College of Education and the Liberal Arts

Understand by Design Lesson Plan

Date: 3-27-23 Name: Kendall Moser

Lesson Title: Don’t Get Me
Started On…!
Grade: 11/12 (this could be
revamped to work for most
grades!
Time Frame: One Class

Stage 1 – Desired Results

Established Goals: Students will gain confidence with argumentative discussions, practice persuasive
arguments, and work on public speaking skills.

Common Core State Standards
ELA & SS
Math
Sci
Michigan Content Standards:
MDE - Michigan K-12 Computer
Science (CS) Standards
Social and Emotional Learning
(SEL) Competencies
SEL in All 50 States
https://www.positiveaction.net/blo effectively with others
g/sel-standards
Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of
evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links
among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone
used.
Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives; synthesize
comments, claims, and evidence made on all sides of an
issue; resolve contradictions when possible; and determine
what additional information or research is required to
deepen the investigation or complete the task
3C. Demonstrate an awareness of different cultures and a
respect for human dignity
3D. Can read social cues and respond constructively
4A. Use positive communication and social skills to interact

Social Emotional Learning |

Michigan Learning Channel
Understandings: Essential Questions:
Students will understand 1. What makes a speech “good”?
that…persuasive/argumentative presentations can be 2. What strategies can we use to speak
given on an almost endless number of topics.
smoothly/without pauses and fillers?
3. How can we become more confident
in our public speaking skills?
4. Why do we need to know how to craft
a speech/presentation on assigned
topics?
Students will know….how to craft a speech from an Students will be able to….craft a short speech from a
assigned topic and how to give supportive & helpful randomly assigned topic & be able to smoothly speak
feedback to peers. in front of their peers.

Differentiation: Students will be drawing their topics for their mini-

Tailoring instruction to meet speeches from a bin; there will be different bins separated
individual needs. by difficulty so students can decide how much they want to
 Enrichment: challenge themselves.
 Intervention:
20 Differentiated Instruction
Strategies and Examples.
Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
Performance Tasks:
The PERFORMANCE TASK describes the learning activity in “story”
form. Typically, the P.T. describes a scenario or situation that
requires students to apply knowledge and skills to demonstrate their Helpful tips for writing a
understanding in a real-life situation. Describe your performance task performance task.
scenario below:

At the end of the lessons, students should gain an Goal:

understanding of how to create an engaging, smooth What should students
speech/presentation and gain some confidence in presenting accomplish by completing
in front of peers. this task?
Students will take on the role of speakers/presenters and Role:
supportive audience members. What role (perspective) will
your students be taking?

The relevant audience for this assignment will be the students Audience:
themselves. Who is the relevant
audience?

This is the scenario for the students’ challenge: you are a Situation:
speaker at a small event, but gasp! You forgot what your topic The context or challenge
was! Pick a random topic from one of the topic bins and take provided to the student.
five minutes to craft a persuasive speech based on that topic
(your speech only needs to be 3 minutes long. It does not need
to be perfect!!! Just do your best and think outside of the
box!)
Students will be performing their short speech on their Product/Performance:
random topics to one another in small groups. The audience What product/
members for each speaker will fill out a small feedback form performance will the
(basically, what did you like, what went well, what do you student create?
think the speaker should practice a little more, and any other

Adapted from: Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). ASCD KAN Jan 2022 2
positive notes!)
Standards
(Create the rubric for the
Performance Task)

Key Criteria: to reflect Performance Tasks Examples: Rubric, Checklist, etc.

Diagnostic Assessment: See attached sheets and / or file named: Diagnostic Assessment

Summative Assessment 1 : See attached sheets and / or file named: Assessment 1

Paste rubric/checklist here:

Stage 3 – Learning Plan

W = Where the lesson is going and what is expected from the lesson?
The lesson is mostly to show students that 1. The audience members are rooting for the speaker, so as speakers
students should not be afraid of the audience. 2. Compelling and well-spoken speeches can come from any topic,
even if the student isn’t actually particularly passionate about that topic.

H = Hook all students and Hold their interest? By posing the following questions:
1.

E = Equip students, help them Experience the key ideas and Explore the issues?
This lesson comes just before students begin writing and presenting their own full-length speeches and
presentations for the class. It will equip students with practice and tools to gain confidence in public speaking and
in being active listeners as audience members. Students will also be provided with some tips and advice going
into the exercises as well as notecards that outline the key parts of a speech (ex: introduction, conclusion, etc.)
This exercise will also help students learn how to pace their speeches.

R = Provide opportunities to Rethink and Revise their understandings and work?

After each round of presentations, students will review their feedback from their group and come up with some
strategies to practice the areas they are not the strongest at.

E = Allow students to Evaluate their work and its implications?

As an exit ticket for this class period, students will fill out a reflection worksheet in which they will evaluate how
well they think they did, how they feel about public speaking and creating presentations after the practice vs.
how they felt before, and three things they learned from peer feedback/their own practice.

T = be Tailored to the different needs, interests, and abilities of learners?

The topics will be differentiated by challenge level. I will also select topics that are relevant to & interesting to the
students in my class.

O = Be Organized to maximize initial and sustained engagement as well as effective learning?

Adapted from: Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). ASCD KAN Jan 2022 3
Learning Activities
Start class with 15 minutes of independent reading time.
Give mini-lecture to review what makes an effective/compelling speech
After giving the mini-lecture, split the class into groups. Each student will draw a random topic from one of the
prompt bins (labelled by the challenge level of the prompts). Each student will have five minutes to craft their
mini-speech; remind students that these speeches don’t need to be perfect! The goal is to loosen up, get more
confident practicing their skills, and to have fun. As each student presents their first speech to their group, their
audience members will fill out a quick checklist of what the speaker does well and what they should practice
more. One group member for each group will be the timekeeper, making sure the students meet the time
requirements (it should be about 3 minutes long). After everyone in the group has presented, the students will
discuss their feedback together and share out as a class how the first round went. The groups will then repeat
this exercise again, trying to practice the advice given by their peers.
After the second round of presentations, students will return to their regular seats and answer some reflection
questions. If they finish early, they may continue to work on their speech topic brainstorming or read
independently.

Technology: A projector will be used to present the mini-lecture

What kind of tech tool will be presentation. Students will also use Peardeck to answer
used and how? interactive questions during the presentation.

Integration: This lesson can integrate a good number of other subjects

What subjects will be integrated as it uses varied prompts for speech topics!
into this lesson.

Social and Emotional Learning Students will practice being respectful audience members,
(SEL) communicating effectively and respectfully with peers, and
What SEL activities will be used reflecting on their own strengths and weaknesses.
into this lesson.

Materials
3 bins--labelled Level 1 challenge, Level 2 challenge, and Level 3 challenge (corresponding
with challenge level chart on the whiteboard)
Each bin will have two topic slips for the number of students (ex: if the class has 10
students, each bin should have 30 topic slips); the topic slips are pieces of paper with a
speech topic on it folded in half so that the students cannot read the topic until they have
drawn it from the bin and unfolded it.
Reflection questions worksheet for self-evaluation
Rubric/checklist for peer-evaluation
Powerpoint for the mini-lecture
Resources

Adapted from: Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). ASCD KAN Jan 2022 4
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (Expanded Second ed.). Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

Follow-Up:

Adapted from: Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). ASCD KAN Jan 2022 5