Poverty in the Past (2 days)

Lesson title
Understanding Social Issues: Poverty
Unit title

--Date
Social Studies/4th Grade/50 minutes
Subject/grade level/lesson duration

Objectives/learner outcomes What knowledge, skills, and dispositions are students

expected to demonstrate as a result of the lesson?
Students will be able to use their definition of poverty and apply it to events that
occurred in the past
Students will demonstrate a basic understanding of key historical events that
encompassed poverty
Students will be able to relate their cultural background to the history of poverty
through their ancestors
Standards addressed What Core Standards (English/Language Arts, Math,
Disciplinary Literacy) or DPI model academic standards (Science, Social Studies,
Foreign Language) are specifically addressed in the lesson?
E.4.2 Explain the influence of factors such as family, neighborhood, personal
interests, language, likes and dislikes, and accomplishments on individual
identity and development
E.4.9 Explain how people learn about others who are different from
themselves
Materials/resources/technology What materials/resources/technology are needed to
support instructional procedures?
Laptops for research on poverty in the past
SmartBoard slides with instructions for group activities as well as poverty
definition
Reference books for research on poverty in the past
Introduction to lesson
Purpose How will you state the purpose of the lesson?
Today we will be continuing our learning about Poverty. Last class we came
up with a class definition about poverty. We are going to take this definition
and apply it to our learning. Today we are going to research and become
experts on how Poverty has been apart of our history and how it has shaped
our past.
Prior learning How will you make connections to prior learning?
I want you guys to take our your assignment of your interview about poverty.
Look as what you wrote down. Does anyone have answers that involve the

past or history? Did anyones parents bring up ancestors, or their own past,
or events they lived through that dealt with poverty?
This connection to prior learning will pull on the definition we created/discussed
in the previous class period, as well as their parents prior learning and
knowledge. It will be a combination of the two.
Connections to personal/cultural/community assets How will you make
connections to your students strengths as a way to motivate students to engage in
the learning activities you have planned?
There will be connection to the students background starting off with the prior
learning aspect of the lesson. Furthermore, I will make connections to the
students culture through the topic of research they will be doing in class.
Content/procedures/sequence (Be sure to include estimated time allotment for each
activity)
Content outline
DAY 1
Review activity of parents
answers to interview (5
minutes)

Instructional procedures/sequence of activities

Student Research (45

minutes)

Closure for Day 1

(see above for language used to introduce this and

discussion around it)

Introduction of activity/split students into groups

(5 minutes)
The activity that we are going to do today to
learn about poverty in the past is going to
include working in groups. I am going to divide
you based on your individual cultural
backgrounds. Then what I want you to do is
research-using the laptops and books providedand find out about key historical events that
included poverty in your ancestors history.
From there, you will create a visual
representation of what you found. You can do a
timeline, a graphic organizer, a web/map, or
whatever you feel would show your information
the best. After about 30 minutes of research we
will come back together as a class and present to
each other our findings.
Research/work time (25 minutes)
Bring class together
The research you were all collecting today was
wonderful. We are going to use that research for
tomorrow to create a presentation for you guys

to present to the class about what you found.

There will be no assessment or assignment for
Day 1 of this lesson

DAY 2
Student work time on
presentations (30 minutes)

Get class on track for creating presentations

Today we will be getting back into our groups
and taking the research we found yesterday to
make a presentation for the rest of our class.
You are free to create the presentation in
whatever way you feel is best to present the
information you found. You will have 30
minutes to work on your presentations.

Student Sharing/Presenting
(15 minutes)

Bring class back together/gallery walk (5 minutes)

Alright, I want us all to come back together. We
are going to start with a gallery walk. We will
walk around the room (for about 5 minutes) just
reading, observing, and making mental notes
about what each group has discovered.
Group discussion (10 minutes)
Now does anyone have anything they would like
to share about their own research? Or maybe
about something interesting they saw when
walking around the room?
Discuss the connection to poverty and historical
events (included in above 10 minutes)
What does this activity show us in relation to
poverty? Is poverty only a current event or has it
been a longtime struggle? Is there a certain
cultural group of people that has historically
seemed to be affected by poverty more than
others?

Move to Closure part of

Lesson (5 minutes)

(see below)

Closure
Summary of lesson How will you bring the lesson to a close? (One-two
statements that you will say at the end of the lesson)

Today we took our big question of what causes poverty, and we discovered
how poverty has been present throughout history and throughout a variety of
cultural groups. Not one group is susceptible to poverty- anyone can
experience it, and we have learned that through our research today.
Through our research we have also been able to start to distinguish factors
that may play a role in posverty.
I will be taking each of the presentations your groups have created and
making a booklet for each and every one of you so that all of your research
will be in one spot. This will help us create our story about poverty. How it
has been shaped in the past and how we see it in the present.
We will be looking more at poverty in the present day in the upcoming
lessons and we will be connecting the past to the present.
Assignment What independent work will be assigned?
The assignment will be in preparation for the next lesson, which is poverty in the
present. I will be asking the students to find a news article that talks about
poverty to some degree, and bring it in to class with them. This is how we will be
opening class up.
Assessment
Student learning What DATA or EVIDENCE will you use to evaluate each of
your learning outcomes (listed in Section A)? (Give a brief description)
I will once again be doing an informal assessment of student learning. I am
planning on asking many questions throughout the lesson that require students to
pull from previous material discussed, as well as analyze the definition of poverty.
This assessment is meant to see how students learning is developing through the
research that was conducted in todays lesson and what connections they are
starting to make and how deep their understanding is of the definition.