Stage 3 Draft

Unit Topic: By the Great Horn Spoon by: Sid Fleischman

Subject: History Social Studies

Grade: 4th

Time Frame to complete: 1 - 2 months

Stage 3 - Learning Plan

Learning Activities: Coded using W.H.E.R.E.T.O. and A.M.T

1. H Begin with the teacher dressing up as Captain Swain.  Perform a monologue describing the situation that happened after the Lady Wilma docked in Yerba Buena harbor.  Incorporate the Essential Questions from stage 1 into the monologue in authentic ship captain speak.  (Use a visual Keynote Presentation [video or images only, NO TEXT] and or visual aides). A

2. W In a separate session, perhaps adjacent to #1 present each student with a prepared and attractive high quality copy of the Essential Questions, and Big Idea’s and have a KWL discussion.  Also discuss that a class portfolio that will be constructed and show examples, or tell that they are the first and will be providing excellent examples for students to come!  M

3. E Students will be reading By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman throughout the project to both drive the relevance of the activities, and to create examples to relate the activities to. A/M/T

4. E Students will learn key vocabulary as needed and post artifacts of understanding (definitions, images, video’s) on the project Wiki. A/M

5. E/R Each student will comment on teacher created blog posts (after being taught correct blogging etiquette) related to transfer, understanding and essential element goals in Stage 1. M/T

6. E/R Students will work collaboratively (groups of no more than 3) to create historical fiction narrative stories that use the theme, “you are a 10 year old from Hartford, Connecticut in 1849, and you decide to book passage on a clipper ship bound for California to seek your fortune in the gold-fields.”  They will use Google Drive both synchronously and asynchronously to create the stories. Published stories will be posted to the project wiki.M/T

6a. E-2 Stories will be peer reviewed and commented on by other groups upon completion of first several drafts.  Using comment feature in Google Drive, but not edited! Students will make edits to their own stories as needed. M

7.   E Students will research the differences in the value of money around the world and how gold relates to this value.  They will also learn about the ethical problem of price fixing and price gouging based on cultural events such as the Gold Rush or the 1994 Northridge earthquake. M

8. E/E-2 Students will research (find images and stories) about miners from several different cultural groups (group will be assigned by the teacher, one per student) and look for reasons why they left home, and how they were treated in California and why.  They will present their findings in a mostly visual Google Presentation to the class.  These will also be put on the wiki. M

9. T Students will research current day California towns (towns will be assigned by the teacher, one per student) and they will answer two leading questions, “What kind of mining happened in this town during the gold rush, who settled here after the gold rush, and has this legacy affected the town today?”  Students will present their findings as a 1 page poster created using Smore.com to be shared on the wiki. T