recognize when persuasion is being used.

- Students will have a respectful tolerance for other people when debating and will learn the proper protocol for having a debate.

Rationale

Administrators: Students will be learning valuable speaking skills, from public speaking, to the defense of a topic that uses fact-based research. Students will be able to transfer the skill of defending a topic to writing a research based paper, a skill that is required in the twelfth grade. Students will also be abel to use persuasion in speech, but more importantly, to recognize when persuasion is being used in speech.

Students: Do you like having arguments with other people? With an oratory debate, you will be defending a topic that you believe in (a non-profit organization) and trying to persuade other people to see your point of view. You will have to use the research that you have done on this organization to defend your topic and convince the rest of the class that your organization is more beneficial to the community than anybody else’s.

Critical Pedagogues: Students will become empowered speakers and writers as they use the fact-based research to defend a topic that they have been learning about. The students will have the opportunity to see different perspectives from classmates, and to try to persuade their fellow peers to take a different perspective. The fact based research oratory debate is transferable to writing research papers, and will allow students to build up competence with public speaking.

Background Knowledge and Skills

The students have created research papers, in groups, based on non-profit organizations that the students chose. The students were working on fact versus opinion yesterday. The students were given a rubric yesterday to follow for maximum points in the debate today. The students understand persuasion, but they will need a brief mini-lesson on persuasion in speaking because we have not talked about this.

Standards

NYS ELA Standard 3 : Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Speaking___): Express opinions and make judgments about ideas,

information, experiences, and issues in literary, scientific, and historical articles, in public documents, and in advertisements

Summary

The students will have a debate on which non-profit organization is the most beneficial to the community. They will need to understand the rules of the debate, and they will need to have a quick mini-lesson on Persuasion (even though we have been discussing persuasion often in class; we have never talked about persuasion in speaking). The students will then debate, with an outside teacher as the judge of the groups.

Procedure

|Anticipatory set |Time |

| |5 |

|Play the Rocky music as the students come into the class to get them psyched up about the debate today. | |

| | |

|I want to go around the room and discover why you have all chosen the non-profit organizations that you did. | |

| | |

|Have the students each tell why they chose the non-profit that they have been researching. | |

| | |

|Instruction |10 |

|Announce objective: I am going to allow you to have a debate with one another about your research based non-profit | |

|organizations. The goal is to figure out which organization is the most beneficial to the community. I will lay the | |

|ground rules before we begin with the oratory debate. | |

| | |

|Hand out the rules for the debate and go over them, making sure that everybody understands. | |

| | |

| | |

|Guided Practice |15 |

| | |

|Explain persuasion and how persuasion can be used to allow other people to take on another perspective. Gibe the students| |

|a handout on the most effective way to use persuasion. Go through several examples of persuasive speaking and then have | |

|the students get into their groups and begin practicing their debates, using persuasion and the research as the driving | |

|force behind their arguments. | |

| | |

|Independent Practice |10 |

| | |

|Begin the debate. Each group will have 7 minutes to defend their topic, using fact based information. I will have | |

|another teacher be the objective score keeper and he/she will announce the winner of the debate at the end of the class. | |

| | |

| | |

|Closure |5 |

|The objective teacher will answer the following questions: | |

| | |

|Who was the most effective at using persuasion? | |

| | |

|Who was the most convincing with the research that they presented? | |

| | |

|Who won the debate? | |

Special notes and Reminders to myself

Make sure to enforce the rules of the debate

Materials and Resources needed

25 copies of the rules for the debate

25 copies of using persuasion in speech

A computer to play the YouTube theme song from Rocky.

A rubric for the host teacher the teacher that is the judge.

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs can still participate and be divided into groups along with other classmates.

Assessment of Student Learning

Students will be judged according to the rubric that they were provided. I will figure out the grade of the students baed on the teacher-acting as judge and my own rubric scores.

Reflection on or Evaluation of Lesson

I will have the students write about this experience in a self-reflection piece in their writer’s notebooks.

Rules for Debate

1. Each group has 7 minutes to present

2. There is no interruption of a group once the 7 minutes start

3. The oratory debates need to be focused on using persuasion to make other groups see the benefit of your organization.

4. After each group has gone once, they will be allowed t3 minutes each to add something else, or to point out something in another person’s group.

5. There will be no put-downs.

6. There needs to be respect for the people speaking.

7. The judge’s ruling is final.

8. You must use your research to defend your arguments.

9. If a point made is not fact based, it is not able to be used in tavor of the group presenting.

10. If one group is questioned by another, the group being questioned about a fact will be allowed 2 minutes to come up with a rebuttal from the research that they have done.

Speaking with Persuasion

1. Stand up straight. Do not slump, lean, or sway when speaking,

2. Speak slowly and clearly pronouncing words correctly.

3. Look at the audience. Speakers will be viewed as better informed and more sincere if they have eye contact with the audience.

4. Emphasize main points by letting your voice rise and fall.

5. Use gestures and facial expressions to express an idea and to show enthusiasm for your topic.

6. Use note cards to guide you in speaking.

7. Practice your speech.

8. Be excited and motivated. The audience will “catch” your enthusiasm.

9. Dress to compliment your speech, not to detract from your delivery.

10. Relax; be proud of your accomplishment!

()

Non-Profit Organization Debate

Task: Students will have a debate on which non-profit organization is the most beneficial to the community, based on research based facts.

|Criteria |

| |

| |

| |

| |

|1 |

|2 |

|3 |

|4 |

| Points |

| |

|Vocal and Physical Delivery |

|Weak volume, rate and speech quality; no eye contact, facial expressions, gestures |

|Vocal delivery fair (volume, rate, quality); fair physical delivery (little eye contact, facial expression, gestures) |

|Vocal delivery good (adequate volume, rate, quality); good physical delivery (some eye contact, expression, gestures) |

|Vocal delivery excellent (strong volume, rate, quality); strong physical delivery (eye contact, facial expression, gestures) |

|____ |

| |

|Introduction |

|Did not capture audience’s attention and provided no background information |

|Did little to capture audience’s attention and provided little background information |

|Somewhat captured audience’s attention and provided some background information |

|Captured audience’s attention immediately and provided strong background information |

|____ |

| |

|Presentation Body & Conclusion |

|Information unclear OR no supporting evidence; little OR no summation at end |

|Information fairly clear; little supporting evidence; little summation at end |

|Information presented in a clear way; some supporting evidence; Summed up some of the main points |

|Information presented in a clear, interesting way; strong supporting evidence; Summed up all main points |

|____ |

| |

|Persuasion |

|Persuasion was not used at all |

|Persuasion was used, but not properly or effectively |

|Persuasion was used correctly, but not effectively |

|Persuasion was used effectively and correctly |

|____ |

| |

|Research-based |

|The argument had no research to back up the claims |

|The argument has very little research to back up the claims |

|The argument had quite a bit of research to back up the claims |

|The argument used only research to back up the claims |

|____ |

| |

|Total Points: |

| |

| |

| |

|Grade |

|1-7 pts. = D |

|8-12 pts. = C |

|12-16 pts. = B |

|16-20 pts. = A |

| |

| |

| |

| |

|Teacher Comments: |

()

Lesson Plan Template: Direct Instruction

Teacher _____Erica Smith Class __ENG_ Date _12/24 Grade Level _____12_____

Room Number __________ Period ________ Unit Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change

Lesson Number _14 and Topic How Can I Better Express Myself when Writing?

Context

We have been looking at many different multicultural resistance songs and poetry in our class. The students have been creating their own resistance poetry and I want to have a lesson on expression within poetry.

|At the end of this lesson, students will UNDERSTAND: |Essential questions: |

| | |

|- How to use metaphors and similes to better express themselves in their|What do metaphors and similes add to writing? |

|writing |How do you use metaphors and similes in writing? |

|- How to use metaphors and similes properly. | |

|Students will KNOW: |Students will be able to DO (objective): |

| | |

|How to incorporate metaphors and similes into their own poetry |Add metaphors and similes into their own poems |

|How to use metaphors and similes |Create their own metaphors and similes |

|That metaphors and similes add expression to writing. | |

Objectives

Short-range learning objective: Students will be able to see how metaphors and similes add expression to writing and how these literary devices are able to create a commonality with the reader (which is helpful in multicultural literature). The students will be able to successfully add metaphors and similes to thir own poems to create a more personal feeling.

Long-range learning objectives:

- Students will be able to feel a connection with literature through literary devices that incorporate a commonality that connects the reader and the text.

- The students will be able to effectively use metaphors and similes in their own writing to create expression and voice.

Rationale

Administrators: Students will be learning how to effectively use literary devices in writing. This will allow students to feel more connected with texts when they encounter a metaphor or simile that draws upon the commonalities of daily life to explain an unclear situation or feeling.

Students: Do you want to feel more comfortable while reading and writing? Do you want to be able to clearly express the thoughts that you have in writing? Learning literary devices, such as metaphors and similes allows you to write down experiences that are difficult to describe by comparing them to a common occurrence or feeling. Metaphors and similes will allow your writing to improve and to allow your imagination to go wild.

Critical Pedagogues: Students will become empowered writers and readers. When reading, students will be able to feel more of a connection to the text through the literary devices that are used. When writing, the literary devices will strengthen the writing style of the students and allow the students to express thoughts and feelings that are hard to describe.

Background Knowledge and Skills

The students have created their own resistance poems and we are now working on revising them and adding some more voice and imagery.

Standards

NYS ELA Standard 4 : Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction.

Grade _12_ Performance Indicator (__Writing___): Share the process of writing with peers and adults; for example, write a condolence note, get-well card, or thank-you letter with writing partner(s)

Summary

Procedure

|Anticipatory set |Time |

| |5 |

|In order to better express yourself in your poems, I thought that we would work on incorporating literary devices to make | |

|your poems more interesting to the reader and to add a personal voice. | |

| | |

|Hand out Sylvia Plath’s poem: Metaphors. | |

| | |

|Instruction |10 |

|Announce objective: We are going to work on improving your writing style and allowing you to feel more comfortable with | |

|different genres of writing. Poetry typically has a lot of literary devices, such as metaphors and similes. I want you | |

|to feel at ease when reading and writing with literary devices. | |

| | |

|I want you to work in groups and deconstruct the metaphors within Sylvia Plath’s poem. | |

| | |

| | |

|Guided Practice |15 |

| | |

|I will hand out a paper with the characteristics of metaphors and similes. Break into groups of three or four and begin | |

|by breaking down every line of Sylvia Plath’s poem. What do these metaphors make you think of? What do you think all of | |

|these metaphors have in common? What does the poem mean? What do you notice about all of the metaphors? How are they | |

|formed? | |

| | |

|Write down what you think as a group. | |

| | |

|We will reconvene and discuss this poem as a class. | |

| | |

|Independent Practice |10 |

| | |

|Now take out the handout on metaphors and similes and write three down of each. Go through your poem and mark areas where| |

|you can add in a few metaphors and similes. You must add at least one of each to your poem. | |

| | |

| | |

|Closure |5 |

|What have you learned about the use of metaphors and similes? | |

| | |

|Do you find these devices helpful in reading and writing poetry? | |

| | |

Special notes and Reminders to myself

Make sure that students bring their poems to class!

Materials and Resources needed

25 copies of Metaphors by Sylvia Plath

25 copies of the rules of metaphors and similes

A computer to play the YouTube theme song from Rocky.

A rubric for the host teacher the teacher that is the judge.

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs can still participate and be divided into groups along with other classmates.

Assessment of Student Learning

Students will be judged according to the rubric that they were provided. I will figure out the grade of the students baed on the teacher-acting as judge and my own rubric scores.

Reflection on or Evaluation of Lesson

I will have the students write about this experience in a self-reflection piece in their writer’s notebooks.

Metaphors

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,

An elephant, a ponderous house,

A melon strolling on two tendrils.

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.

Money's new-minted in this fat purse.

I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.

I've eaten a bag of green apples,

Boarded the train there's no getting off.

()

Rules for Similes

Similes compare two things by association which are not like each other but which, when used, can make the meaning via the association more descriptive. They do this by using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. They can also be used where the association is stated either implicitly or explicitly. Thereby, they can be used in a way that leaves the reader in no doubt of what the author is trying to convey or, in some instances, the author may prefer to use a simile which can be open to interpretation by the reader which, therefore means that different readers may have different connotations of what the author is trying to say and that might be the intention of the author .

Examples:

1.

2.

3.

Rules for Metaphors

Metaphors are also used in a similar fashion to similes in that they make comparisons. However, where a simile points to similarities between different concepts, a metaphor draws a direct parallel.

Here is an example of the use of a metaphor:

• “As he told her that their relationship was over, she felt the singe of rejection burning inside her.” - Here, although we know that there was no singeing or burning going on, the description conveys the deep sense of emotional pain she was feeling when he told her that the relationship was over.

There are also many different types of metaphors and the way we use them. For example, the use of living and dead metaphors whereby the example above could be considered to be a living metaphor whereas phrases like “you are my world” or “it took a few drinks to break the ice” would be considered as examples of dead metaphors whereby the visual transfer of an image presented by the metaphor is not as easy to picture and our sense of meaning of it is more associated with our understanding of the phrase.

Examples:

1.

2.

3.

()

Youth Activism: Making Sense Out of Change

Local, Non-Profit Organization Brochures

Writing Task:

You will remain with the non-profit organization that you used for your research project. You will be using the data that you collected to integrate into a brochure for the chosen organization.

Purpose and Audience

The purpose of this assignment is to allow you an active role in alleviating a societal problem. You are activists who are promoting a cause that you care about, and you are benefitting an organization that does not have a significant amount of funding to promote their events/organization. This assignment is also working on a specific genre: brochures. Writing in various genres allows you to expand your knowledge and test out unchartered waters as well as use creativity within the classroom. The audience is going to be the general public; be sure to use formal writing skills and remember who your audience is!

Format

You will be writing in the brochure genre. There are specific criteria for brochures layouts that you will have to follow in order to effectively complete this task. Be sure to include effective images that convey meaning in your brochure.

Checklist

Be sure to check off/answer the following in order to show completeness for the task. This list will also be used for peer review.

1. Are the images used to convey meaning? If yes. What is the meaning?

2. Was the format for a brochure used?

3. Which characteristics of a brochure were used? Where in the brochure were they used?

4. Does the brochure include statistics and figures for the chosen organization? Where is this located?

5. Is there information from the research paper included within the brochure? If yes, what information was included?

6. Does the brochure include facts only?

7. How did the students avoid plagiarism on the brochures for images and quotes?

8. Are the front and back covers easy to read and appealing to the eye? If not, how can they become catchier?

9. Is the brochure quick and easy to read? If not, how can this be improved?

10. Is the logo of the organization on the front of the brochure?

11. Is the organization information located on the back cover of the brochure?

12. Did the organization approve the brochure? If not, why?

13. What is the best part about the brochure?

14. What could be improved in the brochure?

Due Dates

Organization chart for brochure 2/14

Class Review/1st draft of brochure (done on Publisher) 2/18

2nd Draft/Submission to Advisor from Non-Profit Organization 2/22

Final draft 2/24

Presentations to classmates/Non-Profit Organization Advisors 2/24

Presentation to Middle School Classes 2/26

*Important Reminder: You must add your brochure to the Wiki by 2/24

Rubric for Non-Profit Organization Brochures

| |5 |4 |3 |2 |1 |

| |Excellent |Above Average |Satisfactory |Unsatisfactory |Poor |

|Organization |An exceptional brochure |A good brochure: |An OK brochure: the |The brochure does not |The brochure does |

| |with catchy cover, |usually easy to |cover is not catchy,|meet the requirements: |not meet any of the|

| |statistics and figures on|read, catchy cover, |there format has not|not easily readable, |requirements: |

| |the inside, and |information on back |been followed as |several violations of |format (front, |

| |organization information |panel, and |specified in one |format (front, back, |back, folds); no |

| |on the back cover; easy |information from |location (front, |folds); may have catchy|catchy cover, and |

| |to read. |research paper |back, folds) |front cover |not easy to read. |

| | |within the folds. | | | |

|Elements/Literary Devices |Brochure uses facts only;|Brochure uses facts |Brochure uses mostly|Brochure uses only a |Brochure does not |

| |elements of persuasion |only, elements of |facts, elements of |few facts; elements of |use facts and/or |

| |are used correctly and |persuasion are used |persuasion are used |persuasion are only |does not include |

| |often. |a couple of times. |a couple of times. |used once or twice. |elements of |

| | | | | |persuasion. |

|Voice (Audience) |The brochure addresses |The brochure |The brochure |The brochure is not |The brochure is not|

| |the general public. |addresses the |addresses the |appropriate for the |appropriate for the|

| | |general public. |general public |general public. |general public. |

|Mechanics |No errors; correct |There are less than |There are more than |There are many errors; |There are many |

| |grammar and sentence |three errors, |three errors, |grammar and/or sentence|errors; grammar and|

| |structure. |grammar and sentence|occasional grammar |structures are |sentence structure |

| | |structure are |and sentence |occasionally used |are consistently |

| | |correct. |structure mistakes |incorrectly. |used incorrectly. |

|Meaning |The visual meaning is |The visual meaning |The visual meaning |The visual meaning |The visual meaning |

| |clearly conveyed through |is usually conveyed |is sometimes |usually uses |is inappropriate |

| |appropriate images. |through appropriate |conveyed through |inappropriate images |and does not convey|

| | |images. |appropriate images. |that do not convey a |meaning that |

| |The writing conveys a | | |meaning that matches |matches the purpose|

| |clear and concise |The writing conveys |The writing does not|the brochure. |of the brochure. |

| |meaning. |a clear and concise |always clearly | | |

| | |meaning. |convey the meaning |The writing is not |The writing is not |

| | | |or purpose. |always clear and |clear and does not |

| | | | |concise and does not |convey meaning |

| | | | |always match the |matching the |

| | | | |meaning of the |purpose of the |

| | | | |brochure. |brochure. |

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Djebar, Assia. “There is No Exile.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 420-430. Print.

Ezekiel, Nissim. “In India.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 568-570. Print.

Fiasco, Lupe. “Conflict Diamonds Lyrics.” , Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Fiasco, Lupe. Conflict Diamonds. , 2007. Video.

“How to Effectively Use Similes and Metaphors in Your Writing.” ExploreWriting.co., Explore Writing, 2009. Web. 9 Dec. 2009.

Louis Project: The Unrepentant Marxist. Louiseproject.. 1 June 2008. Web. 24 Oct, 2009.

MIA. “Paper Planes Lyrics.” , 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Neto, Agostinho. “Western Civilizations.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 287. Print.

Niemoller, Martin. First They Came. Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. 1959. Keynote Address.

Okara, Gabriel. “Once Upon a Time.” Global Voices. Ed. Arthur Biddle. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Blair Press, 1995. 332-333. Print.

Plath, Sylvia. “Metaphors.” . American Poems, 5 March 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

“Public Speaking and Persuasion – Improve Your School.” . Teahers Domain. 2009. Web. 9 Dec. 2009.

Seeger, Peter. “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy Lyrics.” Allthelyrics.co. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

“The Tank Man.” China Digital . 1989. China News Tagged with 1989 Protests. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement. The National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

“Youth Activism.” . Legacy. 2009. Web. 9 Dec. 2009.

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