KNIGHTHOOD THROUGHOUT HISTORY - UNIT PLAN
Subject Area:
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Social Sciences and Math
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Topic:
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Knights
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Grade Level:
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Grade 8
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Big Ideas:
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Gain awareness of how all cultures contribute to our understanding of the world today. Become critically aware of the subjectivity of history and apply this awareness to their education.
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Demographic of student population
The students we will be teaching are in grade 8 and are 13-14 years of age. There are three classes of 30 students and
they are culturally diverse. They also live in an area of high socio-economic status. There are many different languages
and most of the students have an excellent understanding of the English language and how it is used. There is a small
population of students that are new to Canada and English is difficult for them. The one advantage is that a lot of the
students in these three classes speak more than one language and they are very supportive of others that speak their
language. The school supports and practices using same language partners for new students so the new students
can communicate and feel like a part of the group.
The students we will be teaching are in grade 8 and are 13-14 years of age. There are three classes of 30 students and
they are culturally diverse. They also live in an area of high socio-economic status. There are many different languages
and most of the students have an excellent understanding of the English language and how it is used. There is a small
population of students that are new to Canada and English is difficult for them. The one advantage is that a lot of the
students in these three classes speak more than one language and they are very supportive of others that speak their
language. The school supports and practices using same language partners for new students so the new students
can communicate and feel like a part of the group.
Unit Rationale
We decided to do our unit on Knights from the middle ages because one of our peers is a student teacher and has to do a socials lesson on Knights for his grade 8 class. This gave us a real framework to work with and we will be able to actually have our lessons be put to use. That being said it is of utmost importance that we incorporate the valuable course work we learned in class. Each lesson we created has incorporated some practical and some theoretical ways to integrate language into the content of our lessons. This is especially important in schools today because of the many different languages that are spoken and the fact that there is a high percentage of students that have English as an additional language. While not always possible we do feel that the social aspect of using language is very important to English language acquisition. Therefore we tried to include collaboration and meaningful group work in our lessons. Meaningful group work allows EAL students to
We also realize the importance of meaningful group work so we tried to use strategies that strongly encouraged students to discuss the material with each other and share it with the class. We used strategies like giving each student a role or specific task to complete in the group, we used tools to help pick participants to help keep them accountable and we tried our best to make sure every student was included in the work and games we planned.
In conclusion we used numerous means to try and provide a rich and diverse setting for second language development while trying to keep language learning integrated into our social/math curriculum.
We decided to do our unit on Knights from the middle ages because one of our peers is a student teacher and has to do a socials lesson on Knights for his grade 8 class. This gave us a real framework to work with and we will be able to actually have our lessons be put to use. That being said it is of utmost importance that we incorporate the valuable course work we learned in class. Each lesson we created has incorporated some practical and some theoretical ways to integrate language into the content of our lessons. This is especially important in schools today because of the many different languages that are spoken and the fact that there is a high percentage of students that have English as an additional language. While not always possible we do feel that the social aspect of using language is very important to English language acquisition. Therefore we tried to include collaboration and meaningful group work in our lessons. Meaningful group work allows EAL students to
- Hear more language,
- Interact more with English as first language speakers in a social context while they are learning.
- They get to hear ideas expressed in different ways
- Try their ideas on their peers before they have to speak with the teacher (safe environment)
We also realize the importance of meaningful group work so we tried to use strategies that strongly encouraged students to discuss the material with each other and share it with the class. We used strategies like giving each student a role or specific task to complete in the group, we used tools to help pick participants to help keep them accountable and we tried our best to make sure every student was included in the work and games we planned.
In conclusion we used numerous means to try and provide a rich and diverse setting for second language development while trying to keep language learning integrated into our social/math curriculum.
Prescribed Learning Outcomes
- Express ideas and information in a variety of situations and forms to; explore and respond, recall and describe, narrate and explain, persuade and support, engage and entertain
- Co-operatively plan and implement a course of action that addresses the problem, issue, or inquiry initially identified
- Compare daily life, family structures, and gender roles in a variety of civilizations
- Identify and clarify a problem, an issue, or an inquiry
- Demonstrate awareness of artistic expression as a reflection of the culture in which it is produced
- Develop and apply the Pythagorean theorem to solve problems
- Demonstrate an understanding of perfect squares and square roots, concretely, pictorially, and symbolically (limited to whole numbers)
- Determine the approximate square root of numbers that are not perfect squares (limited to whole numbers)