Sarah Varland

Dolphin-grams for “The Cove”

Objectives: By the end of class today, students will:
o Improve group works skills and delegation as they organize different aspects of the school-
wide “Dolphin-grams Fundraiser” within small group teams of their peers.
o Understand how delegating team tasks can enable large-scale projects to function
efficiently, and be able to apply this to outside situations.
o Become educators themselves, as they prepare to teach fellow students at our school about
their cause.
o Use their awareness and knowledge about an injustice to make a difference through raising
awareness and funds for change.
Materials Needed:
o Publicity team: team duties and roles worksheet, advertisement techniques worksheet, 12
white posters, one large banner (either butcher paper or a queen sized unfitted sheet to be
painted & paint), large markers, black sharpies, construction paper.
o Overhead announcements team: team duties and roles worksheet, public speaking pointers
worksheet, three written templates for morning announcements. Optional: basic recording
equipment and a quiet space for practicing announcements.
o Sales team: team roles and duties worksheet, fundraising/ sales techniques worksheet, 3-4
empty Pringle canisters with tops, blue paper, glue, scissors to decorate.
o Dolphin-grams team: team duties and roles worksheet, 400 blue paper pre-printed with
dolphin outlines and space for “to/ 1st period classroom, from, message” (3 per sheet), 400
small messages about Oceanic Preservation Society (to be glued to back of each gram),
scissors, glue.
Activities:
- Students will create, publicize, sell and collect/donate proceeds from Dolphin-grams. Dolphin-
grams are dolphin shaped cards any student or faculty can purchase for $1 (or 6 for $5), write a
message on and send to someone within the school (or choose to keep and give outside of school).
The back will explain that all proceeds go to the Oceanic Preservation Society to stop dolphin
slaughter and sale of mercury contaminated meat. People may also choose to make purely cash
donations. All people donating will be recorded in a ledger, and thank-you notes from our class
will be distributed to them during school the following week. In this plan, I explain our entire
fundraiser’s trajectory, as well as this specific day’s activities as designated by “Day One:”
- Students will break into predetermined small groups based on general strengths I’ve
identified in them.1 I designed each team so that it fulfills one aspect of our fundraiser that
needs to be addressed. Quotation denotes the team’s designation on the calendar. They are
1
This team structure will also be utilized during Service-Learning week, as students break into teams to
accomplish pieces of overall goal. They will create their own worksheets with roles and duties by grafting
and applying skills learned during Dolphin-grams. Aides and myself will circulate and supervise during this
week to promote as much grafted skill use as possible.
 explained and listed below with full duties, although these duties will be completed over a
series of multiple class periods:
- Day One (5-10 minutes): Explain the basic duties of each team to the entire class so that
they understand the “big picture” of our fundraiser before retreating to their small teams to
begin working. (For details on each team, see below.)
- Day One (3-5 minutes): Ask students to wait until I am finished talking to move with
their teams. Then announce team assignments and ask students to quietly get together, as
one member from each team comes to the front of the room to collect their team packet.
This will include worksheets on their team’s roles and duties. Each student will assume a
role and complete to corresponding duties over the next few days.
- Day One (30-40 minutes): Overall, students will assign roles within teams, and follow
their worksheets. They will begin by discussing how they will accomplish each of their
tasks, as well as what materials they will need to do this. They will then fill out their
“timeline,” which helps them create goals to meet by the end of each class period in order
to implement Dolphin-grams on time. As students do this, I will circulate the classroom
several times to ensure their understanding and proper engagement from each student.
Each team will begin their tasks for this day, as listed under each team.
- Publicity Team “Pub” (7 students): In charge of 2 types of posters. First type: creates one
large banner to hang in main entrance of our school; Second type: creates posters
advertising Dolphin-grams to give to all teams in the school. (Other type: created in
Visual Arts class cross curricular: posters raising awareness for basic points of
“The Cove” and advertising optional after school screening.
-Day One (30-40 minutes): On the first day, the publicity team must work to
design the large banner for our school. They will then sketch it onto the blank
banner, paint it, and carefully hang it to dry on pre-arranged hooks in the back of
the classroom. They will come in to school 15 minutes early on Monday morning
(with passes from me), and meet me in the main entrance with various other adult
helpers to hang the banner.
- Overhead announcements Team “Ann.” (3 students): Writes and revises 5 school-wide
morning announcements. First announcement: Monday, introducing “The Cove”
and informing of screening time after school on Tuesday (permission slips
distributed previous week, designated “ASA” on calendar), with mention of our
fundraiser. Second and Third announcement Tuesday and Wednesday providing 3
facts from “The Cove” and hyping Dolphin-grams as way to make a difference by
sending them to friends, all proceeds benefiting the Oceanic Preservation Society.
Fourth announcement Thursday, final day to support Dolphin-grams and give one
more fact. Fifth Announcement: Friday, final tally of money to be donated, thanks
to all supporters, wrap up of what donation can accomplish.
-Day One (30-40 minutes): This team will spend Friday writing a max 150 word
announcement for Monday morning. They may choose to work in the hallway with
a recording device as they use their worksheet to cover all major pieces if
information for the announcement (intro to what “The Cove” is, when the after
school viewing occurs, where to buy Dolphin-grams, etc.). I will periodically check
on their progress and maturity levels in the hallway.
 - Sales Team “Sale” (5 students): (Before sales days, these students may aid Dolphin-
grams team or Publicity team since they have front-loaded, labor-
intensive assignments.) On Wed, Thurs, Fri, students will sell Dolphin-grams in a
prominent place of the lunchroom during lunch periods for three days in multiple
groups with two supervising adults since money handling is involved.2 Only
students will perform sales. One or two students will circulate the lunchroom
with a decorated, slotted canister and Dolphin-grams, offering sales at each table or
taking pure donations. These students will handle the business segment and report
to class each day with earnings.
-Day One (30-40 minutes): These students will spend the beginning of their class
period discussing sales strategies from their worksheet. They will then decorate the
Pringle canisters for money collection and they poster they will hang on the front of
the lunchroom sales booth designating prices. This should take them the entire class
period, but if it does not, they will be grafted to assist Dolphin-grams team.
- Dolphin-gram Team “gram” (10 students): Assembling all Dolphin-grams. The week
before, they will vote between 3 designs and choose their favorite, determining
what our product looks like. May choose to work as assembly line cutting, gluing,
drying and arranging in 50-gram bundles for ease in counting. A primary goal will
be organizational skills: ensuring quality and standardization with each Dolphin-
gram made, and organizing them into counted bundles of 50 for ease in vending
later in the week. Students will learn to systemize to make their work and the
fundraiser run more smoothly and easily.
-Day One (30-40 minutes): This team will examine various template choices for
our physical Dolphin-grams. Once the have voted on which template to use, two of
them will accompany and aide to the copy room to begin making copies. The other
8 will remain in the room, arranging their assembly line in the most productive
manner possible based on suggestions from their worksheet. When the other 2
students begin returning with the first batches of copies (this should be within 5-10
minutes), assembly will begin.
- Delivery (all students): All students will be assigned groups based on shift
(before school, lunch time, after school) where they will sort and deliver Dolphin-
grams to the recipients’ first period classroom. Sorting will happen Monday and
delivery on Tuesday of the following week.

2
*Special note on money-handling procedures: The teacher/administrators with the students will keep
money in a belted money bag at all times, although students will collect it during the immediate transaction.
After each set of lunch periods, the teachers will tally the money together and deliver it to my room, where
I will keep it locked until after school when I recount it with another teacher or administrator. As it
accumulates, it will be locked in the principles office until we reach our final amount, which will be
recounted and donated. Doubling of staff removes overtures of missing money (even due to accidental
miscounts) and relieves students of responsibility inappropriate for middle schoolers. Final amounts will be
announced to the school during congratulatory thank-you from our class.
- Should any team finish their project early, they will begin sorting filled out Dolphin-grams we
received back or helping in any other area that needs workforce power.
Assessment of Lesson Plan Goals:
o Assessment of group work/ delegation skills: students will be asked to complete an exit
survey on their group’s team work, their contribution, and what they learned about goal-
oriented team work. Also, I will circulate throughout the week and encourage these skills if
exhibited well and correct them if exhibited poorly.
o Assessment of project-based skill learning: A special section on the exit survey will be
dedicated to self and project reflection. Students will be asked to explain how they would
do better next time and list examples of where they can use these skills in other areas of
life.
o Assessment of students as educators: I will observe student work on teams to ensure they
understand the material well enough to share with others. Their team worksheets will be
designed to help isolate the most important info, and I will observe the methods they will
create to share it.
o Assessment of ability to make change: I will guide and observe teams as they translate
their knowledge into action to make change. Since their group worksheet provides task
checklists, I will meet with each group to discuss how well they think they met their goals,
what they did best, and what they could improve. We will settle on a ‘rating’ together
(amazing, very well, good, fairly well).
NCTE Standards:

 NCTE Standard #11: “Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and

critical members of a variety of literacy communities.”
ISBE Standards:

 ISBE Standard #3.B.3a: “Produce documents that convey a clear understanding and
interpretation of ideas and information and display focus, organization, elaboration and
coherence.”
 ISBE Standard #5.B.3a: “Choose and analyze information sources for individual,
academic and functional purposes.”