read-aloud

Curriculum and Methods Lesson Plan

“Think Aloud” Version

Name: Dov Emerson

When do you plan to teach this lesson?

04/22/2021

Content Area: Social Studies / History

Grade Level: 3rd grade

Topic: Who lived in Michigan prior to the arrival of European settlers

Standards:

H3.0.4 Draw upon traditional stories and/or teachings of indigenous peoples who lived in
Michigan to make generalizations about their beliefs and histories.

3 – H3.0.5 Use informational text and visual data to compare how indigenous people and
non-indigenous people in the early history of Michigan adapted to, used, and modified
their environment.

Objective:

This lesson is aimed to inform a third-grade classroom of students about what our state of
Michigan looked like pre-colonization. They will be educated on the tendencies and common
routines of the indigenous people who inhabited the soil we exist on every day. Students will
also be able to draw connections from their own life to the lesson through self-reflection within
our formative and summative assessments provided for the students. After conducting the
lesson on indigenous people in Michigan, their stories, and specific characteristics/habits of their
people, students will have a broad understanding of those who inhabited our lands before our
ancestors settled here. The learner will be able to state and recognize local and statewide
geographic regions and what tribes lived on these lands. The learner can describe what natural
resources were utilized for survival and are available by reading carefully crafted accounts from
indigenous peoples of our land.

The learner will be able to statements:

● The learner will be able to describe what natural resources were utilized for survival and
are available by reading carefully crafted accounts from indigenous peoples of our land.
● The learner will be able to have a vast knowledge of our states pre-colonization
geography, and the survival resources our ancestors relied upon
● The learner will be able to comprehend and apply information from personal accounts
crafted by indigenous peoples of our state of Michigan.
● The learner will be able to draw connections between their own lives and those who
came before them.

Rationale:

The content in which the students will be learning is crucial to their development into
becoming strong global citizens. This lesson will aid students' understanding of the indigenous
peoples who inhabited the lands in which we live in our home state through personal accounts
told by indigenous respective tribe members. Acquiring this information at a young age is
valuable as it opens their minds to concepts not only vital to their future as citizens in a melting
pot county, but to be conscious of those who inhabited the soil we call home before us. Students
will be encouraged to conduct deep thinking about their geographic regions and what natural
resources lie within. Many educators and curriculum developers do not accurately know how to
speak of topics outside of their ethnic territory, the farthest I experienced was learning about the
genocide that occurred in Nazi Germany, not the Japanese Internment camps, or the genocide
of Native Americans, to mention a few. To be able to educate students at a young age on the
innovations and true brilliance of the indigenous people brought to the settlers, and what
technologies we still use today is a great way to allow students to see the wisdom and strength
that the Native tribes practised before us. Allowing students insight into this will help subdue
racial prejudices placed upon ethnic groups when not exposed to or educated accurately about.
Providing students with personal accounts from members of the tribe that inhabited our state of
Michigan will allow students to create their diverse lens on who came before us, moving to
higher grades the students will be able to carry this knowledge and apply it to their education on
alienated ethnic groups within our country.
Pre Assessment:

I will ask three students to come to the computer and inform me of previously obtained
knowledge about Native Americans in general. Once they have an answer to that question, I will
ask a follow-up question about what they know about Native Americans in Michigan. The third
graders should have a base knowledge of some of the tribes that we will be learning about
today, based on my knowledge and research into documents that educator Katie Johnson
shared with me from a lesson she taught in October of 2020 during social studies that covered
indigenous people at a local and national level. I will pair and share the activity with an elbow
partner, where students will be prompted to share what they remember from their previous
education on indigenous peoples that inhabited our state of Michigan before our ancestors
settled here. Through this step, students will be reminded by their three classmates about what
they remembered, then they will have time to dig into their memory banks to remember the
knowledge they have on Native Americans. This involves all students and promotes
collaborative learning and allows students to share with a peer who may eventually be
researching a different tribe than them in the group activity later on about what they remember.
Ensuring that all students' thinking has a moment to be honoured and valued is a large part of
my teaching philosophy and an element of effective teaching that I wish to implore in every
educational environment that I have the opportunity to be a part of.

Summative Assessment:

Throughout The entire course of the lesson that I will be teaching, students from the beginning
will be encouraged to be active learners, listeners, and readers. Student understanding will be
demonstrated by the annotations of their provided tribe readings. Student understanding will
also be demonstrated through their worksheets that they will fill out individually, but through
discussion with their tribe partner. In their whole tribe communication before building the puzzle,
the educator will be able to observe student thinking in a larger group setting in preparation for
their final assessment on their inclusion to the map. Once the student has listened to the read
aloud, done their reading and annotating, consulted with their peer partner, then consulted with
their entire group of peers who studied the same tribe, they will be able to accurately make a
visual representation on the puzzle they have put together. If I as the educator was able to be in
the classroom, I would be able to analyze their drawing on the map and ask follow up questions.
MY best alternative to this would be to ask each student to come up to the virtual video
conference and share with the Hope College students what their inclusion in the collaborative
learning puzzle was and why. This is the best way to gauge student learning in the lesson for
what the virtual situation is. After The lesson is completed, I will be able to analyze the student
worksheets, as well as their annotations to see how well they understood the presented
information. In addition, another way to age their understanding of the geography element would
be to observe how much difficulty students have with solving the puzzle due to the tribes
geographical locations presented in the informational sheet, and stated in the read aloud.
Connections:

Using the informational resources that Val and Katie shared with me during my development of
this lesson I will be sure to mention early on that we will be studying the Potawatomi, Ojibwa,
and Ottawa tribes. I will be sure to ask students if they recognize any of these names from
previous lessons or on a local level. Maybe students will recognize the name Ottawa, as the
school district West Ottawa, or the country in which we live in titled Ottawa County. Students will
be reminded explicitly what being an active, learner, reader, and listener looks like, and the
characteristics and tendencies a student will exhibit if they embody those learner traits. I will
demonstrate this through informational slides found on my google slide show with a welcoming
interface that does not promote a boring learning environment, I want the kids to have fun
throughout the entire lesson, be engaged, and want to learn more. Thus serving the purpose of
the final slides on my slideshow here I include young adult and children's literature that is
available to students that are written by the tribes in which we will be studying and learning
about in the prompted lesson. Students will need to understand the proper terms in which to
refer to Native Americans, (Not simply Indians). This will help eliminate the Walt Disney
influence that has subsidized many ethnic and racial groups in our nation to one depiction
through animation. I wrote a research paper on this topic in English 360 last semester on how
Walt Disney Films have promoted racial stereotypes and generalizations for decades.

Introduction:

This lesson is a hands-on collaborative learning experience for students in the classroom
environment. To engage students from the beginning of the lesson I plan to greet them
energetically and get them excited for the lesson through personal dialogue. I will ask three
students to come to the computer and inform me of preconceived knowledge about Native
Americans in general. Once they have the answer to that question, I will ask a follow-up
question about what they know about Native Americans in Michigan. The third graders should
have a base knowledge of some of the tribes that we will be learning about today, based on my
knowledge and research into documents that educator Katie Johnson shared with me from a
lesson she taught in October of 2020 during social studies that covered indigenous people at a
local and national level. This introduction will only involve a few students to share their thinking
and understanding. I will be able to engage all students in the lesson, politely asking them in a
fashion that is facilitated by the educators present in the Hamilton classroom, to file to the poster
board with the map of Michigan on it, and plot a point on the Michigan Map of where they have
been before. If they are unaware of the location of places they have travelled to, they will be
encouraged to plot a local location such as Hamilton, Holland, or other neighbouring local towns
in West Michigan. From this point forward, students will be able to share the virtual call at what
point they plotted and why if time permits. Then I will move into introducing the video recording.
This now moves into the task portion of the lesson plan, where students will be able to
understand what is expected of them through proceeding slides in the slideshow presented
through a screen share.

Task:

To begin the lesson, students will be asked in short to come up to the hand-drawn map of
Michigan in front of a plot point in which they have travelled prior to the day of the lesson being
taught. Moving forward I will introduce the lesson, in a detailed description of what the students
are expected to do. This will go hand in hand with my google slide show that has student
expectations, discussed in a multitude of varieties. I will speak over the virtual video conference
call to the students explicitly explaining these instructions and being sure to ask if any
clarification is needed. Something that I would like to stress in my virtual lesson, is that students
are more than willing to come up to the computer in which the call is on and ask me questions
throughout the lesson. Some of the instructions and content may be difficult to understand for
specific students, and since I am the expert as I am teaching about it, I would love to openly be
able to facilitate students' questions and direct their thinking towards the correct answers, and
clarity through their completion of the assignment. I will be pre-recording myself reading aloud
each of the informational texts as well as the indigenous people’s stories. There will be three
total groups (Ojibwa, Ottawa, Potawatomi), each containing four groups of two students
studying their respective tribes Resulting in eight students per tribe, expecting that all
twenty-four students are present in class on Thursday. (It is not the end of the world if students
are in groups of three, or the three whole groups aren't equal in the number of students total). I
was hoping you guys would be okay with making the groupings of students, these numbers I
have are based on the initial math intervention list of students within your classroom
environment in Hamilton. The students will come together as a "tribe" group and share their
findings based on their worksheet that will help them collect the data they have found. The
concluding activity will result in the students piecing together a pre-cut map of Michigan based
on where the tribes resided. In the video, I will be demoing what this will look like. Once the
students piece together the map, each student will have the opportunity to come up to the map
and draw a picture that represents something particular to the tribe in which they learned about.
Students may draw trees, fish, bears, lacrosse stick, a traditional word, or a reference from the
indigenous story, on the poster board in front of the classroom. When they come up to the front
of the classroom, they will make their addition to the map, and then come to the computer that
has the virtual call, and share with the Hope Students what their inclusion was. Based on
student responses, I will provide positive reinforcement to the student’s statements, as well as
offer follow up questions to students that will probe their thinking. Due to our lesson being taught
on a day in which we don’t have our scheduled class time for education 310-311 Hope College
students will be expected to logon to their students zoom or google meets call that is regularly
scheduled for the 9:30 AM slot for their English Language Arts Coaching.
Closure:

My anticipated closing of the lesson will be allowing students to come up to the computer that is
casting the virtual video conference and share something new that they learned about
indigenous people and tribes that inhabited the state of Michigan before European colonization.
I will encourage them to answer the first question found on their student worksheet that asks the
student, “What connections did you make between the life of your tribe and your personal life?”
This is a strong element to include in the lesson as it allows students to finalize connections
made before the lesson beginning with the activity of them plotting on the map where they have
been in the state of Michigan. I will be sure to have a strong closing statement that will
accurately encapsulate the importance of honouring those who inhabited the land before us. I
will make connections to how the Native Americans paved the road for our existence in our
classrooms today. How their teachings and inventions can be found in everyday life. In
conclusion, I will relate the story that I read found in the Ojibwa section, in how the three fires
were formed and how the world can seek peace if we all come together to love, respect and
have trust in one another no matter our backgrounds, and to build bridges, not barriers. “Man
can not discover new oceans unless he dares to lose sight of the shore” (Medicine Man). This
quote is a non-traditional Michigan tribal member quote but one of an unknown medicine man in
Native American Culture. I believe showing elements of culture through many different lenses is
vital for students to build their understanding of said culture.

Student Thinking:

Although This lesson plan was designed to not be extremely rigorous and more informative and
educational about the indigenous people of the state of Michigan, I realized that for some
students and individuals, learning outside of your cultural barrier can be found as a difficult task.
Students will be encouraged to enter this lesson with an open mind and the willingness to
absorb new information that is not only applicable to their lives but applicable to the soil they
stand on every day. Having the opportunity to craft a lesson about local Native American tribes,
their customs and tendencies and a community was an amazing experience and I am very
excited to have the opportunity to educate the youth on this content. This is something that I
never received in my prior education in this community. To be able to educate on something as
important as ethnicity, and cultural tendencies is something that I am extremely passionate
about. To be successful students will be required to work collaboratively within a peer group
environment. Students will then transition to a larger group setting, amongst individuals who
spent the same amount of time researching the same documents about the same Native
American tribe. Students will be intelligent as they respectfully learn about indigenous tribes,
making sure to honor their customs and not insight inappropriate statements. Students' critical
thinking will be exhibited through their ability to work together as a whole class to piece together
the puzzle of the State of Michigan. Their critical thinking will also be on display as they present
me with the specific reason to which they made their drawing on the map. There will also be
several other moments within the lesson that individual students will be able to share their
thoughts and information received in the lesson directly to the educator.

Formative Assessment:

As you teach the lesson, how will you check (at various times throughout) whether students are
understanding the content? How will you elicit and interpret individual student thinking? What
specific questions will you ask?

Throughout the lesson I will be facilitating discussions through joining my Hope College
classmates Google Meets or zoom calls to ask prompting questions. Questions that I will ask
will stem from the worksheet that has a wide variety of questions worded in specific ways that
probe student thinking. Questions such as, “What connections can you make between the way
of life of the Potawatomi tribe and your own life?” “Do the Ottawa Tribe eat some of the same
meals as you?” “Tell me something new that you learned about the Ojibwa tribe today?” These
are a few specific questions that I will be asking throughout the lesson to students as they
conduct their thinking and annotations of the provided informational bodies of text. In the
beginning of the lesson when three random students volunteer to inform me on what they
already know about the indigenous peoples that inhabited our land before us, I will ask short
follow up questions after their statement. Questions that will not be rigorous or too difficult to
answer on the spot as I aim to not single out or alienate any of my students, especially those
who volunteered at the beginning of the lesson. If they feel a sense of alienation or failure they
may find it difficult to return to their peers or complete the rest of the activity with confidence that
they may have had if they did not biff the answer in front of the whole classroom. I will reiterate
multiple times throughout the lesson that “no answer, is a bad answer.” Hopefully, this statement
allows students to understand that this is a learning experience for us all and that I facilitate a
positive learning environment. Throughout the course of the lesson, every student will have the
opportunity to come up to the virtual video calls and share their understanding with me. This is a
way that I will be able to observe and document their understanding of the lesson taught.
Engaging reinforcing questions will be prompted after most if not all student answers.

Accommodations:

When analyzing my lesson plan, my main goal of this lesson was to be extremely informative
instead of rigorous and taxing of the students. The most rigorous aspect of this lesson is the
literacy component that details the specific indigenous tribes the lesson is covering. I believe
students who have a difficult time reading, and who may be unfamiliar with reading non-English
words may struggle with the text. I attempted to make it third-grader friendly, however, some of
the language included in the informational handout is slightly advanced. To combat students
struggling with comprehension of these detailed areas I have prepared a pre-recorded audio file
of myself reading all of the informational paragraphs about each tribe. I have also layered the
audio file over an intriguing iMovie video clip that has valuable visuals that align with what I am
speaking about. When students have little to no understanding of a topic it can be difficult to
visualize what the teacher is speaking about, so instead of me simply reading the text, the video
will have carefully selected visuals that enhance the learner’s experience and ability to grapple
with the new knowledge in which they are obtaining.

Technology:

During my lesson to be taught, I plan on using technology in several different ways throughout
the presentation. I plan to have a pre-recorded iMovie created that will narrate the informational
sheets and the indigenous peoples original stories. Although the students will have time allotted
to read the specific readings for their tribe, for students who struggle with reading fluency and
comprehension, the read-aloud version will be helpful and will ensure that all students have the
same understanding of their specific tribes that they are learning about. I also plan to have a
visually appealing google slideshow that will be screen shared during the google meets or zoom
call with the Hamilton students. The slideshow will include the elements that I would like the
students to know. It will include content about what an active reader looks like and does, as well
as what an active listener looks like and does. The slide show will also include suggested book
titles that I have found within their age range and reading fluency that depict accurate accounts
of Native Americans from all three tribes. I debated using a youtube video, however, I feel that
my voice over of text will suffice. I plan on layering my voice over with informational photography
and visual cues that align with what I am speaking about respectively for each tribe in my
pre-recorded read aloud.

Logistics:

Across the duration of the lesson, I will be providing instructional information on the logistics of
the lesson and how it is expected to flow. I have communicated to Val Capel, Katie Johnson ,
and Alyssa Meier the internal logistics of the lesson so that they are aware of what is planned.
I plan to lead the puzzle activity over zoom or google meets, and facilitate discussion throughout
the lesson. The materials that I will need include three pieces of poster board, markers, Printed
informational sheets, Worksheets and access to a MAC so I can compile the audio and visual
files into a cohesive educational iMovie for the Hamilton Third Grade students to view in class. I
have planned this lesson to take anywhere from 45-55 minutes in duration, depending on the
length of student transition times.

Lesson Plan

“Real World” Version

To be successful, I will need to remember to provide explicit, clear instruction to my students
throughout the lesson. I will be expected to provide concise expectations for the students
throughout the course of the lesson. This will result in fluid transitions between activities and
grouped activities. When I contemplate what may be a point of confusion for students or may
cause a hold-up can be found in the part in which students are transitioning between their
partner groups to their tribe groups and the discussions that will take place within those. My goal
is to implement the Hope College students via their English Language Arts coaching times to
help facilitate student discussion. The students will have plenty of information to share as they
have listened to the read aloud, spent time carefully annotating the text with a partner, sharing
their findings in pairs, as well as had time to fill out their note sheets. I aimed to ensure that
students have large amounts of information to speak about within their large groups by carefully
crafting the informational paragraphs they read and listened to.