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ELEMENTARY UNIT/ LESSON PLANNING COMMENTARY

Your Name: Jenna Fishoff
Date: 5/12/14
Unit/Lesson Title: Three Branches of Government
Grade Level and Content Area: 3rd Grade Social Studies
Number of Students: 28
Total Amount of Time: 1 hour

1. Learning Goals/Standards: What concepts, essential questions or key skills will be your focus? What do
you want your students to know at the end of this unit/lesson?

Students will be able to identify and label the three branches of government and the roles and responsibilities
assigned to each branch. Students will also have understanding of how government works.
The content standards for this lesson:
Social Studies 3.4.1 Determine the reason for rules, laws, and the Constitution; the role of citizenship in the
promotion of rules and laws; and the consequences for people who violate rules and laws.
Social Studies 3.4.4 Understand the three branches of government, with and emphasis on local government.


2. Rationale: Why is this content important for your students to learn and how does it promote social justice?

Exposing my students to social studies will promote social justice as it constructs children to be responsible
citizens of their nation as well as becoming more aware, more responsible human beings as they navigate
through life. Teaching social studies enables students to understand, participate in, and make informed decisions
about their world. It provides them with skills for problem solving and decision making, all necessary for
becoming effective participants of society.

3. Identifying and supporting language needs: What are the language demands of the unit/lesson? How do
you plan to support students in meeting their English language development needs (including academic
language)?

Students will need to demonstrate understanding of academic vocabulary: Government, Executive Branch,
Judicial Branch, Legislative Branch, Legislators, Congress, Veto, Mayor

4. Accessing prior knowledge and building upon students backgrounds, interests and needs: How do
your choices of instructional strategies, materials and sequence of learning tasks connect with your students
backgrounds, interests, and needs?

I plan to connect to students backgrounds by asking them, It takes a lot of people to run a city, state, and
country. Governments have to make sure that all laws are passed and followed. Tell me some other places
where rules are created and must be followed. Students will need to access prior knowledge and experience in
order to relate and answer this question. When students are making their flipbooks at the end of the lesson, I
allow students to choose from red, white, or blue construction paper, as this establishes ownership of their
learning, which makes it more relevant and meaningful to them. By connecting to their stated interests or recent
experiences, I am able to build on these to provide relevancy to my lesson and keep the students engaged.

5. Accommodations: What accommodations or support will you use for all students (including English
Language Learners and students with special educational needs, i.e. GATE students and students with IEPs)?
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Explain how these features of your learning and assessment tasks will provide all students access to the
curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their learning.

For ELL, I will chart key words used in graphic organizers. Posters and other visual aids, such as pictures, will
be placed in the front of the class for students to access. Occasional choral reading will allow ELL to see and
hear the text simultaneously and will help build fluency. The teacher will model academic language and
vocabulary words and require students repeat her words and use the vocabulary in their flipbooks. Students who
complete their work early will be allowed to offer assistance to their peers.

6. Theory: Which theories support your unit/lesson plan? (explain the connections)

Using a tree map/graphic organizer to chart the three different branches of government, including the
characteristics and responsibilities assigned to each branch, are great visual tools that engage students in an
effective way.

During this lesson, I scaffold using a tree map to chart the three branches of government including the different
roles assigned to each branch. After I scaffold this process, I also explicitly scaffold each step for making
flipbooks at the end of the lesson, which is a hands-on creative project. Scaffolding will be essential for all
students successful learning. The instructional strategy, scaffolding, can fall under Vygotskys theory of the
zone of proximal development (ZPD), which has been defined as the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers
(Vygotsky). Vygotsky believed that when a student is at the ZPD for a particular task, providing the appropriate
assistance will give the student enough of an improvement to achieve the task on their own. Thus, if I scaffold
these skills necessary for successful completion of the first draft, the students will eventually master these skills
and will be able to complete them again on their own, without the scaffold.

I also applied student interests to build on interest and relevancy during my lesson as I open the lesson asking
the students, It takes a lot of people to run a city, state, and country. Governments have to make sure that all
laws are passed and followed. Tell me some other places where rules are created and must be followed.
Students will need to access prior knowledge and experience in order to relate and answer this question.
Luis Moll supports this idea of culturally relevant curriculum as he claims that incorporating students funds of
knowledge into lessons is imperative. Moll argues that if students can apply and see their own knowledge,
interests, and experiences being incorporated into the classroom, they are able to see that learning and
knowledge is meaningful.

I also allow students to choose from red, white, or blue construction paper when creating their own flipbooks, as
this establishes ownership of their learning, which makes it more relevant and meaningful to them.

The students will think-pair-share numerous times throughout the lesson as I ask them questions before, during,
and after we read the chapter in our text. This cooperative discussion strategy provides students time and
structure for thinking and it enables them to formulate individual ideas and share them with a classmate and
even the entire class. This can fall under sociocultural theory because learning is collaborative, teacher and
students are both involved in the learning process. Students participation in social interactions promotes
learning and deeper understanding of the concept being taught.


7. Reflection: (answer the following questions after the teaching of this unit/lesson) What do you feel was
successful in your lesson and why? If you could go back and teach this learning segment again to the same
group of students, what would you do differently in relation to planning, instruction, and assessment? How
could the changes improve the learning of students with different needs and characteristics?
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**COMMENTARY IS REQUIRED FOR ALL UCLA ELEMENTARY FORMAL OBSERVATIONS **