+EHD498/CHF424

8th Grade Civics Unit

Teacher candidate's name: Karl ‘Alec’ Schoettle

Name of class: 8th Grade Social Studies

Title of unit: Introduction to Civics

Length of unit, including number of lessons: 9 lessons

Grade level and class profile (Briefly describe the diversity of learners based on class profile chart,
including age, number of males and females, range of learners, special needs, effects of class profile on
planning.):

I will be teaching this unit to 5 separate 8th grade classes. As each class is different, so each class will
need the project run slightly differently. I will write this up as this unit pertains to the section on which
I wrote my class profile chart, however. That section has 10 students, and though it is a rather small
class, there is a large variety of learners and abilities inside of it. Of the 10 students, 8 are female with
only 2 male. The 2 males tend to sit and work together, they are friends, are both intelligent, and can
produce quality work together; however one of the two is quieter and seems to be one of the brighter
kids in the grade, the other is intelligent as well, but is loud, tends towards goofing off and has some
attention-seeking behaviors that can cause difficulty in class at times.
Amongst the female students, there is a broader range of ability. There are a few students in the
class who are below grade level in their reading and writing (one is several years below grade level).
Despite this, most of these students are engaged in the material in class and do their best both to keep
up and to work with their friends in class who will help them to do so. There is one girl who is
inattentive and seems to do her best to avoid all class work; she also seems to struggle with the material
when she engages, though it can be tough to tell if this is due to actual difficulty with the material, or
because she doesn’t seem to pay attention or do her work. At the other end of the spectrum, there is one
girl who is practically silent in class, but is extremely bright and seems always interested in giving class
work her best effort. Another very bright girl is extremely vocal and though focused on what is going
on in class, her mind can easily take those topics off on tangents that others have difficulty
understanding the relevance of or relating to; if allowed she will steer the whole class off on these
tangents.
The most important thing with this class is to keep them on topic. As a class, they don’t tend to
go wild, they are mostly attentive and want to do well and seem less likely to become individually
distracted (messing around on computers, etc) than other sections, but they also often joke around, can
become distracted as a group and take things no more seriously than they have to. A couple of them
have tendencies that can totally derail progress for the whole class; the girl who goes off on tangents
and the boy with attention-seeking behavior. Some of the other girls also seem to want to treat their
teachers like friends, which can create a friendly learning environment at times, but can cause them to
be sassy and detract from class at others. When it comes to group work, they seem to be good at
picking groups for themselves in which they work well and can be productive. As some of the students
in this section are below grade level for reading, this class may benefit from having some extra oral
explanation of topics, though this can be difficult as some of the students can also be audibly impatient.
 Theme Outline
(Elementary Only)

Description of Unit
Brief description of unit (Describe content of unit and connections between this unit and others in
curriculum if applicable.):

This unit will introduce students to topics in civics. We will start out with basic coverage of
what civics is and what it means in a democracy. A lot of this unit will cover the roll of individual
citizens in a democracy and what ways citizens have to make an impact. The general goal is to teach
the students about the value of civic engagement, the difficulty of maintaining a democracy and the
importance of considering multiple sides and opinions of issues. In this unit we will discuss ways in
which civics has already been a part of things that they have done in other parts of their social studies
classes, like the project that they did researching charities to donate to.

Essential Questions
Listing of essential questions at the unit level (List in the chart below the key essential questions for the
overall unit.)
Add rows to chart as necessary.

Essential Questions at the Unit Level

What is the role of a private citizen in a democracy?
What responsibilities to citizens of a democracy have?
Why is democracy difficult and how do we combat those difficulties?

Unit Standards, Objectives and Assessments

Complete the chart below by listing the key standards and aligned objectives and assessments for the
overall unit. List in the chart below the key standards in yellow boxes on which students will be
assessed multiple times throughout the unit. For each standard, list the key objectives and related
assessments in the white boxes. Be sure to document that students are assessed multiple times on each
key standard. [Note: Other, lesser standards, objectives, and assessments may appear in detailed lesson
plans in the Supporting Materials section.]

Add rows to chart as necessary.

Use numbers from numbered list of lessons in Lessons Information section.

Lesson Standard CCSS for ELA/Math

Number Code MLR:PEI for other content areas; Next Generation Science Standards

Objectives/Learning Targets Aligned to Assessment(s) Aligned with

Preceding Standard Objective
(Put in bold any objectives that require (In parentheses, mark each I for
higher order thinking.) informal or F for formal.)
 Objectives/Learning Targets Aligned to Assessment(s) Aligned with
Preceding Standard Objective
(Put in bold any objectives that require (In parentheses, mark each I for
higher order thinking.) informal or F for formal.)

Objectives/Learning Targets Aligned to Assessment(s) Aligned with

Preceding Standard Objective
(Put in bold any objectives that require (In parentheses, mark each I for
higher order thinking.) informal or F for formal.)

Assessment Information
Provide explanatory descriptions of the assessments listed above by responding to the following
prompts. The pre-assessment need not be included in the chart above.

1. Describe the pre- and post-assessments for the unit:

The unit pre-assessment will occur during the first class of the unit. I am intending to spend that
class getting a better feel for students’ understanding of civics through discussion of civics as an
overall topic. If needed I will make adjustments to the unit based on students’ responses to this. I am
expecting the students to have a fairly low level of pre-existing knowledge on the topic, so I think
that I would only have to make changes if the students know significantly more about civics than I
am anticipating.
- From the beginning, some few of the students had slightly more knowledge on the topic than I
had anticipated, but for the most part their understanding going into this unit was about what I
had anticipated. I did not have to make any changes to the unit based on this, but I did make
changes to the unit after teaching a couple of classes and reviewing them with my mentor
teacher. The lessons that are included in this unit plan are for the lessons that I actually taught,
not the ones that I had originally planned.

I had originally planned for my post-assessment to be in the form of a test with a few
short-essay questions. I had planned this mostly because of time constraints. I felt like I had a short
amount of time to try and get through the information that I wanted to cover, and so I needed to have an
assessment that wouldn’t take up a lot of time so that I had more instruction time. In the course of my
teaching I changed my mind on this, and so I changed my assessment.
I had planned to have a single-day activity in which the students and I would discuss trying to
solve local issues. As the unit went on, I decided that rather than having a test or quiz, a good way to
measure their understanding of civics would be to have them try to find a solution to a public problem
without any input from me. To this end, I scrapped my planned lesson on local issues, and instead put
together an exercise for the students to work on in groups trying to find solutions to local issues.
Combining one of my planned lessons with my assessment also meant that I now had two
periods for them to work on their assessments. In the first of the two periods for the assessment I
introduced the assessment, what I was hoping to see out of it, and the topic choices for the assessment.
I broke the students up into groups, and the students then had the rest of class to work on their projects.
The next class the students went back to working in groups and finished up their projects for the first
twenty minutes or so. When they had finished their projects, we then moved the desks into a
conference table-like arrangement and spent the rest of class discussing the issues as a class.

2. Describe the unit summative assessment (put in bold any components that challenge students to
higher order thinking [rigor]; include description of scoring criteria or the associated scoring
guide/rubric):

The unit summative assessment is the assessment mentioned above, in which the students
worked in groups to try to find possible solutions to issues that are currently facing the local
community and have not yet been decided. The students were given time to try and find their
own solutions, and were graded not on what solution they came to, but how well reasoned out it
was. I gave the students a question sheet to work on, as well as a couple of topics facing the local
community, with a one page write-up of each topic, including pros and cons for each and a couple of
links to more information. Students were also welcome to perform any extra research that they wanted;
all students have school-provided laptops with internet access. Student groups had about an hour and a
quarter to work spread out over two classes.
After the students had completed their group work, as stated above, we moved the desks into a
big conference table-like format so that we could all discuss the various solutions the groups had come
up with. The groups presented to the rest of the class what solutions they had come up with, and then
we discussed the different solutions as a class, compared them, how well they would work, and
what the reactions to the solutions would be.

3. Describe the formative assessments that prepare students for unit summative assessment (put in
bold any components that challenge students to higher order thinking [rigor]):

The point of the summative assessment that I am using is to have the students apply the
thinking that they have been learning and using during the course of the unit. As a part of introducing
the civics unit in the first lesson, I asked the students to respond to the question “Is it the duty of
private citizens in this country to defend the rights of others?” While I consider this to be an
important point in the consideration of civics in a democracy in general, I also think that it was a good
way to set them on the path toward the realization that solving social issues in a democracy often
means considering positions other than your own.
In the third and fourth class periods of the unit, students worked in groups on a project
where their major task was to find issues that they identified on their own that they would like to
change in society. Once they had identified an issue/issues that they would like to change, they
needed to explain what they would do to try and change it/them, and in what ways they would be
willing to make sacrifices (give time/effort/money etc) to bring that change about. This had them
thinking about what impact they could have on society, and what impact laws have on society. This set
the students up for the assessment in a few ways. First, it had the students working in groups to
accomplish a civics-related task. Second, to perform this task, the students had to think about
public issues as things that can change, and think of themselves as potential agents of change.
Third, this exercise had them face the potential difficulties of trying to enact change in society.
For the fifth lesson, we took the issues that students had expressed interest in changing and
turned them into an interactive exercise where students would move to one side or another (or
anywhere in between) of the room according to where they ‘stood’ on a given issue. When we
came to more controversial topics, the students had the chance to try and convince those that
disagreed with them to come around to their side. This meant that they had to articulate why
they felt as they did, articulating to the class that people can have logical reasons for having
different opinions. This will help in the final assessment as students are being asked to find the best
solution for the town, which will include them considering other people’s opinions, which may be
different from their own and still have good reasons behind them.
For the sixth lesson, we discussed the political divide in this country (amongst other things) and
how groups of people can wind up thinking the same on issues, which often results in very polarized
thinking. This also came up as a part of the seventh lesson, where we talked about political primaries
and how they can also be pretty polarizing. In this lesson, we had an activity to demonstrate to the
students the impact of polarized thinking, and how it can wind up with the only two options
politically available being opposite extremes, despite the fact that there might have been better
options somewhere in the middle. This will relate to their work on local issues, as there will be two
sides to the issues they are looking at, and they will need to decide whether they think that it would be
best to side with other option or to try and find middle ground.

Lessons Information
Provide overall descriptions of the lessons in the unit by responding to the following prompts. Detailed
lesson plans for the five required lessons will appear in the Supporting Materials section.

1. List the titles of all lessons in sequence in the unit (put in bold those lessons that will be described
below). Be sure to number each lesson for use in the Unit Standards/Objectives/Assessment chart
above.

2. Describe at least five lessons (at least one from beginning and one from the end of unit and three
others from middle of unit):
For each lesson described, provide the following information:
⮚ Lesson title
⮚ Brief description
⮚ Instructional strategies used (listed at the end of the lesson description)
⮚ Assessment types incorporated (at least one formal and two informal throughout the lessons
described) (listed at the end of the description)
⮚ Dominant learning styles addressed (listed at the end of the lesson description)
⮚ Accommodations/adaptations/differentiation (described at the end of the lesson description;
based on class profile; showing attention to specific learner needs and personal diversity as well
at IEP/504 requirements)
⮚ Use of technology, if applicable (must be included in at least two lessons that show use of
technology by teacher and students for learning experiences and/or assessment)
⮚ Lesson reflection: Complete a lesson reflection for each of the five lessons. Respond to the
questions listed on the lesson plan template. These reflections may be included at the end of
this section of lesson descriptions or they may be included at the end of the individual lesson
plans in the Supporting Materials. If included at the end of each lesson plan in the Supporting
Materials section, indicate in this section where the reflections will be found.

3. Describe ways in which the unit overall and/or individual lessons connect to learning beyond one
content area and/or to real-world problems (relevance) and methods by which students are made
aware of these connections.
 This being a civics unit,

Student Self-reflection
Describe ways in which student self-reflection is built into the unit.

Classroom Learning Environment

Based on the class profile, specific learner needs, and your classroom learning environment philosophy,
describe how the learning environment supports learning for all students in this particular unit. Be sure
to address how the learning environment encourages many of the following: individual and
collaborative learning, positive social interaction, active engagement, and student self-motivation.

Resources
List resources used for this unit. Cite all sources of research, including digital resources and human
resources, and provide appropriate citations.

Unit Reflection
Include a reflection that addresses the required prompts in the assignment.

Supporting Materials
Provide lesson plans (minimum of five described above), formative assessments and scoring guides,
handouts, etc., that were part of each lesson. Be sure to complete the lesson reflection prompts at the
end of each lesson plan.