Artifact # 3
This is a social studies lesson plan on early American colonization, designed to fit in/relate to the Literature Circles unit.
Context
I designed this lesson plan during the block semester of my teacher
education at Appalachian State University in the spring of 2001. It was
an individual effort, though I shared it with my class.
Impact
This lesson will be a wonderful launch activity for an elementary unit
on the Thirteen Colonies. It asks students to create their own colony
in a cooperative group and requires them to make decisions together that
concern everyone. Therefore, it could easily be modified to meet a number
of social studies goals related to governments or economic issues.
Alignment
Upon researching this period of history through a variety of media,
I was able to create a lesson based on my knowledge of the subject matter.
Much thought went into how the lesson would be carried out and I decided
that each group should act as a community to make decisions. The
lesson is also based on the curricular goals outlined by the North Carolina
Standard Course of Study (INTASC #7).
The group dynamic of the activity is modeled after the actual decision-making
process that colonists went through, and that simulation helps the students
make a connection to that time period. In this way, the lesson is meaningful
for them because they place themselves in another time through discussion
and creation. (INTASC #1). In planning
this lesson, I looked at several lesson plans on the Internet to help me
choose a format that lent itself to this particular activity (Tech.
Competency 10.3). These included
www.askeric.org
and www.yahooligans.com The lesson
begins with students working as individuals and then builds on that work
in a cooperative group. The groups are obliged to interact socially in
a positive way to make decisions for their project. I was deliberate
in choosing this structure because I wanted the students to experience
the differences between individual and group work and to discover how to
deal with the problems that arise. This process is reflective of
the creating and governing processes that they will be studying with the
Thirteen Colonies and will help them to understand the colonists’ point
of view (INTASC #5).