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school over the last few years. There have been many interventions that have been used in an effort to increase the scores on this one particular measure. Obviously, one cannot prepare a student to perform on the writing test by solely preparing students to be proficient writers during the fifth grade year and thus improving writing abilities has become a focus throughout the school. When I spoke with the teacher I collaborated with, Ms. W, she brought this point up and talked anecdotally about the struggle the she sees her students having with writing. Ms W spoke about how she was particularly concerned with the issues that she was watching students have with creating sentences that communicate particular pieces of information that the students have learned. Because second grade has pretty limited data in that they do not take the CRCT any longer we had to look elsewhere for data on a standardized test that could guide us in our unit planning. We looked both at the nonfiction writing samples that the teacher had collected for their writing folders that follow them through elementary school and at the Scantron Performance Learning tests that they took in the fall. The Scantron test is a nationally normed test that is used to gage our students abilities and deficits at the beginning of the school year. One of the really great things about this test is that it is computer based and can very quickly create spreadsheets and graphs that show an individual student, grade or classes performance in a particular area. When we looked at this data for Ms. Wests class it was clear that writing sentences using conventions was an area that needed improvement. To address this need Ms. W and I decided that we would incorporate the standards that the students needed to cover in social studies as well as language arts. Because this is a real classroom and a unit that is being taught in the real world it was necessary to squeeze as much standards based content as we could into the time we spent on this unit. During this unit the students will have an opportunity to practice and practice and review their sentence writing skills and to learn about an important figure in Georgia history, Jimmy Carter. Learner profile: Ms. Ws class has 6 white children, 7 African-American children, 8 Hispanic children and 2 Asian children. Ms. W serves 8 children who are classified as ESOL, 0 children classified as special education, 3 children classified as gifted, and 0 children classified as EIP. In this class all of the students are reading on grade level, and 11 are reading above grade level.
Understandings: Students will understand that.. Proper use of capitalization, punctuation and spelling is important if you want to communicate effectively in writing. There are many different ways to communicate ideas and information using digital tools. Writing can be used to share information about information that you learn. Jimmy Carter is a humanitarian and important Georgian who has had an impact on the world. Related misconceptions: Proper grammar is not important to communication. The right way to present information in school is with paper and pencil. Important people all live and are from somewhere else.
Essential Questions: What does it mean to communicate effectively? How do we communicate using technology? How do we learn about the lives of others?
Topical Questions: How do I check my writing to see if I have use conventions correctly in my writing? How do I use Google presentations to share information? What important things did Jimmy Carter do? How do I use basic writing conventions correctly? How do I share information that I have learned?
Student will know. What a Google presentation is and how to use it What it means to proofread your writing The value of proofreading The value of clear communication of ideas Who Jimmy Carter is, information about his life, and why he is an important figure What a humanitarian is
Student will be able to Proofread their writings for the correct use of capital letters, punctuation, and standard spelling Create a slide show using Google presentation Relay information that they have learned in written form Communicate about the life and importance of Jimmy Carter
The class will add to the list of class produced notes about Jimmy Carter. Class will discuss what it means to be a humanitarian and the reasons why Jimmy Carter is considered to be one. Hook/Equip-Day 4/5- SLMS will teach a lesson about how to create a Power Point presentation and the class will work together to complete one or two slides of a presentation together on the Smart Board. Equip-Day 6/7-SLMS and Teacher will review the rubric for the project and will assist students as they create their slide shows. Tailor-SLMS and Teacher will be available to help students who are having difficulty. Accelerated students will be encouraged to expand their presentations with more text and/or more slides. Evaluate-Day 7-Students will self-evaluate their work Evaluate- Teacher and SLMS will evaluate Power Point presentations based on the rubric Organize-Students will use the rubric to organize their work