Poverty in the Present

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
are occurring in the present
Students will demonstrate a basic understanding of key current events that are
shaping the issues of poverty around the world
Students will be able to relate their cultural background to the current status of
poverty
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 more research of current event articles on poverty
SmartBoard slides with instructions for group activities as well as poverty
definition
Current newspapers and magazines to search for articles about poverty
Manipulatives for World Poverty Activity
Introduction to lesson
Purpose How will you state the purpose of the lesson?
Today we will be continuing our learning about Poverty. In the last couple
classes we have discussed what poverty means and what is all encompassed
under the umbrella of poverty. We have also discovered how poverty has
been a part of our history and has shaped our past. Now we are going to
bring poverty into the present day. The purpose of this lesson is to learn how
poverty is present throughout the world today, and to investigate the
differing forms that poverty presents itself around the world.
Prior learning How will you make connections to prior learning?

I want you guys to take your current events article that you brought in. If
you did not do the assignment and therefore do not have an article please
raise your hand and I will give you one of the articles I have brought it.
Take a look at your article and underline/highlight/mark areas in the article
where you can make connections to previous discussions that we have had
about poverty. Some of these connections may be obvious, others may
require more thinking and may be more complex or analytical. Even if you
may be on the border of whether or not to mark it, go ahead and mark it and
we can take a look at it and discuss your thoughts behind your hesitation.
This connection to prior learning will pull on the definition we created/discussed
in the previous class period, as well as other prior learning done on the topic of
poverty.
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

Instructional procedures/sequence of activities

Review activity of current

events articles the students
brought in (5 minutes)

(see above for language used to introduce this and

discussion around it)

World Poverty Activity (30

minutes)

Introduction of activity/split students into groups

(5 minutes)
The activity that we are going to do today to
learn about poverty in the present is a world
activity. We are going to analyze how poverty
affects the world, and not just our backyards. I
will be splitting you guys into groups and each
group will get a set of facts about poverty. What
I want you to do is take your facts and group
them as to what area of the world you think they
belong. Each group will get 2 laptops for
research to help make your decisions. So 2
people will be our researchers, 1 person will be
the recorder, and the last person will be the

Student Sharing/Presenting
(15 minutes)

Move to Closure part of

Lesson (5 minutes)

organizer. For my groups of 5, the last person in

that group will help out the recorder with the
information necessary.
Research/work time (25 minutes)
Once you believe you have your facts in order. I
want you to come up to the giant world map I
have here and stick your fact on in the proper
region/area. It is okay if you are not 100%
accurate, but try to be as close as possible to the
exact destination your fact belongs.
Bring class back together (1 minute)
Alright, I want us all to come back together. As
we can see, our world map has filled up quite a
lot. Lets see if there are any generalizations we
can make about poverty around the world in the
present day.
Group discussion (10 minutes)
Through the discussion there will be general
questions/points that I will want to hit with the
students that will be key for the take away
aspects of the lesson. If they are not brought
up, I will explicitly ask about them
Are there areas around the world that more facts
are centralized around? What could that mean
about poverty? Are there any areas that there
are facts on this map that surprise you? Why is
it surprising?

(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
investigated how poverty affects the world in the present day. We used our
critical thinking skills to help analyze the facts we were presented with and
what that would imply for poverty around the world.

These facts are all true much of which we read about in our current event
articles. This demonstrates how the social issue of poverty is ever present in
our society. We may not see it in the news every day, but it is still out there
affecting millions of people.
Assignment What independent work will be assigned?
The assignment will be a cumulative assignment from the previous 3 lessons. I
will be giving the students a prompt that I will ask them to complete a journal
entry of sorts about what we have all learned and assessed in the past few lessons.
Prompt: Our big question is What causes Poverty? Now we have learned
about poverty in the past and in the present around the world. What connections
can you make between everything we have learned? How has the past shaped the
present in terms of poverty? Furthermore, what personal connections can you
make with poverty?
Please use complete sentences to answer and make sure to answer all of the
questions fully.
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)
Along with more informal assessment of questioning during the lesson, the
assignment (writing prompt) is going to be an assessment. Since we hare half
way through the learning I want to see what the students understand and how
critically they can think about the social issue of poverty. This will help me
evaluate the learning outcomes stated in the beginning of the lesson, as well as the
learning outcomes listed in the previous lessons as well. This is a cumulative
assessment.