Lesson Plan for Henrico 21 Awards

Teacher Name: Paul CassimusCollaborators: ITRT/LibrariansLesson Title: In Someone Else’s ShoesTarget Grade/Subject: 8th Grade/Foundations of Spanish B (Spanish I)Length: 2 weeks

Summary: Before beginning a research project to explore the way of life in countries such as Bolivia, Mexico, El Salvador, and others, students will watch a powerful and moving documentary about a 14 year old child in Bolivia who is the main bread-winner of a family of 4. Afterwards, students will begin investigating the lives of people in Central and South American countries to compare how life might be for the average person specific countries in those regions. Students will make comparisons in things like Gross Domestic Product, Per Capita Income, cost of common items, cost of luxuries, and more between the country they are researching and the United States of America. In order to do this, students will learn to convert foreign currency in order to make accurate comparisons. Students will share their research with the class and will write a brief essay (in English) to reflect on what they have discovered and their own lives in the United States.

Essential questions or objectives: What is life like for children of your age who live in Mexico, Central America, or

South America? How do economics impact the quality of life? Is poverty a function of politics or natural resources or both? To what extent does one’s economic situation affect the course of one’s life? Students will get a more global sense of what life is like outside of the US by

investigating the economics of their researched country.

SOL’sSI.7 The student will develop an awareness of perspectives, practices, and products of Spanish-speaking cultures.3. Identify some important historical and contemporary individuals associated with significant events from Spanish-speaking cultures.4. Identify some products of Spanish-speaking cultures, such as natural and manufactured items, creative and fine arts, forms of recreation and pastimes, dwellings, language, and symbols.

SI.8 The student will recognize that perspectives, practices, and products of Spanish-speaking cultures are interrelated.

SI.9 The student will connect information about the Spanish language and Spanish-speaking culture(s) with concepts studied in other subject areas.

2. Relate content from other subject areas to topics discussed in Spanish class, such as current events from Spanish-speaking countries or the influence of Spanish-speaking explorers and settlers on various regions of the United States.

SI.10 The student will demonstrate understanding of the significance of culture through comparisons between Spanish-speaking cultures and the cultures of the United States.1. Compare patterns of behavior and interaction found in the United States with those of Spanish-speaking societies.2. Demonstrate an awareness that social practices and personal interactions differ among cultures.3. Demonstrate an awareness of unique elements of the student’s own culture.

Resources:Technology: DVD player, The Devil’s Miner DVD, laptops, access to Google docs, internet, television, Web 2.0 presentation tools, or projector, handheld calculators (optional)

Lesson Development:Process/Tasks:

Introduction: 1. A week prior to lesson, distribute permission slips to students for watching the DVD.2. Form/establish student teams prior to watching the DVD.

Part I1. Begin the lesson using a class discussion board to allow students to consider the

following questions. Students will first post information about their personal experiences (before watching documentary) and then compare and contrast it with Basilio’s experiences.

What is your real-world? Think about your daily life. Think about what you do on a regular basis. You go to school, you may participate in extra-curricular activities, play sports, hang out with friends, eat out in restaurants. Think about the struggles in your life. Maybe you get a low grade on a quiz, maybe you get in a fight with a friends. Finally, think about your role in society. What do you contribute, what are you strong qualities?

2. After the class discussion (virtual and real-time) about the topics above, the teacher will ask students to go back to the discussion board and define the word “documentary”. Based on the responses additional discussions will take place and/or a review of “everyday research in the virtual world” will be used as a teachable moment. Once the term has properly been defined, students will be introduced to the video.

3. In this video, we are going to take a look at a student who is the same age as you who probably lives a much different life than what you’re used to. As you watch this documentary think about the answers you posted to the class discussion board as

well as your classmates posts and think about how your lives compare and/or contrast with what you see in the documentary.

4. Play “The Devil’s Miner” DVD (runtime 81 minutes). As the students watch the video they will use the same chart from above to make notes about Basilio’s (student in documentary) experiences and compare and contrast their daily lives.

5. At the conclusion of the video the teacher should facilitate a class discussion using comments from the discussion board about students thoughts and feelings.

6. Invite students to make further connections and assumptions about what they just learned. Do they think that students their age in other countries have more common experiences with their lives or with Basilio’s? What about in specific Spanish speaking countries? Also invite students to consider why the filmmakers created this documentary about Basilio. This question will serve as the introduction to part II.

Part II1. Continue thoughts, discussion, and reflection from item #6 above. 2. Challenge students to consider why the documentary was created and how they can

also become active participants in sharing information about students in Spanish speaking countries. After all they are studying this language so can they identify a reason why they as well as others may want to know this information?

3. Students will form collaborative teams and select a Spanish speaking country to research and find out more information about the experiences of students their age.

4. Student groups will select a country of interest. (examples: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Guatamala, Ecuador, Paraguay)

5. Student groups will work together to find, evaluate, and use information about their country. Student groups are responsible for working together to evaluate and ethically use the information they find. The teacher will remind groups of the process for finding and using information online, but no direct instruction will be offered on researching.

6. To help guide student/group work, the teacher will start a discussion about what type of information they think they may need. Student groups will use their own discussion board to post their ideas and formulate guiding questions about their country.

7. After the discussions and input from groups, the teacher will share a comparison of Bolivia and the United States to help inspire groups and share possible areas of interest.

Part III

1. Review information from Part I and Part II of the lesson2. Ask students about the process for working in teams. Do teams have roles within

the group? Why or why not? Facilitate group discussion about the possible roles and checks and balances that are needed to ensure all group members contribute equally and quality work. Also invite students to consider how they are going to share electronic work with group members (Google Docs, School Space, etc. – allow students to select the most appropriate tool according to their identified need).

3. In addition to talking about group roles, invite the students to contribute/create a component of the project rubric (hand out here).

4. Student groups will now start the research portion of the project. 5. Students will investigate the daily lives of the people living in their chosen country.6. As the research is being conducted, students will investigate various methods of

presenting their information (google website, glogster, movie maker, facebook profile (template provided), etc.) We will use www.xe.com as a source for accurate and updated conversion rates.

7. Students will use a class ePals account to access blog postings created by students from around the globe that describe what life is like for them in a variety of areas. This will be used as an additional resource to help students have a global context and perspective about how their “life” compares and contrasts with their peers around the world. http://www.epals.com/forums/131.aspxNote: In future implementations of this lesson we would like to have our student groups post their stories/information and make connections with students in South America. We recommend further investigating this component of the lesson if one chose to implement something similar.

8. Students will have two class periods to work on this part of the project. 9. After the research is conducted, students will need class time to collaborate and

make conclusions about what they found.

Part IV: Presentation Creation

1. Using the documentary as inspiration, student teams will work together to create an original work that effectively communicates information about the country they studied noting what they find to be the most relevant.

2. Students will use their information, conclusions, and other information along with relevant and appropriate pictures, images, and other media.

3. Student teams are responsible for working together to create a product that clearly conveys a message to others about their country (through a documentary style OR a novel way).

Part V: Presentations

1. Student teams will work together to creatively share their findings. 2. Teams will be expected to employ public speaking skills and strategies when

sharing projects with the group.3. Each group will submit their projects to the class dropbox and streamline all of the

resources so students can access as needed and the projects can be shared with other students in the Byrd Foreign Language/World Language community.

Part VI: Reflection1. Students will chose an essay topic from a list and write a page on that topic. This

part is to be done individually. Rubric will be provided.

Topics:

If you lived in your researched country, would you try to make a better life for yourself there or try and come to the USA? Use information from your research on your country to support your writing.

What would it be like to live in a country with little money and few opportunities for education and jobs? Use information from your research on your country to support your writing.

Write a narrative from the perspective of a student your own age in the country you researched.  Using information from your research, write about what a typical day might be like.  

2. After completing the essay students will use Wordle to create a text synopsis of their writing and include a reflection about their keywords and why they think their Wordle looks the way it does. Note: Wordle is an online tool that takes a bunch of text and creates word clouds. The most prevalent words appear the biggest in the word cloud.

Evaluation Procedure:Assessment of objectives: RUBRIC(s)

- Need one for presentation delivery - attached- Need one for the presentation-attached- Need one for essay - attached

TIPC Assessment:

Research and Information Fluency: Ideal/Target. The research topic is specific yet provides students with the opportunity to approach the research in a manner they deem fit. They are responsible for finding, evaluating, and using information they find from a variety of sources. They also have the opportunity to elaborate on their research and draw conclusions based on what they find.Communication and Collaboration: Ideal/Target. Communication and collaboration are essential to this lesson. They are communicating and collaborating with each other to assemble the research and data and evaluate it. They will then present and share this information with the class.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Approaching. Students are analyzing and comparing data in a way that will give them a good idea of what life is like for a citizen of a particular country. Furthermore, they will use math skills to draw the perspectives from economic numbers and convert foreign currency.

Creativity and Innovation: Ideal/Target. In the final portion of the group work, students will use various resources to creatively share their research. Students are provided with the opportunity to expand, to elaborate, and to go beyond the normal assignment. They get to work with classmates to determine the best tool to use to communicate their

information. The ideas listed above are merely suggestions, and the students will be encouraged to use any method they wish to present their material.

Name:_______________________________

4 3 2 1Length Presentation met

the expected time (5 minutes)

Presentation was short of the expected time (4-4:30 minutes)

Presentation was well short of the expected time (3-minutes)

Presentation was an unacceptable length (less than 3 minutes)

Research Information reflected proper research and clearly shows objective of research.

Information was adequate for presentation, but lacked clarity.

Information fell short of expectations.

Little to no information given.

Media/Visual Aid.

A proper tool was selected that effectively communicated research.

A proper tool to present research was selected but fell short of communicating all information.

Information was not clearly presented.

No visual aid was present.