Basic Productivity Tools (BPT)

Lesson Idea Name: Pen Palling with Polly and Peter

Content Area/Grade(s): Middle School
Content Standard Summarized: L9-10WHST5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning,
revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a
specific purpose and audience.
Technology Standard Addressed: Multimedia Tools and Word Processing
Selected Technology Tool: Power Point

URL(s) to support the lesson (if applicable):

Bloom’s Taxonomy Level(s):
☐ Remembering ☒ Understanding ☒ Applying ☐ Analyzing ☐ Evaluating ☒ Creating

Levels of Technology Integration:

☐ Infusion Level: Students may work at a higher Bloom’s Level, but they do not have any “Voice or Choice”
during the activity and most of the decisions are made by the teacher.

☐ Integration Level: We would like to see ALL lessons/activities reach this level. The project is student-
driven. Students have “Voice and Choice” in the activities, selecting the topic of study and determining the
technology tool to demonstrate mastery of the standard. All products of learning are unique and
personalized. The teacher becomes more of a facilitator walking around monitoring the student-led
activity.
☒ Expansion Level: The projects created are shared outside of the classroom, publishing student work and
promoting authorship. This could be reached by showcasing the project on the school’s morning
newscast, posting the project to the classroom blog, or publishing via an outside source.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL): This audio book will be a helpful book for students to begin
understanding world geography through pen palling. The students will learn about the different countries and
languages but can choose the location they would like to write the letter to. The decision they make will be
the choice they want to learn more about. When the students go home to continue working on their letter,
they will be able to go look up more information. Even though I am teaching the lesson, I feel as though the
audio book guides the students in the direction to begin understanding world geography through pen palling.
As teachers we guide the students through the learning and help them wherever is needed but the students
should take the learning and knowledge they must go out and do it themselves. Through the pen palling the
students will learn knew information from the person they talk to or go outside of the classroom to do their
own research. For teachers to use this audio book can be a resource into expanding or work on another
project or lesson plan to give something else for the students to enjoy. I would even take this lesson a step
further and have the students present all the information they found out through pen palling or the research
they found at home to their student peers.
Lesson idea implementation: In this lesson the students are going to follow through the audio book to work
on pen palling. They will first understand the countries and languages around the world. Follow along with
Polly and Peter on how to begin writing their letters. This audio book allows the students to go at their own
pace but take it a step further and move out of their comfort zone. This project will allow them to understand
about world geography by learning about the countries around the world. For their homework, the students
will work on writing their letters in both English and in the other countries’ language. The expansion level of
technology integration is used in this lesson by giving the students time to work at home. These letters can be
used in a blog or will be shipped to a safe place in the other country. In this audio book, I am hoping the
students find this lesson to be fun and enjoyable to do. They can meet someone new and through the letters
TFrazier, 2021
 Basic Productivity Tools (BPT)

back and forth can learn something new from a different country. In United States, we know what is going on
here but in other countries there is only a limited amount of information to obtain. To see other perspectives
and how they live day to day can open the students’ minds.
Reflective Practice: Students will find this lesson to be fun and enjoy learning about geography. Most of the
time students are sitting at a desk looking out of a book which can be boring. Whereas in this lesson the
students are learning but also being active into the lesson. If the students do not want to send the letter out
to the country, then the students can practice with their friends around them. This can encourage them to
avoid being on social media and go back to when kids were writing notes.

TFrazier, 2021