CBUP Lesson Plan Template: DAY 7

Week 3 of 4; Plan #7 of 12; [90 mins.]

Plan type: ____Full-Detail __X__Summary

Content Requirement Satisfied:

(Note: Refer to the list in the document called “Concept Unit Lesson Plans”)

Unit Learning Objectives (numbered) [from my Backwards Design Unit Document],

followed by Specific lesson objectives (lettered) being taught in this lesson:

Cognitive (know/understand):
1. Students will understand that people have control over aspects of their identities.
c. Students will explain a choice they made about presenting their identity through
explanatory writing

Performance (do):

6. Students will be able to analyze the choices individuals make that affect their identities in
communities.
b. Reflect on the ways they ways they choose to present themselves to others

Affective (feel/value) and/or Non-Cognitive:

9. Students will respect the diverse voices in their classroom communities through active
listening.
b. Students will respond thoughtfully and productively to explanations of choices
their peers have made

SOL’s: [List with numbers portrayed in the SOL document]

VSOL 7.7 The student will write in a variety of forms with an emphasis on exposition,
narration, and persuasion.
b) Use a variety of prewriting strategies including graphic organizers to generate and
organize ideas.
c) Organize writing structure to fit mode or topic.

CCS’s: [List with numbers portrayed in the CCS document]

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and
information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content

Methods of Assessment:

1. Do Now (obj. 6b)

2. Journal Entry: inform and explain (obj. 1c, 6b)
3. Partner share (obj. 9b)
 4. Self Reflection (obj. 1c, 6b, 9b)

Procedures/Instructional Strategies
Each step should have bolded heading that identifies the activity, and then is followed by the
teacher scripting, student and teacher actions, and a description of the activity.
[Note: Any words that represent what I would say directly to students appear in italics.]

Beginning Room Arrangement: Students will be seated in their usual base group seats. They
will all have retrieved their writer’s notebooks from the class bins at the start of class and will
have them on their desks. I will be standing in the doorway to greet each student by name and
give them a little elbow bump. I will be able to see the hallway as well as the classroom. There is
a Do Now posted on the board that reads: How do your choices change the way people view you?

1. [4 mins.] Do Now

I will greet students as they enter the classroom, saying hello to each of them by name
and giving them an elbow bump as they go to retrieve their notebooks. As I enter the
room I will ask them to think back to our reading experience with Part-Time Indian and
their exploration of their names from the previous week. I will tell them that we will
really be digging into looking at choices today and pulling everything together as we get
ready to start our final projects.

2. [10 mins.] Classroom Meeting

We will shift into our classroom meeting circle and I will ask for a student volunteer to
be the leader for today. We will go around the circle for the greeting and the share that is
listed on the classroom meeting calendar and then students will get to choose which short
game they’d like to play today. We will keep it strictly to the 10-minute time period so as
not to intrude on any of the work time scheduled for today.

For this routine, students move into a circle on the floor. It lasts for 10-15 minutes and a
different student leads the circle each day. They begin with a greeting (handshake, high
five, fist bump, etc.) that gets passed around the circle. To give their greeting, they must
look the people on both sides of them in the eyes and say their names.

Example:
Student: “Hi Ms. Bishop! (fist bump)
Teacher: “Hi Student A! (fist bump)” turn to the other side “Hi Student B! (fist bump)”

The greeting is then followed by a “share” that changes each day. It can range from
personal goals and accomplishments, to something on their bucket list, to what they ate
for dinner last night. They get excited regardless of what the share is and it gives them
some time at the beginning of class to socialize and refocus for the rest of the period. This
really helps the classroom feel more like a community, as students get to know
themselves and each other a little better each day.

3. [7 mins.] Hook to Lesson

I will begin by asking students to take 30-45 seconds to brainstorm a list of all the
choices they made just this morning before coming to school. What outfit did they
 choose? What did they eat for breakfast? Did they choose to ride their bike or take the
bus? Did they style their hair or make sure their jacket matched their shirt? Etc. After
about 30 seconds they will take 5 minutes to share their choices with their base groups.

I will then explain to them that today we will be examining the choices we make to try
and figure out what they reveal about us to our peers and ourselves. Later in this class we
will be revising the questions we created for our interviews and tomorrow we will be
conducting the interviews, so this lesson is geared towards getting students ready to
explain why they make the choices they do.

4. [10 mins.] Modeling: inform & explain

The prompt for this writing exercise is very simple: Explain how _______ impacts how
people perceive you in your community. Before I ask students to embark into writing
about their choices, I will model for them how to draw connections between their
personal choices and the perception of others. To do this, I will pick a simple choice like
choosing to get the haircut that I got before the school year started. I will write this up on
the document camera so that they can hear my thinking process and see how the product
comes out on the page.

They will only have known me with the short haircut I have now, and I will use this
opportunity to show how I made the choice specifically for this community of scholars. I
will explain that I have very curly, crazy hair that can be very difficult to control. When I
was in college it was very long and messy, which was how I liked it in that particular
environment. People could tell by looking at me that I was fairly carefree and not afraid
to let my hair be a little messy. But then I will explain that when I entered the
professional world and began working with students and other teachers, I made the
choice to cut it into a short bob. This made it much more controllable and I had an easier
time managing it to look professional. This decision was based around how I wanted to
present myself in school and how I wanted my peers and students to perceive me—I
would likely not receive as much respect if I looked like I hadn’t brushed my hair in two
weeks.

I will have students look through the writing I have done and point out aspects of it that
make is strong and aspects that can be improved in terms of identifying choices and the
reasoning behind them. I will be looking for them to touch on use of details and specific
language, as well as enough expansion to make it clear why I made the choice and for
which community.

5. [12 mins.] Independent Work: inform & explain

Students will then take 10 minutes to answer the prompt in their notebooks. They have
already brainstormed some choices, and they are welcome to use one of those choices or
find another that popped into their heads while I was modeling the process. I will reiterate
that the purpose of this writing is to use specific details and examples to give readers a
clear sense of how their choices impact how they present their identity.

6. [7 mins.] Partner Share & Feedback

Once they are finished writing, they will share their entries with the elbow partners in
their base groups. Each student will read their response aloud to their partner and explain
why they chose the specific choice that they did. I will remind students to adhere to our
 active-attentive-listening norms and be ready to provide feedback about the clarity of
their response and the level of insight it gives into the choices their partners made.

After one person has shared, they will have an opportunity to tell their partner where they
think the strengths are in their explanation and where they think they can grow. Their
partner will then share where they think the strengths and areas for improvement are.
This will repeat for the second partner.

7. [8 mins.] Self Reflection

As a close to this lesson, students will take some time to reflect on the process of
explaining and set goals for how they will respond in their partner interviews tomorrow.
The following questions will be projected on the board for them to respond to: How do I
choose to represent myself to others? What do these choices reveal about my identity to
other people? What steps will I take to make sure that my interview answers are as clear
or clearer than the writing I did today?

8. [7 mins.] Reminder of Previous Questioning Lessons

As students finish up their reflections, I will transition them towards revising their
interview questions with these types of answers still fresh in their minds. I will ask a few
students to remind the class of the question revision activity we did when we learned
about the levels of questioning, and ask a few others to refer back to the My Name
activity where we developed questions based on the answers we already had.

We will be using the thinking we did in the inform & explain writing to help us rework
our questions to better elicit the types of responses that will provide insight into our
peers’ identities and choices.

I will use this time to address any large issues I came across in reviewing question drafts
that were turned in on Friday and reteach any piece of the process that seems to need
review.

9. [30 mins.] Revise Questions

Students will spend the next 30 minutes or so revisiting their questions and looking for
opportunities to improve the depth or specificity to elicit answers that will help them
really understand the choices their partners have made in their different communities.
They will have the choice to either work on the revisions by themselves or to pair up with
someone in their base group to exchange for feedback. If they choose to work in pairs,
they will pick up a sheet I’ve made with expectations and instructions for quality peer
review. These will be on the materials table at the back of the room.

I will have provided them with written feedback on their drafts and will call small groups
with similar issues to conference with me at the table. After this, I will circulate around
the room for individual conferences, questions, or other forms of help.

10. [5 mins] Closure: Check In (Google Form)

I will thank students for all the hard work they did today and ask them to find the Google
Form Check-In on Google Classroom. The following questions will be on it: On a scale
 of 1-10, how confident do you feel with the quality of your questions? Do your questions
cover all three levels of questioning? What specific steps have you taken to construct
questions that will elicit deep and meaningful answers? Do you need 5-10 more minutes
to refine your questions before conducting the interview?

They will complete this so that I have an idea of where they are with their questions. This
will help me plan for the following day to know if we need a little more time at the
beginning of class before we go to the library to conduct the interviews.

Materials Needed (list):

1. Projector
2. Document Camera
3. Writing Materials
4. Student Notebooks
5. Google Form