UNIT/LESSON PLAN: ORDER AND CONTROL

DATE:
STAGE OF LESSON:Content Acquisition/Skill PracticeApplication/Challenge Summative Assessment
Content Purpose
  • Essential Questions:
  • What is Order, and how much control is necessary to maintain it?
  • What is the tragic flaw?
  • What does it mean to live in the “in-between”?
  • Unit Question:
  • What is Machiavelli’s construct ofOrder, and how much control does he believe a ruler should assert to preserve it?
  • According to Machiavelli, what is the tragic flaw of humanity?
  • According to Machiavelli, what does it mean to live in between the fox and the lion?
  • Unit Understanding:
  • Machiavelli equated Order with obedience. He advised rulers to assert absolute control over their subjects, given that people are by nature selfish and ungrateful. He argued that leaders should strike a balance between cunning and deceit (the fox) and strength and cruelty (the lion) in order to suppress opposition and maintain power.
/ Literacy Purposes
  • Annotate a primary text.
  • Use context clues to clarify terms and/or phrases within a text.
  • Extract main ideas and supporting details from a text.
  • Summarize a text.

LESSON PROGRESSION /
  1. HOOK/JUMP-START
  • Students begin with a 5-minute writing prompt, followed by brief table discussions [groups of 4] and then a short whole-class forum.
  • Prompt A: Freedom or Safety: Which is more important? Does government have a duty to preserve one over the other?
  • Prompt B: Imagine you are in a position of authority. Is it better to be feared or loved by those you are supposed to lead?

  1. INTRODUCTION OF PURPOSES and PROCESSES
  • Historical purpose: Make sense of Niccolo Machiavelli’s political ideology.
  • Literacy purposes: Read and annotate excerpts from Machiavelli’s The Prince. Clarify points of confusion, extract main ideas, and construct a concise summary of Machiavelli’s work.
  • Lesson process: Reciprocal teaching
  • Role 1: PREDICTION/READING. Student 1 predicts what the text will be about (based onheadings or prior content).
  • The predictor should also be the one who reads the section of text aloud for the group.
  • Role 2: QUESTIONS. Student 2 shares words that need to be defined and/or phrases that cause confusion.
  • Others may also share.
  • Role 3. CLARIFICATION. Student 3 facilitates a group effort to clarify any of the questionable terms or phrases.
  • Role 4. SUMMARY. Student 4 offers a summary of the main idea presented in the text.

LESSON PROGRESSION /
  1. NECESSARY MODELING PRIOR TO TEAM WORK
  • Access the reciprocal teaching strategy through video.
  • Teacher presents the following title: “Notes and Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus” [World Music Festival].
  • Teacher models his/her own predicting: “The title makes me think the video will have to do with music [Music Festival].”
  • Teacher models his/her own questioning: “Not sure what neurons means. Also confused by the phrase common chorus.”
  • Teacher asks if any students might clarify the word neurons and/or the phrase common chorus.
  • Based on student feedback, the teacher re-writes the title: “Music notes and the brain: In search of a common song.”
  • Teacher asks for student volunteers to re-predict what the video might be about.
  • Teacher explains that our predictions give us a purpose for examining the material, to see how accurate we are.
  • Teacher shows the video clip:
  • Teacher asks for groups to construct a summary of the video’s main idea in 20 words or less.
  • At this point, the process of reciprocal teaching should be more familiar for kids.
  • Now that students are more familiar with the strategy, the teacher should release them into an accessible text.
  • Use a poem written by the late hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur [alias: Makaveli].
  • Poem: “In the event of my demise” [
  • Teacher guides the release of students into the strategy.
  • Number the students within each group – 1, 2, 3, 4.
  • Ask the 2’s to stand up: “Are there words in the title that need to be defined or clarified?” [demise]
  • Ask the 3’s to stand up: “Can you clarify the meaning of any of the confusing words?” [death, end]
  • Ask the 1’s to stand up: “Make some predictions about what this poem might be about or say.”
  • Ask a volunteer from the 1’s to read the poem aloud. Instruct others to circle/underline confusing words/phrases.
  • Ask the 2’s to volunteer any confusing words or phrases.
  • Ask the 3’s to volunteer to clarify. [If none of the 3’s can clarify, then open it up to others for clarification.]
  • When all has been clarified, ask the 4’s to stand up: “Can you summarize the main idea of Tupac’s poem?”
  • Teacher explains that student groups will use the same strategy to try and make sense of a difficult primary text from the 1500s.
  • Teacher makes it clear that ROLES ROTATE from section to section.
  • Invite interested students to begin considering why Tupac Shakur might have adopted the alias Makaveli.

  1. PRODUCTIVE TEAM WORK + PTW OUTCOME (guided instruction takes place throughout this stage)
  • Student teams read and annotate excerpts from Machiavelli’s The Prince.
  • Outcome: After reading, annotating, and summarizing each section, team members should collaborate to produce a single group summary of Machiavelli’s work. The summary should address the three main unit questions (posted atop the lesson).
  • The teacher navigates from group to group, guiding instruction through clarifying questions and checks-for-understanding.

  1. INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT
  • Daily Exit Ticket options: a) How would Machiavelli respond to the jump-start questions that began the lesson? b) What advice would Niccolo Machiavelli give to contemporary artists (like Tupac) trying to achieve power within the music industry?
  • On-going assessment: Continue the reciprocal teaching process through the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. With an understanding of each man’s political ideology, students may juxtapose the three authors for comparing/contrasting purposes.