L1+Aceto,+Jason

Teacher’s name: Jason Aceto Date of lesson: 1 Grade Level: 6-8 Topic: ** Examining the importance of source biases ** // Maine // //Learning Results:// Social Studies-E.History E1 //Historical knowledge, concepts, themes and patterns//. Grade 6-8 "The Expansion and Interaction of Civilizations, 600CE-1450CE" //Students understand major eras, major enduring themes, and historic influences in the history of the various regions of the world.// b. Identify and analyze major historic eras, major historical eras, major enduring themes, turning points, events, consequences, and people in the history of the various regions of the world.
 * Objectives: **** Student will understand that ** ** the expansion of European civilizations led to the demise of influential indigenous cultures in the western hemisphere. **
 * Student will know ** important Spanish and Aztec rulers, crucial battles, bargains, conquests.
 * Student will be able ** ** to ** critique information about this time period and evaluate its objectivity.
 * Maine **** Learning Results Alignment: **
 * Rationale:**** This learning result can give us a great starting point to analyze the events, turning points, etc and interpret the biases in the accounts. **

** I will have the students fill out self-assessment questionnaires before they form their groups. This will help me to see what they already know about the Aztec/Spanish interactions and what else they need to know. After they fill these sheets out, I will go over their responses with the entire class. The class will them split into groups and filter through a variety of sources such as books, pictures, and websites to decipher the information in this unit. ****
 * Assessment: **
 * Formative **** (Assessment for Learning) **

** Students will choose a character, either Aztec or Spanish, and they will create a blog about their character and give details about events during the interactions between civilizations from their character’s point of view. Students will be able to comment on the blogs of their peers and give feedback on their information, but must remain in the guise of their character. ** This lesson will integrate type II technology in the form of the blogging product that each student will be required to produce. This will constitute as a type II technology because each class member will be able to make comments on the blog and give the writer feedback for future products. The integration of other subject will come in the form of a focus on writing and reading skills from English classes. Also, creative writing and story building are some other skills that will be utilized from English classes. These skills will be useful as they will reinforce the learning that the students are already receiving in their English courses. Aside from their English skills, students will be thinking in an orderly and sequential way while creating their characters and discussing Aztec culture, therefore math skills will come into play in this assignment. Students will enter the class and there will be a box sitting on the front table of the room. They will pick a slip of paper out of the hat and it will read either “Spanish” or “Aztec”. This will first off give the students an idea as to whether or not they will be in either one of the groups. Next, I will have each group of Spanish and Aztec students to count off by four. This will then group each society into two groups of four or five. Once the Spanish and Aztecs have their two groups formed, they will move to one of the four tables in the room and proceed to move these tables into a new area that will allow them to be separate from other groups in order to maximize the quality of their work. They will be able to concentrate on their group work in a better fashion if the tables are separated and limit distractions. Linguistic - students will be writing and reading while creating their graphic organizers and while creating their blogs. Logical - students will be creating factual information about their character such as name, age, birth place, occupation etc. Spatial - students will be working with pictures detailing the Aztec/Spanish conflict which will enable these students to derive critical information about this topic through a different medium. Bodily-kinesthetic - students will be using the computer to create and to edit their blogs. Musical - Students will be allowed to utilize traditional Aztec or Spanish music from the time period to enhance their blogs. Intrapersonal - Students will be working independently on their blogs. Interpersonal - Students will be working in groups and sharing their research amongst their peers. Naturalist – Students will be able to go describe the environment where they live, such as the jungle or in a rural village. To meet the needs of all students, I will encourage them to look for various mediums in their sources. Each student will be given the opportunity to discuss and work with their group members to answer questions or clarify information. Also, to accommodate any IEP’s, 504’s, or ELLIDEP’s I will review the needs of the given student and provide an alternative that will suite their learning style. An example of this would be to encourage a student with a low reading level to have their laptop read the information back to them, which will allow them to retain more of the content and allow them to participate fully. Students will be asked to write an additional write-up on their blogs which will compare the accounts of the Aztec/Spanish conflict to accounts from soldiers in the Iraq War. This will make a real world connection between what this ancient cultural clash has to do with similar conflicts today. The examining of source biases in the accounts of both conflicts will allow for higher order thinking by the students and give them a real world connection which will make the content more meaningful. I expect that this work will be additional to the main product, and would only encourage my students to undertake this extra work if they had extra time or finished their primary product early. I personally will have to gather resources to prepare for this lesson which will give students examples of Aztec culture as well as uncovering accounts of the Spanish opinions of the Aztecs. Also, I must collect resources as on the Spanish invasion and research how it influenced the Aztec culture which will help me conduct an overview at the beginning of class. During the research portion of this lesson the students will be using their text books and internet search engines to uncover more information and to get ideas as to how they want to create their character and what they would like to write about. In terms of how technology will be used, it will be imperative that I instruct them as to how they will be setting up the blogger.com accounts. As I have set up blogger.com account before it will be very easy for me to assist students in their account making. -- Pre-Assessment Sheets Project Description Handout Wireless Internet Network Story Map Graphic Organizer LCD Projector Self Evaluation Sheets http://www.tcr.org/tcr/essays/Web_Conquest.pdf a .pdf file about the Spanish invasion of the Aztec Empire http://www.crystalinks.com/azteculture.html a helpful website all about Aztec culture before the Spanish invasion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_Mexico a great overview of the conquest and how it changed Aztec culture. The students will enter the room and find the class set up with the usual two tables slid together in the back of the class, and two tables up front angled inward on the right and left hand side of the class. On the teacher’s workplace in the front of the class, there will be a small box with 16 slips of paper inside that are evenly labeled either Aztec or Spanish. When the students enter the teacher will instruct them to to chose one of the slips of paper and stand at the back of the room once they have done so. While the teacher’s desk may be located at the back of the class, the teacher will be giving instruction primarily from the small desk in the font of the class which will hold the LCD projector that the teacher will use to display the various handouts. Welcome Hook (Hook (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-qqHyu0rGg&feature=related) Divide class up according to their roles: Aztec/Spanish  Lesson Introduction  Handout pre-assessment  Handout project guidelines  Students collect materials and move tables to group workspaces  Handout product rubric along with the final self evaluation  Allow the remainder of class to be spent researching.  Check in with groups   Send students to their next class  The students will enter the room and take a slip of paper from the box in the front of the room. Once each student has selected a role from the box, the class will be divided in half based on whether they have an Aztec or Spanish role. Once this has happened, they will move to opposite sides of the room and seat themselves amongst their fellow Aztecs or Spaniards. I will then welcome all of the students and the briefly explain that we will be starting a new lesson that will discuss Aztec culture and how it was changed through the Spanish Invasion. It will be important to make them aware that during this lesson each student understands that they are now in the role of either an Aztec or a Spaniard and must research accordingly. I will then show them a brief video explaining an example of how the Aztec culture was changed by the Spanish arrival through a timeline of the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire. This will then help to engage students so I may begin my introduction to the lesson by informing them that through this cross cultural clash, an ancient culture was broken down and reshaped through this struggle. Next, I will ask the students to consider that if one cross cultural clash could create such a drastic change in an indigenous culture, could something like this still occur today? I will ask them to consider throughout this lesson, the fact that we are currently involved in a cross cultural clash in the War in Iraq and our own involvement in this region is changing the culture of the Iraqi people in a similar way to the Spanish. Our own cultural practices and beliefs are re-shaping the daily life of Arabs in Iraq due largely because of our own invasion of their land. As students ponder this question and research from their respective view points, the students will understand the major historical influences and enduring themes from this ancient culture and their cultural conflict relate them to our own modern day society. **Where, Why, What, Hook, Tailor: Intrapersonal, Linguistic and Visual (10 minutes)** Next, I will explain that in this lesson there will be two different opinions being researched. The students in the Spanish groups will be researching the Spanish invasion of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish perspective. The Aztec group will have to research the culture and daily life of Aztec civilians and also, how the Spanish invasion changed their practices and beliefs. The students will then be given pre-assessment questionnaires that will ask very general questions about this topic. The two groups will be researching this information in order to complete their product of a creative blog that is written from the perspective of a character they have created. Their character must be either Spanish or an Aztec based on what group they are in and should be authentic in every way. This will stretch their creativity and how well they researched the information about their society. Once I have explained the expectations for the final product I will ask the students to quietly fill out this worksheet and flip them over once they have finished. One they are all completed, I will collect them from the students and explain that they will not be graded on this assignment, only that these sheets will be used to show them how and what they have learned during this lesson. Once the students have finished with their pre-assessments I will handout their graphic organizer which they will use to record any information vital to their final product. After filling out the pre-assessment questionnaires I will allow each group to obtain their textbooks and laptops to prepare for their research. Each group will have their own tables which they must move to another part of the room to use as their personal workspace which will allow minimal distractions between groups. I will make sure that each group understands that each individual works equally during the group research. This will ensure that all may come to understand the major enduring themes and historical influences while also understanding that the culture of their society was either changed or made an impact on another culture through this conflict. I will explain to the students that through this lesson I will expect the students to be able to understand the connection between cross cultural conflicts between the Aztec and Spanish and the issues surrounding the War in Iraq. Before setting the students to work, I will remind them that they must use their critical thinking skills when looking through the internet for information on this topic and to try and decipher what is appropriate information for their final product. Also, it will be important to remind students that when they have finished researching that they must try and think creatively about how they could create a fictional character and include their research from class Finally, I will set them to work on their research and make my rounds about the classroom to observe the groups work on their graphic organizers and begin to construct their products. . To assess my students I will be giving them a final product rubric that will inform the students that they must follow the criteria listed in the rubric in order to achieve the highest mark possible. This will give my students a clear understanding of what I expect from them and what their product must entail. The final self evaluation will be explained as part of their grade and I will explain that these evaluations should be a reflection on how the student felt that they worked on this product and what they learned. I will explain to them that each group member must participate equally and that through my observations I will be grading them on participation and their efforts during the group research. At the end of class I will make a quick check in with each student to help them assess what is left for them to do in order to complete their blog. If need be, they may only have to write their blog for homework, while other individuals may have to stay after school or come in during recess if they are behind with their research or are having any sort of difficulties. It is important for them to know that I will be prompt and available if they need any help or need to discuss an extension. Finally, once all the students have been check up on, I will allow the students to pack up their belongings and head on to their next class.
 * Summative** **** (Assessment of Learning) **
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 * Differentiated Instruction: **
 * Modifications/Accommodation: **
 * Extensions **
 * Materials, Resources and Technology: **
 * Source for lesson plan and research: **
 * Maine **** Standards for Initial Teacher Certification and rationale: **
 * // Standard 3 - Demonstrates a knowledge of the diverse ways in which students learn and develop by providing learning opportunities that support their intellectual, physical, emotional, social, and cultural development. //**
 * Rationale ** : This lesson meets the Maine Standards for Initial teacher certification by taking into a consideration that students learn in different ways and providing them with different learning opportunities. Students are asked to be creative and use their own personal discretion as to what kind of information they want to include in their final products. Students will also be following the product rubric to create their blogs and must stay organized and efficient in their research. Students are also provided with a safe and comfortable learning environment. Any mistreatment or disrespectful attitudes will not be allowed and will be discouraged as they not only are disrespectful to others, but they also disrespect the learning environment.
 * // • Standard 4 - Plans instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students,  curriculum goals, and learning and development theory. //**
 * Rationale ** : This lesson meets the Maine Standards for Initial teacher certification by providing students with the proper information they need to complete this project. Students will be introduced to Aztec culture as well as the Spanish invasion which will give them as inside look into one of the most important cultural conflicts in history. The students will also be made to think and make modern day connections to this topic by looking at accounts from the War in Iraq and think about how it compares to the cultural clash between the Aztec and Spanish societies. This allows students to make a deeper connection to the subject matter by applying it to their every day life, while still reaching the goals set out in the MLR for this unit.
 * // • Standard 5 - Understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies and appropriate technology to meet students’ needs. //**
 * Rationale ** : This lesson meets the Maine Standards for Initial teacher certification by meeting the needs of eight different learning strategies. These eight strategies include linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, logical, and spatial. The students will also be utilizing a type II technology in the form of their blogger.com accounts which will aid in creating their final product which will also help reach students with various learning styles. Each student will be accommodated because their final products will be a creative story which is of their own design.
 * // • Standard 8 - Understands and uses a variety of formal and informal assessment  strategies to evaluate and support the development of the learner. //**
 * Rationale ** : This lesson meets the Maine Standards for Initial teacher certification by assessing students in many different ways and by a variety of individuals. Each member of the general Aztec or Spanish groups will be expected to participate fully in the research and collaborative efforts before branching out into individual work. The students will be assessed on this area of the lesson by filling out self evaluation sheets which will ask questions about the research portion of the lesson. I will also be assessing their effort and participation by circulating the room and observing each student. Students will also be evaluated on the overall quality of their final product. The teacher will go through the rubric and assess whether or not each student has hit the required benchmarks in order to receive a certain score on their product. Students will be given this product rubric when they first begin and will be able to reference this in order to understand what will be necessary to receive the highest possible score.
 * Teaching and Learning Sequence: **
 * Agenda: **
 * Equip, Explore, Rethink, Tailors: Visual, Linguistic, Intrapersonal (20 minutes) **
 * Explore, Experience, Rethink, Revise, Refine, Tailors: Interpersonal, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, Visual, Linguistic, Naturalist. (45 minutes) **
 * Evaluate, Tailor: Interpersonal, Spatial, Visual, Linguistic (5 minutes) **