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ABC Community School 

 
 

 
 
 
Kanoa Tauaese 
10/8/2020 
 
Position Paper 

As an educator at ABC Community School for several years, I cannot stress the 

importance enough of having technology in the classroom. Having technology available 

and at the ready helps both teachers and students create an understanding of the material 

at hand. The U.S. Department of Education states that technology in schools can do the 

following: “​...​builds 21st century skills; increases student engagement and motivation; and 

accelerates learning.” If we were to discontinue technology usage at this school, we would 

be setting up our future students for failure as they enter post-secondary education and 

enter the “real-world”. (US Dept. of Edu., 2020) 

As a literature teacher, the topics at hand are extremely content heavy and dense, 

leading my students to become disinterested at the subject matter at times. The 

integration of technology based tasks and projects are absolutely crucial to my teaching 

style and to keeping these students motivated and on task. As an educator my duty to this 

school and to these students is to make sure they receive the highest quality education 

possible. Without the use of technology and computers in our classrooms, I would be 

limited in delivering my curriculum, as would many other educators at this school.  

If we as a school were to abandon all use of our technology and go strictly to 

focusing on only multiple choice tests, we would be severely hindering these students 

chances of success. Technology is a part of our everyday lives. To take away such a crucial 

part of their everyday lives would be the equivalent of taking away respirators from a 

hospital.  
Citation 

U.S. Department of Education. (2020). ​Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning​.  

https://www.ed.gov/oii-news/use-technology-teaching-and-learning#:~:text=Use

d%20to%20support%20both%20teaching,skills%3B%20increases%20student%2

0engagement%20and.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Identification of Standards 
Addressing the ISTE standards, the main goal for these standards are to prepare 

students to thrive in a constantly evolving technological landscape. The ISTE standards 

provide a broader approach to technological learning as there are seven sub sections that 

make up the standards. Addressing the Standards of Nevada, this document gives national 

indicators as well as grade level goals that the student should be able to complete 

technologically. There are only six subsections in this document, but this document goes 

into more depth.  

Some similarities of these two documents can include that the Nevada Technology 

Standards are directly based on the ISTE standards, as well as most of the subsections are 

quite similar in content. Some main differences between these two documents can include 

that the Nevada Standards have a breakdown by grade level as opposed to the ISTE 

standards which provide a general overview of the goals. Using the Nevada Computer and 

Technology Standards teachers are given more of a direct goal that the student should 

accomplish and benchmark goals that help the teacher recognize where the student 

should be at. 

For my lesson plan I’ve decided to focus on the ISTE Standard of being a creative 

communicator. The subsection I am focusing on is 6b, Students create original works or 

responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations. This is closely related 

to the NETS Standard of Creativity and Innovation, Part B, Create original works as a 

means of personal or group expression.  


LESSON PLAN FORMAT FOR SECTION 4 

YOUR LESSON MUST HAVE ONLY THESE LABELED SECTIONS, AND NO OTHER 
SECTIONS 

• Name of lesson:​ The Hobbit Album Cover 

• Grade Level Appropriateness​: 9th-10th Grade 

• Technology Content Standard Addressed: ​ISTE Standards for Students   

6 - Creative Communicator - 6b - Students create original works or responsibly repurpose 


or remix digital resources into new creations. 

• Other Content Standard Addressed: 

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the 
course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; 
provide an objective summary of the text. 

• Objective:   

The student will create an original album cover using digital tools, Microsoft Powerpoint, 
based on their reading and understanding of J.R.R. Tolkein’s ​The Hobbit​.  

The student will also explain why certain elements were chosen to ensure their 
understanding of the Hobbit. 

• Materials needed to facilitate the lesson:​ Computer, Microsoft Powerpoint, The Hobbit 
Ebook or Hard Copy.  

• Suggested group size​: Single Student  

• Procedures:​ (Step by step narrative for implementation of the lesson.)  

Creating the Album Cover 


Open up Microsoft Powerpoint 

1. Delete the two boxes that appear on the slide by highlighting the two boxes and 
deleting them 
2. Go to the insert tab, select shape, and click rectangle 
3. Hold the Shift key and create a square by dragging your mouse from the top left 
corner to the bottom part of the slide to create a perfect square. 
4. Situate the square so it sits in the middle of the page. 
5. Click on the square you’ve just created and go to shape styles, click on the up 
arrow next to shape fill to change the color of the square and make the square 
white with a black outline. 
6. Select the first slide and go to the home tab, click new slide, then click the option 
duplicate selected slides. 
7. The first slide will be the Front of your Album cover and the second slide will be 
the back of the album cover. 
8. Create two additional new slides by selecting the insert tab and then hitting the 
new slide button twice. 
9. Title these two slides “Explanation of Front Album Cover” and “Explanation of 
Back Album Cover”. 

Let’s Work on the Front side of the album cover. 

1. Click on the first slide and select the insert tab. Click on text box. Create a 
rectangle shape using without holding shift to create a long rectangle 
2. Inside the text box, type The Hobbit Album Cover. 
3. Click the Insert tab. Insert another text box into the Album cover and inside the 
box type your name and put it in the bottom right corner so I know who did which 
album cover. 
4. Get Creative! Album covers are very diverse and unique. Insert pictures and 
shapes to create a one of a kind album cover. Feel free to change the colors of the 
background using the shape format tool. There are unlimited resources to this 
project.  

When Inserting a picture, be sure the picture sits behind your fonts. After inserting an 
image be sure to move that image to the back by right clicking the image and selecting 
move to back. This will ensure that your picture sits behind anything else you insert. 

To start your search for pictures. Go into google and type in “The Hobbit 
Clip art.” This will pull up school friendly pictures of the hobbit characters 
and so all you will have to do is download the pictures and insert them into 
the powerpoint. You can also try searching fantasy landscapes and other 
related searches to get started.   

5. Make sure to explain why you selected certain images on the slide titled 
“Explanation of Front Album Cover”. 5 Sentence minimum. 

Next let’s work on the songs for the backside of the album cover. 
1. Click on the second slide and select the insert tab. Click on text box. Before you 
draw your text box, make sure to hold shift just like before so you can create a 
square that will fit inside the Album cover. 
2. Get out the Hobbit book and flip to the page where it contains all the chapter 
names.  
3. Inside the text box, write down the numbers 1-10 so it creates a descending 
order. 

Ex: 

1. 

2. 

3. 

Etc. 

4. Write down 10 of your favorite chapters alongside the numbers. It doesn’t have 
to be in chapter order, feel free to switch them around as you please. These will 
be your song titles! 
5. Each song has to be done by somebody! Think about which characters were in 
that chapter. It could be Biblo, Gandalf or even Smaug. I would like you to credit 
each song to a character in this book. Make sure they were in the chapter and 
played a significant role in the chapter. An example is provided below. 

Ex: 1. An Unexpected Party - Bilbo Baggins  

2. Riddles In The Dark - Gandalf the Grey 

6. Get Creative! Insert pictures and shapes into the back of the album cover to 
complete the look. Refer to the previous directions on what pictures to search for 
in Number 4 of the Front side of the album cover. 
7. Like previous make sure to include your explanation of these pictures in the slide 
titled explanation of the Back Album Cover. 

Disclaimer! 
Do NOT use movie posters and/or photos of the actors in the movies. This is lazy and 
not a stretch for the imagination! Be creative and really think about how you can 
represent certain sections of the book using images.  

 
Stuck on Being Creative? Here’s some ideas! 

Play around with different fonts and placings of each title.  

Play around with different color themes and palettes to create different vibes.  

Take a look at your favorite album! Do you think you can replicate it while still  

keeping themes of the Hobbit? 

• Assessment:  
To grade this assignment I would go with a summative assessment. This project is designed so
that when they are done reading the book, they can go back and quickly analyze some of their
favorite parts of the book.

This project will be graded on completion of the album cover within the specified time frame, the
originality of the album cover picture and layout, the completion of the text that explains the front
and back of the album cover. I am not so much worried about the design, more about why you
chose this image to represent this cover and how it ties into the book.

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