In this lesson, our class will begin work on the final major assessment of this unit, during which they will use the tools they have used to locate and share information about one place.
Up to this point, these students have not been required to write anything longer than a short note on a map. The Country Profile assessment will require a bit longer writing, and this lesson is intended to prepare them for success.
National or State Standard(s) Addressed
Minnesota DOE, Strand III, Substrand I. The student will demonstrate knowledge of significant political and cultural developments of the late 20th century that affect global relations.
Minnesota DOE, Strand V, Substrand C. The student will understand the regional distribution of the human population at local to global scales and its patterns of change.
Lesson Outcomes/Objectives
SWBAT: give examples of the "push" and "pull" factors that cause people to leave their homes for somewhere else.
SWBAT: use Google Maps to obtain information about life in another country.
Sequence of Learning Activities
Intro/Hook (5 minutes) - I will read aloud an excerpt from the "Best American Travel Writing" series. Up to this point in the unit, the students have learned about places largely from information that can be found on maps, in pictures, and in videos. While these sources can be rich with information, I want my students to know that written material can be just as valuable. I can choose the excerpt I read based on my knowledge of the character of each particular class.
Frame (5 minutes) - I will ask my students if they have questions or comments about the reading. How did the author use language to describe the place? Were metaphors used? What other descriptive language was used. How was this means of conveying information about a place better than the tools we have used so far?
Activity 1 (15 minutes) - Travel Writing Compare And Share
I will select short pieces of travel writing or take excerpts from longer ones. Compare and Share is a variation on the classic Pair and Share activity, where students pair up and discuss a piece of writing and then share it with the class. In Compare and Share, each student in a pair reads a different piece of writing individually. The students then compare what they read with their partner using a simple Venn Diagram (perhaps something like the one pictured below). Once this is done, students share their thoughts with the entire class.
(Photo Courtesy of Flickr User Sizemore. "Diagram of the Living Dead.")Activity 2 (25 minutes) - Country Profile Intro
I will take a few minutes to (first) tell my students about the Country Profile assignment in broad strokes. I will tell them what kind of information they will need to find, what kind of maps skills they will need to demonstrate, what kind of writing they will do, and what the final product will look like. Only after I've done that will I hand out the assignment sheet with a rubric. I will allow time for questions.
Next, I will have them choose a country for their profile. This will be an individual project, but I suppose I don't mind collaboration outside of class, so if more than one student wants to choose the same country, I don't mind.
The students will have the rest of the class period to do some preliminary research on their country. By now, they know what kind of information (pictures, satellite images, videos, basic info) they can find using internet geography tools - they can browse these tools and bookmark pages that might be useful later.
The only structure I will apply to this research is another Venn Diagram. I will ask them to use the diagram to compare their Profile country to The United States. We automatically compare the unfamiliar to the unfamiliar, and I want to guide this process to the extent possible, and give them something they can refer back to. The diagram will be due on the next day of class.
Assessments: There will be numerous opportunities for assessment during this lesson, mostly during discussion. After the excerpt I read in the intro, I will have some idea how receptive these students are to prose as a means of conveying information about a place. I will learn what they find useful or unhelpful about such writing.
I will also learn much from the Compare and Share exercise. I can review the pairs' Venn Diagrams and listen to what they share to get a grasp of how well they are able to compare different places.
Finally, I will have the students' individual Venn Diagrams to help me assess what help they might need in understanding a new country for their profile.
