History-Social Science Exemplar

Big Ideas / Skills & Standards / Student Family Knowledge / Assessment (Formative & Summative) / Instructional Components / Resources & Materials
What are the enduring understandings/ essential questions to be addressed? / What important skills/standards will students learn, practice, or apply? / How will you draw on students’ ideas, interests and experiences to connect students to the big ideas? / What is meaningful evidence that students have understood the big ideas and reached proficiency on the skills/standards? / What instructional practices and strategies will support students to meet the standards and grasp the big ideas? / What resources will best convey the big ideas and concepts to support skill attainment?
How do changes in thinking change views on government and society?
Is the Enlightenment still important to us today? / SWBAT:
Define and comprehend vocabulary
Content Standards:
10.2.1Compare the major ideas of philosophers and their effects on the democratic revolutions in England, the United States, France, and Latin America
SWBAT:
1. Interpret and compare Enlightenment philosophical ideas on government
2. Compare Enlightenment ideas to Medieval views of society.
3. Predict (with justification) enlightenment factors that influenced the American Revolution
10.2.2List the principles of the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights (1689), the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the US Bill of Rights.
SWBAT:
1. Correlate components of Dec of Ind. and Const. to enlightenment ideas. / Specific to Unit
Brainstorm definitions: students list everything that comes to mind about the term “govern”
Link root word: light = brightening. Turn the lights off in classroom; show students that turning on lights brightens the room much like the ideas would brighten society.
Classroom analogy: what enlightened ideas would look like if they existed in the class.
Relation to pets: do they want a pet to have something to take care of or to have something to entertain them?
KWL chart on American Revolution
Throughout Year
Ice breaker: having students introduce themselves to me, sharing their interests. / Formative Assessment
Lesson One:

Vocabulary note cards: look over note cards that were to be completed for homework. Are students using terms correctly
Group activity: students have rough draft checked by you before working on poster.

Lesson Two:

Informal: have students volunteer what each idea would look like as a class.
Collect graphic organizer on Medieval (review)vs. Enlightenment

Lesson Three:

Informal: have students relate their answers to what type of despots were enlightened

Lesson Four

Vocabulary Note Cards
KWL
Quick write, predict which enlightenment ideas will influence the American revolution.

Lesson Five

Collect responses to identifying ideas

Summative
Exam: multiple choice ?’s and short responses.

What were the enlightenment ideas
How did they change society

KWL – completed with what they have learned. / Lesson One:

Vocabulary note cards – define, give examples, and illustrate different terms on the Enlightenment.
Brainstorm the word “govern”
Mini-lecture on Enlightenment: go over meaning of “enlighten” and how scientific ideas will apply to society
Group Activity: Jigsaw- group becomes expert on a philosopher and their views on the purpose of government. Group also prepares a poster to share to the class.

Lesson Two:

Students present posters to class while classmates fill out information on a graphic organizer chart.
As a class, go over what each idea would look like in the government of the class.
Students complete graphic organizer comparing medieval and enlightenment (right to govern, government powers)

Lesson Three:

Mini-lecture on spread of enlightenment
Have students describe their relation to pets. Do they serve their pet or does their pet serve them? Write students input on question on the board, separating reasons that relate to medieval despots vs. enlightened depots. Since the students have not identified which one is which, have them decide which view is enlightened and which is not.

Lesson Four:

Vocabulary note cards
KWL chart on American Revolution
Mini lecture on hostilities between England and its American colonies.
Using their GO on enlightened philosophers, have students write a short response as to which Enlightenment views are going to be called into question as a result of tension.

Lesson Five:

Select a number of quotes from Dec. of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights that represent enlightened views.
Have students individually identify the enlightened view that corresponds to the quote.

/ Materials

White board and dry erase markers
Butcher paper and markers
Graphic organizer on philosophers, medieval vs. enlightenment
Note cards

Standards

CA Social Science standards

Texts

McDougal Littell. (1999) Modern World History: Patterns of Interaction
Short biographies on philosophers

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Rationale of Unit

The essential questions used in this unit prepare students to engage in learning about the Enlightenment. They reflect most, if not all of Wiggins’ requirements for essential questions. First, they are open ended. All though the lessons in this unit may guide students to one particular answer, the question is still open enough that there is not one answer. The second question is very open ended in that students will have the final say as to whether the enlightenment is important or not. On that same note, the second question is also a higher order question. It will require students to synthesize what they have learned and apply it to their understanding of their lives. These questions are also effective in that they recur. Although the first question may not recur in its exact form, the concept of ideas changing society is a constant theme of history. Also, over the next few units, Enlightenment ideas will constantly resurface and thus students will evaluate its contributions to society and to themselves. Finally, both of these questions link fairly well to each other. They can also be easily linked to previous essential questions (i.e. Greek and Roman ideas) and future essential questions (i.e. enlightenment and its effect on the revolutions).

The skills and standards addressed in this unit also help support students’ learning. The content standards are fairly clear as to what the students are expected to do. Both standards covered in this unit are stated as measurable objectives. Many of the objectives covered in this unit are useful for students. Considering that many of the ideas of the Enlightenment are still present in our society and government, it is important to understand these ideas in order to be critical of them now and as adults. This also implies that the learning will be durable, assuming the students will become active citizens in society. Also, some of the objectives have students comparing and contrasting topics. In life, this skill will constantly resurface. Thus, any experience in comparing they obtain now can hopefully be transferred to other disciplines or activities. The skills also have a broad range on Bloom’s levels. Students are expected to understand basic definitions of concepts covered. In addition, they are then expected to compare topics, apply different view points, and predict possible results. Covering these goals also helps students address the essential questions. For example, students should witness certain changes in government as a result of the Enlightenment. Thus, these changes can be used as evidence in answering the essential question.

Being that this unit is intended for a SDAIE world history class, it is quite important that I fully understand the students for whom it is intended. Being that most have recently immigrated to the US, they possess a different set of cultural knowledge from the mainstream. Their difficulties in using the English language are not the only obstacleI have to consider as a teacher. They also come in with a different set of prior knowledge. Thus, I cannot relate the content to mainstream topics and expect students to completely understand the relevance to history. That is why I take several steps to ensure I know the best methods to help each student learn. For example, many of the standards ask students to cover concepts such as government. By this level, one can expect most students to understand what it means to govern. However, SDAIE students might simply have heard of the word, but not really grasped the concept. That is why I usually have students brainstorm the meaning of words. Through this, we work with what they know about the vocabulary and build meaning into the term. I also have the students build meaning by modeling words. The example in this unit is the word “enlightenment”. Although some students can understand a textbook definition of the term, they still might not really grasp the full meaning of the word. Thus, to counter confusion, I have the students identify the root of the word (light). By turning the lights in the room on and off, the students witness that light improves our condition in the room. This is then used to show that enlightenment ideas improve the condition of society. Being that the students come from very different backgrounds, there are few situations in their lives I can use as an analogy. Thus, I use something they are all most likely familiar with, school rules. Through this, I have students understand the notion of who is in control under different situations. I also use the experience of owning (or wanting to own) a pet to compare to ruling over people as a despot. Finally, since most have not been in the country for long, it is very unlikely that they have been exposed to US history and the American Revolution. Thus, through a KWL chart, I can assess what they know and what interests they have on the topic.

In determining whether students understand the content, students will complete several different types of assessments. Most of the unit is laced with formative assessments. For example, I plan on constantly assessing students informally. On two occasions, I will especially focus on assessing them informally by listening to their input during class discussions. This is helpful because it provides quick feedback for the students and me. If they are having difficulty answering questions, then they realize that they need to work more to grasp concepts and I realize that I need to help them more. Unfortunately, these assessments are not very reliable. For one, I will not be able to test everyone’s abilities to cover all the concepts covered in the assessment. Thus, I risk overlooking someone who may understand one concept and provide a decent example of it while not grasping other terms or concepts. Other formative assessments are more formal. For example, students submit vocabulary note cards that demonstrate their understanding of vocabulary. If it appears that the student does not understand the terms, I mark which terms need revisions and allow the student to revise. If the student is still unable to define term, I then scaffold by using examples or analogies. This assessment also helps me determine if I should proceed further into the lesson or if I need to spend more time on vocabulary. Another way to use assessments to plan learning is by checking the rough drafts. Since I expect students to inform the rest of the class about their particular philosopher, I must ensure they fully understand the philosopher. Thus, by reviewing a rough draft of the information they wish to present, I am able to see if the students could adequately perform the task of reading the biographies and determining their views on government. If not, I provide guiding questions to help students better summarize their philosopher. Students are also assessed on their abilities to compare topics using a graphic organizer. These assessments are usually directly representative of the objectives and help students address them. Also, the graphic organizers seem adequately valid, standardized, and practical. However, reliability becomes a concern if students have difficulty recalling information about the medieval period. In general, validity becomes a concern in a few assessments. For instance, the poster presentation may only show students abilities to find answers in text and copy down what they are told to copy from the presentations. Also, the informal assessments might not be valid in that students may understand the analogy but not the content it is intended to describe.

In order to measure what students have learned throughout the unit, I also intend on using two summative assessments. Of course, I will use a typical pen and paper unit test consisting of multiple choice questions and short responses. The different objectives will be addressed by both types of questions. One reason for including multiple choice questions is to eliminate complete subjectivity of my grading. The results is that the multiple choice section of the test is reliable as the variety of responses are limited. Validity in this type of assessment might be negatively affected in the short response section. Since the students are at different levels in terms of their English abilities, some may have difficulty responding to questions because they may not fully understand what the question is asking or cannot adequately provide short answer responses (language difficulty). Instead of testing their history abilities, I have tested their abilities to read, which they may fail. If I notice a huge discrepancy between correct responses in the multiple choice section and the short answer section, I will probably have to reevaluate to score given to the student. My other choice for a summative assessment is to have students complete the KWL chart. This assessment is practical in that I only have to read their responses. However, it is not really valid in that students may not be motivated to provide extensive summaries as to what they learned and thus leave me thinking that they learned very little.

In order to perform on the assessments, I have prepared several tasks to aid students. One important task that will help students perform is completing the graphic organizers. Since this unit and standards covers a lot of information, it is important to help students organize the information. Due to difficulties in language, the GO’s can also help structure responses to assessments. Most of these activities also provide situations to assess the students. This is crucial when dealing with SDAIE students. As mentioned before, if they do not grasp initial activities, subsequent activities will be pointless.

Finally, the unit is definitely guided by the curriculum I use. However, some factors in this curriculum inhibit the ability for the students to learn. For example, these students are expected to meet the content standards by the end of the tenth grade. However, the content standards assume that the students have acquired the skills and knowledge of previous years of schooling in California. Considering that SDAIE students have recently immigrated to the US, there is a small chance that they have not been taught the previous years’ standards. Another problem in the curriculum is the textbook they are expected to read as its reading level is far above the abilities of the students. Fortunately, to combat this problem, I was able to collect biographies on enlightened thinkers written at lower reading levels.

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