Class: 7th Grade/Social Studies                                

Teacher:Lee Ann Erickson               Unit: Trade and Culture

Date: 11/02                                         Topic: Eastern Hemisphere Geography

Lesson Title:Culture and Intro to Trade      

Content Objective:

Students will be able to identify multiple elements that make up culture

Language Objective:

Students will discuss and write answers to questions based the reading homework.

Students will take Cornell style notes based on the class discussion about the elements of culture.

Materials/Resources needed: index cards, pencils or pens, station signs, color pencils, personal atlases,

Adaption

**IEP and ELL students will receive extra instruction for clarification and extra time if needed.

Input: Students will be familiar with Eastern Hemisphere countries and continents as well as a number of geographic features and the concept of travel with in these regions. Students will also have done some back ground reading on culture.

Hello everyone! Please fill in your agenda and raise your hand when you have finished.

You have been working very hard the last couple days and I want you to know how much I appreciate it.                                                                                                                                                (5 min)

Set:  What is Culture? Today you are going to get into small groups to discuss the reading and try and get a better idea about what  your culture is and what that means.

Everyone get a piece of paper out, you are going to take notes to turn in as your Exit Pass today.

Write your name, date and period on this piece of paper and title it “Culture Notes”

You can either make a list or draw a concept map/web but the top of that list or the center of your circle should say “Elements of Culture” during our group discussion and your small group discussion it is your job to fill in the list , map/web with …...the elements that make up a culture.

You have a minute to get your paper organized...

Large group discussion:

• What was the main idea of the reading?
• What is culture?
• What are some of the parts of culture?

                                    10 minutes

Small group discussion:

  a.  With your understanding of the parts that make up culture... which elements are something they might want to trade with other cultures?

  b.  Do you think there are some cultures who prefer to remain isolated?

  c.  If you were part of a culture that lived by a river what would make you seek out another culture to trade with?

15 minutes

                                                                                                                                           (25 minutes total)

Let’s refocus I’ll give you a minute to get up and move around, grab a drink of water if you want. When you get back to your desk we are going to start a new activity.  

                                                                                                            3 minute transition

I want you to continue to build on your knowledge of the globe and especially the Eastern Hemisphere since that is our current unit. I am going to hand out to each person a map of the Eastern Hemisphere, and a list of the elements we have talked about so far. This map is something you will build on and use as part of your review for your unit test in just under 2 weeks.      

You can organize it anyway that you would like; however, I am going to post mine as an example. I have the first couple elements on it right now.  There are color pencils available to use up at the front, I want you to keep these here to work on until next Thursday. On Thursday next week I will give you all your notes back and you’ll be able to take this map home to use as study materials. Monday, November 14th is your unit test.                     

Does anyone have questions before we work on this for the next 15 minutes? Go ahead and get to work.

Let’s refocus, eyes on me. Please take a couple minutes to clean up your work area and when you are done come and get an index card from me.          

transition 3 minutes                       

For the last few minutes of class and get to know you a little bit better. I am going to hand you an index card and on this card I want you to write your name on one side and then turn it over.

On the other side I want you to write three things: ( I’ll write my answers on the board as an example)

1. What do you do for fun?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What is your favorite genre of music?

Independent Practice:  Homework “Trade” reading Due 11/04

                                                                                                                                   Total 58min

Daily Reflection:

Today’s activities and lessons went well. I asked the students to be honest about whether or not they did the reading, and while I think that it went well I probably wouldn’t phrase it the way I did in the future. I believe by telling the students that I expected them to have the reading done when I asked it to be done they did the reading; however I also said it was okay if they didn’t do the reading which I believe opened the door for them not to read the next reading assignment.

The small groups worked well together and were quiet and respectful while I read the chapter to the students who had not done the reading. Those students who did not do the reading were the ones I had expected would not do it. I have a couple of students with IEPs as well as a couple of ELL students and do not have the support at home to get the reading done. When I had finished reading the chapter to those few students, I moved on to do a large group discussion with Cornell Notes. In the future I would be sure to have an additional activity ready for those students in the small groups or give them more than 3 questions to do.

I do like the idea of sending the reading home regardless of the struggles that some of the students have. I think it’s important to supplement the lesson with reading from the text books or other types of supplemental reading.

We ended up taking quite a bit more time doing the group discussion and taking notes so I pushed the “Personal Atlas” activity off a day. I felt it was necessary to focus more on the concept of culture and be sure they had all their notes about the elements we were discussing in class. They were engaged and diligently taking their notes and I didn’t want to move their focus to a project that could easily be done on another day.         

 I had a lot of fun with the end of class activity I did with them. I found out some interesting things from the students based on how they answered the question when I asked them to tell me one thing they want me to know      about them.  I had a few that were pretty personal, and some that were pretty silly.