Fifth Grade Career Cluster Portfolio
Task: After researching websites and informational articles on a career area of choice, write an essay that describes a selected career. The description should include the training and education needed, work environment, potential salary and growth opportunities, and job outlook. In addition, you will present a Power Point (or other digital presentation) about your career choice and the information you have gathered. You should document the sources of information.
Daily Instructional Activities
Lesson 1:Activating Prior Knowledge (20 minutes)
Discuss the task with students. Generate a class web about interesting careers students know about. Make sure you ask questions such as: What kind of training do you think you would need? What type of education would you need? What would your work environment be like? What kind of salary do you think you would make? What kind of growth opportunities would you have in this career? Compile a list of responses on the web (you may want to make this an anchor chart to refer to in future lessons). Make sure students are clear about the language of the task (work environment, growth opportunities, etc). Open up the Fifth Grade Career Cluster LiveBinder (located on desktop). Show students the Welcome and the Getting Started tabs. Model for students how to access the video clips on a couple of the websites and how to use the notes page for gathering information and how to document sources. Make sure you clarify the school plan for when they will gather information, designing their presentation, and how to get support. Note to teacher: Students may want to begin to explore career choice videos (Getting Started) as they do technology rotation. Technology labs should have note taking sheets available for students to use as they watch the videos. Remember students will need to narrow choices down to 3 before gathering more detailed information
Lesson 2: Understanding the Essay (25 minutes)
Remind students of the task from lesson 1. Have students work with a partner (or cooperative group) to develop a bulleted list of features that would be important for creating an essay. Revisit the anchor chart generated in lesson 1 of the responses from questions. Discuss how these questions can help guide them as they generate the list. After a few minutes, ask groups to discuss how to locate and organize the information for the essay. What kinds of information should they gather, how should they cite their sources, what have they learned about informational writing that could be useful for this essay? Bring class back together to share ideas for the important features of an essay as well as ways to organize their writing. Put ideas on an anchor chart. Open up the Fifth Grade Career Cluster Livebinder and click on the Essay tab. Discuss with students the outline for the essay. Show students the tabs and model how step by step guidance is given for how to write the essay.
Lesson 3: Understanding the Rubric (20 Minutes)
Open the LiveBinder to the Essay tab. Remind students of the different components for their essay. Give each student the rubric (see resources) that will be used to assess their essay. Discuss with students each of the elements and the criteria for each score. Have students keep a copy of the rubric with them as they begin to gather information for their essay as well as writing the essay.
Lesson 4: Note Taking (25 minutes)
Say to students, “Now that you have narrowed your career choices to your top 3, it is time to decide which one career you want to gather more information about. You will need to gather information about three careers so that you can narrow your choice to one. You will only write your essay on your top career choice. Your essay will be used to develop your presentation. It will be important for you to take notes about your career choices and to cite your sources as you read.” Here are several websites (many of these you may have already taught since they are included on the resource section of your curriculum map) to help provide direct instruction on how students can keep organized notes. Make sure you model for students how to cite their sources.
Two Column Note Taking organizer
Notes, Quotes, and Fact Fragments
Education World Note Taking Lessons
Revisit the LiveBinder to remind students the components of the essay (you may want to make an anchor chart of the components of the essay for future reference). As students begin note taking they should use the outline of the essay as a guide. Keep in mind that these beginning note cards do not have to contain lots of information since students will only be choosing one to write their essay and develop their presentation about.
Lesson 5: How to select relevant information, summarize, and paraphrase (25 minutes)
Using the 100 Best Jobs link on LiveBinder, (see Getting Started, first tab), model for students how you should collect information for an essay. Select one of the jobs listed and begin by reading aloud to students. For instance, when reading the information about being a dentist (the #1 job!), discuss with students how the article begins in a catchy way to introduce the career (A trip to the dentist can be a harrowing experience. The prospect of sharp instruments poking our gums or prodding our teeth can wreak havoc on the psyche.)Since students are gathering information about three careers at this point, they may want to record some of the different ways the careers are introduced and record them on their note cards. Model for students how these catchy beginnings should not be copied directly but should be paraphrased in their own unique style. Continue to model for students how to gather relevant information needed for the remaining components of the essay (refer to anchor chart) and how to record the information in a note taking format. Continually refer to the outline for the essay as a guide to gathering information from the article, how to take the information and jot down notes, and how to correctly cite the source so that you can return to the information if needed when writing the essay on the one career choice. Note to teachers: Students should be given time in technology rotation to gather information about three career choices. One final career choice should be decided on by the end of their rotation.
*** Once students have made a decision on the one career choice they would like to write an essay about, students may need their next technology rotation day to gather additional information. Students may want to collect information from several sources (making sure to cite additional sites) to include in their essay.
Lesson 6: Writing Your Essay
Open the Fifth Grade Career Cluster LiveBinder. Click on the Essay tab and each sub-tab. Walk students through the components of the essay- making sure they understand each section. Students should already have experience in writing a research paper.
Note to Teachers:Students should use Microsoft Word to type their essay. Make sure students know how to save their information in Word. You will need to have a plan for saving these documents so they can be uploaded to Edmodo. Students should save their essay file with their name and career choice. For example, John Turner Dentist. If you do not have an Edmodo class account, you will need to make sure you have a way of saving the essays for documentation for the state. There are step by step directions on the LiveBinder for students to help guide them through their essay writing. Talk to your Technology Assistant so that he/she can provide the time and support for students to type their essay.
Lesson 6: Making Your Presentation
Open the Fifth Grade Career Cluster LiveBinder. Click on the Presentation tab and each sub-tab. Walk students through the components of the presentation- making sure they understand each section. The LiveBinder has step by step directions showing students how to make a Power Point presentation. Students are not required to use Power Point but may choose a different presentation format. All students must have a presentation and present their career to their classmates. These presentations may be organized any way you choose. Make sure students save their presentations so they can be uploaded to Edmodo. Students should save their presentation with their name and career choice. Again, if you do not have an Edmodo class account, you will need to have a way of saving the presentations for documentation for the state. Talk to your Technology Assistant so that he/she can provide the time and support for students to design their presentation.
Note to Teacher: Make sure there are extra copies of the note cards and the rubric in the computer lab. Students will need these as they write their essay and design their presentations.
Resources
Essay Rubric
ScoringElements / Not Yet / Approaches Expectations / Meets
Expectations / Advanced
1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 / 4
Focus / Attempts to address prompt, but lacks focus or is off task / Addresses prompt appropriately, but with a weak or uneven focus / Addresses prompt appropriately and maintains a clear, steady focus / Addresses all aspects of prompt appropriately and maintains a strongly-developed focus
Controlling Idea / Attempts to establish a controlling idea, but lacks a clear purpose. / Establishes a controlling idea with a general purpose. / Establishes a controlling idea with a clear purpose maintained throughout the response. / Establishes a strong controlling idea with a clear purpose maintained throughout the response.
Reading/
Research / Attempts to present information in response to the prompt, but lacks connections or relevance to the purpose of the prompt. / Presents information from reading materials relevant to the purpose of the prompt with minor lapses in accuracy or completeness. / Presents information from reading materials relevant to the prompt with accuracy and sufficient detail. / Accurately presents information relevant to all parts of the prompt with effective selection of sources and details from reading materials.
Development / Attempts to provide details in response to the prompt, including retelling, but lacks sufficient development or relevancy. Implication is missing, irrelevant, or illogical. / Presents appropriate details to support the focus and controlling idea. Briefly notes a relevant implication or a relevant gap/unanswered question. / Presents appropriate and sufficient details to support the focus and controlling idea. Explains relevant and plausible implications and a relevant gap/unanswered question. / Presents thorough and detailed information to strongly support the focus and controlling idea. Thoroughly discusses relevant and salient implications or consequences and one or more significant gaps/unanswered questions.
Organization / Attempts to organize ideas, but lacks control of structure. / Uses an appropriate organizational structure to address the specific requirements of the prompt, with some lapses in coherence or awkward use of the organizational structure / Maintains an appropriate organizational structure to address the specific requirements of the prompt / Maintains an organizational structure that intentionally and effectively enhances the presentation of information as required by the specific prompt.
Conventions / Attempts to demonstrate standard English conventions, but lacks cohesion and control of grammar, usage, and mechanics. Sources are used without citation. / Demonstrates an uneven command of standard English conventions and cohesion. Uses language and tone with some inaccurate, inappropriate, or uneven features. Inconsistently cites sources. / Demonstrates a command of standard English conventions and cohesion, with few errors. Response includes language and tone appropriate to the audience, purpose, and specific requirements of the prompt. Cites sources using an appropriate format with only minor errors. / Demonstrates and maintains a well-developed command of standard English conventions and cohesion, with few errors. Response includes language and tone consistently appropriate to the audience, purpose, and specific requirements of the prompt. Consistently cites sources using an appropriate format.
Content Understanding / Attempts to include disciplinary content in explanations, but under-standing of content is weak; content is irrelevant, inappropriate or inaccurate. / Briefly notes disciplinary content relevant to the prompt; shows basic or uneven understanding of content; minor errors in explanation. / Accurately presents disciplinary content relevant to the prompt with sufficient explanations that demonstrate understanding. / Integrates relevant and accurate disciplinary content with thorough explanations that demonstrate in-depth understanding.