Lesson Reflection

This lesson is created in order to get students moving, get them aware and get them

thinking. My goal with this lesson was to create interest in the unit I am teaching and have

students realize their own opinions on important subject matter. I would incorporate this lesson

fairly early in the unit for the simple reason that it is an introductory activity and does not

necessarily cover much content in regard to texts I am using or content the students will need to

know further along in the unit plan. The lesson utilizes many different learning strategies for the

students and also allows some choice. The students will be able to voice opinions or write their

opinions, ensuring that all students are heard in a context that suits them best as learners.

This lesson fits the context and goals of my larger unit for many reasons. The unit covers

injustices and inequality in relation to Canada’s justice system and focuses on Canada’s

indigenous population. Students who are unaware of the overrepresentation of our indigenous

population in prisons will be briefly educated on that topic through this lesson as an opener to the

increased specificity that will occur later in the unit. This lesson will serve as a motivational set

for the unit, it will get students aware of what they do not know and get them thinking deeper

about issues they may be aware of already. Students being asked to take a side will be the first

step of the activity, but the overall all goal will be to have students follow this simple step by

thinking about and expressing why they have chosen a specific side. This will hopefully

enlighten students on their own stand-points and get them analyzing their thought processes.

Through this activity I want my students to learn that they contain opinions they did not know

existed, and through this educating of themselves, I hope to engage them in the unit by use of

physical movement and expression of personal beliefs that are both related to the unit and
relevant in their lives. The only lesson that I believe may need to come before this is an

introduction to the unit contents. An introduction explaining the what books we will be reading,

what their major assignments are and what the relevance of the unit is to them. With this prior

knowledge, students will be able to start applying the activity to the larger picture and exploring

how it will help them in their future assignments. After this lesson, the content of the unit will

begin. This will entail the reading of the main text, and exploring surrounding texts, articles and

videos that will supplement their education of Canada’s judicial system in regard to our

Indigenous population.

My final performance task for this unit is a current events project where students will

research a crime case related to indigenous injustice within the past ten years, choose a side and

defend why or why not the case was handled correctly. This lesson, as an introduction to the unit

will prepare students to not only make a definite decision about their stance on an issue, but also

begin critically thinking about why they embody that position. By instilling these skills in

students early in the unit, they will be more comfortable and able to practice expanding and

analyzing their thoughts before the larger project is assigned. Building these skills using smaller

projects is essential to the development of the students and this lesson will allow them to explore

their positions without being graded heavily. The use of the response journals throughout the unit

(explained in my assessment piece) will also allow students to practice their positionality

building up to the performance task.

The Taking A Stand lesson connects with outcomes from various components of the

curriculum. Two compose and create outcomes are met with the interpretation, listening to and

responding to the statements read during the lesson (CC20.1 and CC20.3). Students are expected

to develop coherent responses to the FNIM content in the creation of their justifications. They
will explore identity, social responsibility and social action when choosing a side to represent

their opinions. This lesson also connects with outcome CC20.3 as students will speak to present

their newly developed reasons for their chosen position. This assignment will only cover the

informal component of this outcome but will fulfill the goal of students speaking newly learned

information as they will hopefully have learned new information about themselves, and new

content information from the information read during the activity. These three outcomes are met

with the utilization of this lesson, I believe the students will be engaged while fulfilling these

outcomes and therefore, be excited about the lesson to follow and unit as a whole.

This lesson, depending on the class structure, will need some classroom management. I

would plan to be present for the teaching of this lesson, but as not everything can be controlled

there are some things I believe would need to be ready for a substitute aside from just the

physical lesson plan. Adaptations and differentiations are present on the lesson plan and would

cater to students who needed additional guidance or help. In addition to this I would also attempt

to provide the sub with information about the students who I thought may be passionate about

certain material or students I thought should be monitored closely because of compassionate

reasons or tendencies to be inappropriate. A substitute teacher would have no trouble following

this lesson plan or the assignment to follow, however sometimes lessons with high-activity rate

such as this can be harder to control and therefore, I would also provide tips regarding what

strategies work best for me in the given classroom in order to settle things down if such action

needed to be taken.