Thematic Unit Lesson Plan

Identify the proficiency level or levels of your students and their age/grade level. Write
down the topic of each lesson of your unit. Your objectives should include content and
language learning strategies and should be aligned with Nebraska’s English Language
Proficiency Standards (NE ELP).

Integrate the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, into your
activities, focusing on the development of academic language. Also include vocabulary
development, grammar practice as needed, and a range of communicative and academic
language functions in your lesson plans.

Sections:

I. Unit/Lesson #: 5

II. Lesson Topic/Title: Past vs. Present

III. Grade Level: 8th grade

IV. Language Level: Level 2

V. Standards (NE ELP): 6-8.2

NE ELP 6-8.2.2: An ELL can participate in short conservational and written exchanges
on familiar topics and texts, present information and ideas, and respond to simple
questions.

VI. Academic (Content) Objectives: Students will compare and contrast 1968 v. 2020 by
participating in short discussions in partners as well as written exchanges on the
content at hand.

VII. Language Objectives: By the end of class, students will be able to compare and
contrast as well as evaluate the years 1968 and 2020 by participating in K-W-L
charts, gallery walks, and picture collage activity with accurately completing the
activities in full.

VIII. Materials:
1. IPads
2. Daily Notebooks
3. Canva
4. Search Engine (such as Google)

IX. Procedures:

A. Introduction
Anticipatory Set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghio8ApyHSs
i. This video we will watch first. It is educational and shows the
connections between BLM protests and the civil rights protests in
1968.
B. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5w6VSMLH70
 i. This video is quite heavy, but I believe it shows the true side to the
protests that were quite similar to what the students learned in
Lesson #2.
ii. This video may provoke a lot of feelings for the students so after the
video. I am going to ask them to stay quiet and close their eyes and
think for a minute.
iii. After this minute, the students will turn and talk to their elbow
partner about how this video made them feel.
1. It made me feel _______ because ________________. (Speech
Starters).
2. After this conservation, students will be asked to write down in
their notebooks their feelings using the same speech starter.

C. Through
Instructional Input: Before we start our mini lecture, students will fill out a K-
W-L chart.
i. What do you know about this topic? What do you want to know?
What did you learn?
ii. They will fill out the know and the want before we start.
iii. Students will follow along with a three-slide lecture about 1968 vs.
2020. After the lecture is completed, students will individually fill out
their “what did you learn?” on their K-W-L chart.
iv. After they complete their chart, we will post the charts around the
room, sticking them to the wall with tape and students will go around
the room and read their peers K-W-L charts. As they are walking
around, they will carry their notebooks with them, and I will ask them
to write down three things they thought were interesting. (Gallery
walk).
1. These sentence frames will be posted on the board. I will ask
them to write them down in their notebooks before they start
walking around.
b. One thing I found interesting was _______________.
c. One thing that stood out to me was ____________.
d. I really liked _________’s (peers name) K-W-L chart
because ______________________.
v. As a class, we will do one photo and explanation sentence together.
After we work on that together, they will practice an explanation
sentence for the same photo on their own. (Guided Practice and
Modeling).
vi. After this activity is completed, students will have rest of the class
period to individually work on their picture collage.
1. The picture collage will have 4 pictures. 2 from modern
protests and 2 from civil rights movement.
b. Under each photo, they will write two sentences
explaining what is happening in the photo.
c. Sentence Frames for this are:
In the photo, _________________________ is
happening.
This photo makes me feel _________ because
________________.
I found this photo interesting because
____________________.
 D. Students will also be offered a word bank of all our vocab words and terms to
help with explaining the images. (Independent Practice)

X. Assessment: I will know that students have hit the target when they complete all
activities for the day as well as leave the class with a better understanding of our
history as a nation and our current times. This will be measured by their completion
of the picture collage activity.