Lauren Giuliano
Age of Exploration
5th Grade Social Studies Unit
Unit Duration: 2 weeks
1. Unit Rationale. This unit plan is geared toward 5th grade students in a social studies inclusion class. The point of the unit is to introduce students to the Age of Exploration. I am doing this unit because I want students to be able to understand multiple perspectives and viewpoints when they look at an essential time in history like this one. The prerequisite knowledge for this unit include students knowledge of basic geography, a familiarity with Europe, and knowledge of what Monarchy’s are.
2. Unit Goals and Objectives. Students will be able to summarize what the Age of Exploration was.
Students will be able to explain the different reasons why people decided to explore.
Students will be able to describe who Christopher Columbus was.
Student will be able to predict what they thought happened when Columbus landed and encountered the natives.
Students will be able to list at least three positive and negative effects of exploration for both the Natives and the Europeans.
Students will be able to analyze these effects to decide whether or not the positive effects are greater than the negative effects.
Students will be able to pretend they are a Native whose land has just been invaded in order to better understand their point of view.
Students will be able to conclude whether or not the age of exploration was a benefit for the Natives.
Lesson 1:
Concept/ Main Idea/ Aim of the Lesson.
To teach students that European exploration occurred for geographic, economic, and technological reasons.
Learning Standards.
NYS:
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: Study of the major social, political, cultural, and religious developments in world history involves learning about the important roles and contributions of individuals and groups.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: The skills of historical analysis include the ability to investigate differing and competing interpretations of the theories of history, hypothesize about why interpretations change over time, explain the importance of historical evidence, and understand the concepts of change and continuity over time.
Lesson Objectives.
I. Students will be able to list the different reasons for European exploration.
II. Students will be able to analyze the different reasons for European exploration.
III. Students will be able to categorize the different reasons for European exploration into groups.
Lesson Introduction/ Do Now.
To start off the lesson, the teacher will ask students what they think it means to explore. The students will be given five to ten minutes to write a few sentences in their journals about what they know about exploration.
Learning Activities.
I. After the do now, the teacher will ask students to share what they have written about exploration. Using a graphic organizer, the teacher will jot down the students idea’s of what exploration means.
II. The teacher will then tell students that they are going to be learning about the Age of Exploration, and that they are going to be working in groups in order to learn the different reasons for European Exploration. Each group member will be assigned a particular role with the group.
III. The teacher will then ask the students if they have any questions about what they are going to be doing.
IV. The teacher will tell the students that they are going to create groups by counting off from one to four with guidance from the teacher. There will be five groups with four students in each group.
V. The teacher will give each group a packet of handouts, and assign the students with their role for the group.
VI. The students will now work in groups researching to find out why the Europeans decided to explore the world.
VII. After about 10 minutes, the teacher will tell the students that they need to start to wrap up because they only have 5 more minutes left to get what they can done.
VIII. After the 15 minutes is up, the teacher will tell the groups its time to come back as one big group.
IX. The groups will then take turns sharing the information they found. The teacher will write the important information on the board in order to make sure that all of the students know the reasons for exploration. The teacher will not tell the students the reasons, but will try to pull the information from the students themselves.
X. The teacher will then summarize the information that was just shared with the entire class.
XI. Now that the students know the reasons for exploration have them go back to their desks to think about the impact this type of exploration may have had on people. Did it have an impact on anyone besides the Europeans? Tell them to write down all of their ideas in their journals so that they can share them later on.
Lesson Closures, Transitions, and Follow-ups.
To close this lesson, the teacher reviews the material learned about today. Also, the teacher discusses that there were many different explorer’s who traveled during this time. Tell the students that tomorrow they are going to learn a little more about one of those explorers: Christopher Columbus.
Resources.
Social Studies journals, handouts on exploration, white board, markers
Assessment.
I. Formative Evaluation: Part of the evaluation is based on what each student contributed to their group during class. This evaluation is taken as the teacher walks around the classroom to make sure each group is on task. The teacher will take into account whether or not the student did his/her job correctly and whether or not the student worked well with the others in their groups. The students will also be evaluated on the information that their group comes up with. This evaluation will occur as the teacher is walking around the classroom, and when the students report back to the class as a whole. The students’ journal entries are also part of this evaluation.
References.
Bartlett Elementary School (2000). Why explorer’s explored the world. Retrieved March 16, 2011 from http://library.thinkquest.org/J002678F/why.htm.
Dowling, M. (2005). Europeans explore the world. Retrieved: March 2011, from http://mrdowling.com/704-exploration.html.
Nussbaum, G. (2005-2006). Age of exploration. Retrieved: Feb 24, 2011 from
CEC Accommodations.
Step four of this lesson gives the teacher the opportunity to make sure that there is an even distribution of abilities in each of the groups, and by doing it in what seems like a random form is perfect because than the students do not think they are placed in a group based on ability. Another modification is having the teacher assign the roles for each student in each group. This allows the teacher to give students roles based on what they know their strengths are so that all of the students feel like they are an essential part of their group.
Lesson 2:
Concept/ Main Idea/ Aim of the Lesson.
To teach students who Christopher Columbus was, and to get them thinking about what happened to the Natives when Columbus found the America’s.
Learning Standards.
NYS:
Standard 2, Key Idea 1: The student of world history requires an understanding of world cultures and civilizations, including an analysis of important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. This study also examines the human condition and the connection and interactions of people across time and space and the ways different people view the same event or issue from a variety of perspectives.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: Study of the major social, political, cultural, and religious developments in world history involves learning about the important roles and contributions of individuals and groups.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: The skills of historical analysis include the ability to investigate differing and competing interpretations of the theories of history, hypothesize about why interpretations change over time, explain the importance of historical evidence, and understand the concepts of change and continuity over time.
Lesson Objectives.
I. Students will be able to describe who Christopher Columbus was.
II. Students will be able to predict what happened to the Natives that Columbus encountered.
III. Students will be able to infer from what was learned in the lesson what types of characteristics are necessary for a person to be a successful explorer.
Lesson Introduction/ Do Now.
To start off the lesson, students will answer the following question in their journal: Yesterday you learned about the different reasons for exploration. What in your opinion is the most important reason? Why?
Learning Activities.
I. Have students share their projects, and use this as a jump start to your lesson on Columbus .
II. Bring all the students to the carpet area, and tell them that in today’s lesson they are going to be creating KWL charts. Ask if anyone can explain what a KWL chart is. Clarify for students that a KWL chart is a chart used to organize what they know about a topic, what they want to learn about that topic, and then what they learned about that topic.
III. Tell students that today they are going to be learning about one of the famous explorer’s from the Age of Exploration: Christopher Columbus.
IV. Create a KWL chart on chart paper, and give the students the KWL chart handout.
V. Ask students if anyone knows any other facts about Christopher Columbus that we haven’t learned yet. Write on the chart the responses that the students give. Then ask the students what they want to find out about him. Make sure to give all students an opportunity to give either their response or their suggestion for what they want to find out about him. Then have students go back to their desks and give them 5-10 minutes to copy what was just written onto their own KWL chart. Tell them that if there are any other things they want to know about him to write them down as well.
VI. While the students are at their desks walk around and give each student a clipboard.
VII. Have students come back to the carpet with their KWL charts, clipboards, and pencils. Tell them that you are going to now be reading them a book about Christopher Columbus. Tell them you are going to read the story to them two times. The first time you just want them to listen as carefully as they can to the story, and do nothing else besides listen. Then the second time you read the story, tell them that you now want them to try to answer the questions that we came up with about what we want to learn about Columbus.
VIII. Read the book.
IX. After the second reading, have students go back to their desks to finish filling in their charts. Tell them they are allowed to work with a partner in order to try to complete the entire chart.
Lesson Closures, Transitions, and Follow-ups.
Go over KWL charts with the class. Have students share their answers with the class, and write the responses on the KWL chart on the chart paper so that it will be there for all to see.
Resources.
Social Studies journal, Book “Columbus”, KWL Chart, clipboards, chart paper, markers
Assessment.
II. Formative Evaluation: The first evaluation comes from the students’ journal responses from the beginning of the lesson. This allows the teacher to see how well the students understood the lesson yesterday, and how well they were in recalling this information and responding to a question based on what they learned. The creation of the KWL chart is an assessment for the teacher to see what the students already knows, and this is a good way to evaluate the students’ listening comprehension skills because they are listening to the story of Columbus not reading it themselves.
References.
D’Aulaire, I. & D’Aulaire, E.P. (1983). Columbus. Beautiful Feet Books.
CEC Accommodations.
This lesson would work well in an inclusive classroom because the students are constantly moving around. They move many times throughout the lesson from their desks to the carpet area and vice versa many times. An accommodation that could be added is having different types of KWL charts so that the students can choose which one they want to use. Another modification could be to allow students to draw pictures for their journal responses first, and then to have them write shorter sentences describing the pictures. This modification would be good for ELL students.
Lesson 3:
Concept/ Main Idea/ Aim of the Lesson.
To teach students the effects of the Age of Exploration on the Natives who inhabited those lands, and on the Europeans.
NYS:
Standard 2, Key Idea 1: The student of world history requires an understanding of world cultures and civilizations, including an analysis of important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. This study also examines the human condition and the connection and interactions of people across time and space and the ways different people view the same event or issue from a variety of perspectives.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: Study of the major social, political, cultural, and religious developments in world history involves learning about the important roles and contributions of individuals and groups.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: The skills of historical analysis include the ability to investigate differing and competing interpretations of the theories of history, hypothesize about why interpretations change over time, explain the importance of historical evidence, and understand the concepts of change and continuity over time.
Lesson Objectives.
I. Students will be able to list at least three positive and negative effects of exploration for both the Natives and the Europeans.
II. Students will be able to analyze these effects to decide whether or not the positive effects are greater than the negative effects.
III. Students will be able to give their opinion on the positive and negative effects of exploration.
Lesson Introduction/ Do Now.
To start the lesson, review everything that the students have learned so far. Go over the different reasons for exploration and talk a little bit about Columbus just to refresh their memories in order to start off this lesson
Learning Activities.
I. Explain to students that today we are going to be learning about the effects of the Europeans and the Natives coming together. Tell them that we are going to be reading an article about these effects.
II. Tell the students that we are going to be creating charts in order to organize the positive and negative things that happened when these two groups of people encountered each other. We are going to be making two charts: one chart for the positive and negative effects that this meeting had on the Europeans, and another chart for the positive and negative effects that this meeting had on the Natives.
III. Now draw the two charts on the white chart paper. Use one piece of chart paper for each group of people, and draw a simple chart saying positive then draw a line down the middle and write negative. Do this for both groups, and be sure to label one Europeans and one Natives.
IV. Have the children go back to their desks to copy the charts into their social studies journals, and while they are doing this give each student the handout.
V. Inform the children that they are going to be reading the handout in order to fill in these charts. They are going to be working in groups of two, and their partner is going to be the person sitting next to them.
VI. After 25 minutes tell the students that they have about 5 more minutes to work on their charts.
VII. After the entire 30 minutes is up, have the students bring their social studies journals back to the carpet to share their findings with the rest of the class. Write their responses on the chart paper.
VIII. Engage the students in a grand discussion where the effects that were just listed are now looked at a little bit more carefully. Get their opinions on these effects and what they think about them.
Lesson Closures, Transitions, and Follow-ups.
To close this lesson, students will write in their journals their thoughts about what we learned in class. They will analyze the positive and negative effects for one of these groups, and they will determine whether the positive outweighed the negative.
Resources.
Social Studies journal, handout “Contact: Europe and America Meet”, white chart paper, markers
Assessment.
III. Formative Evaluation: The formative assessment comes when the students are creating the lists of positive and negative effects on both the Europeans and the Natives. If they find at least three positive and three negative effects for each group then the first objective will be met. Another formative assessment comes from the students responses in the journals at the end of class. If they are able to scrutinize the lists that they made, and decide whether or not the positive effects are greater then the negative effects then they will meet the second objective. The students need to give reasons why in order to receive full credit.
IV. Summative Evaluation: This assessment comes from their homework assigned for the night. They are to write a 1 page paper where they give their opinion of the contact between these two groups based on the information that they learned in class. They will choose either to look at it from the Europeans point of view or the Natives point of view. Students must support their opinions by using at least three examples to support it. The paper will be out of a possible 20 points.
Grading Rubric:
15-20 points: Students will give their opinion of the contact between these two groups. They will give at least three reasons for their opinion, and these reasons will be based on the facts that were learned in class today.
10-14 points: Students give their opinion and thoughts on what was learned today. They only give 2 reasons to support their opinion based on what was learned in class.
5-9 points: Students give their opinion and thoughts on what was learned today. They also have included at least 2 reasons to support their opinion, but their reasons are not based on what was learned today.
0-4 points: Students give their opinion and thoughts on what was learned today.
References.
Contact: Europe and America meet. Retrieved March 20, 2011 from http://eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/crossroads/sec4/Unit_2/Unit_IIQ3R1.html
CEC Accommodations.
This lesson would work well in an inclusive classroom because the students get a chance to work with a partner. If they do not understand something, sometimes it is better to have the students work with a peer who better grasps the material. If the teacher notices that some students are really struggling then I think that the pairings of the students should be set up by the teacher instead of having the students just work with whoever they sit next to. If the student still does not seem to be getting the material, then the teacher needs to take this small group of students to the side in order to explain the information to them in more detail. This can occur while every one else is writing in their journals. They way the lesson is set up, the teacher can decide to do different things with different students depending on how well the students do with the material.
Lesson 4:
Concept/ Main Idea/ Aim of the Lesson.
To teach students about the meeting of the Europeans and the Natives from the Natives’ perspective.
Learning Standards.
NYS:
Standard 2, Key Idea 1: The student of world history requires an understanding of world cultures and civilizations, including an analysis of important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. This study also examines the human condition and the connection and interactions of people across time and space and the ways different people view the same event or issue from a variety of perspectives.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: Study of the major social, political, cultural, and religious developments in world history involves learning about the important roles and contributions of individuals and groups.
Standard 2, Key Idea 3: The skills of historical analysis include the ability to investigate differing and competing interpretations of the theories of history, hypothesize about why interpretations change over time, explain the importance of historical evidence, and understand the concepts of change and continuity over time.
Lesson Objectives.
I. Students will be able to explain the Natives’ point of view of when the Europeans landed.
II. Students will be able to pretend they are a Native whose land has just been invaded in order to better understand their point of view.
III. Students will be able to conclude whether or not the age of exploration was a benefit for the Natives.
Lesson Introduction/ Do Now.
To start the lesson, tell the students to take out their social studies journals, and look at their responses to the question from a few days ago. Tell them that the journal entry they are looking for answers the question: What do you think happened to the people Columbus encountered when he reached the new world? Make predictions about what you think happened. Then tell the students that they have 5 minutes to review their response and to add or delete anything from it that they want because they are going to be sharing their responses with the class.
Learning Activities.
I. Bring the students to the carpet area with their journals to discuss their responses. Ask for some volunteers to share what they wrote.
II. After the students share their responses, tell them that today we are going to be looking at the Europeans landing in the New World from the perspective of the Natives that were already there.
III. Explain to the students the importance of understanding both sides’ points of view. Before explaining, ask if anyone knows why it is important to look at the encounter from the Natives point of view.
IV. Tell students that in order to give them an idea of the Natives’ perspective we are going to be reading a book called “Encounter” by Jane Yolen.
V. Show students only the cover of the book.
VI. Have the students write in their journals about the photo on the cover of the book. Tell them that you want them to make some predictions about what they think it was like for the Natives based on the cover of this book.
VII. Give the students between 5-10 minutes to do this.
VIII. Have the students share their predictions with the class, and write these predictions on the white chart paper.
IX. Read the book to the students.
X. Ask the students to give examples of how the Natives were feeling when the Europeans landed based on what they just heard from the book.
XI. Write the students’ responses on the white chart paper.
XII. Now compare the predictions the students made based on the cover with what they found from hearing the book. Were their predictions correct?
XIII. Have students go back to their desks in order to close the lesson.
Lesson Closures, Transitions, and Follow-ups.
To close this lesson, students will write in their journals. They are going to pretend that they are a Native whose land has just been invaded and write what they are feeling about this.
Resources.
Social Studies journal, “Encounter” by Jane Yolen, white chart paper, markers
Assessment.
V. Formative Evaluation: The formative assessment comes from the students’ participation in the lesson. Was the student engaged in what was going on? Were they able to stay with the lesson? Were they able to explain the Natives point of view based on what they learned from “Encounter”? Another formative assessment comes from the students’ journal entries from the end of class. Was the student able to really put themselves in the shoes a Native? Were they able to explain appropriately what they were feeling in the situation?
VI. Summative Evaluation: This assessment comes from their homework assigned for the night. The students are to write a paper concluding whether or not the age of exploration was a benefit for the Natives. Students will need to support their response with specific examples based on what has been learned throughout this unit. This assignment is out of a possible 30 points.
Grading Rubric:
20-30 points: Students papers will include their opinion concluding whether or not the age of exploration was a benefit for the Natives. Students will give at least 3 reasons to support their conclusion. Students show a general understanding of the material that has been learned in the unit.
10-20 points: Students papers will include their opinion concluding whether or not the age of exploration was a benefit for Natives. Students will give at least 2 reasons to support their conclusion. Students have a sense of what was learned, but still seem to be a little confused about some parts of the unit.
0-10 points: Students papers will include their opinion concluding whether or not the age of exploration was a benefit for Natives. Students include no reasons to support their conclusion. Students seem to be completely confused with the material that was learned through this unit.
References.
Yolen, J. (1992). Encounter. Harcourt Children’s Books.
CEC Accommodations.
This lesson would work well in an inclusive classroom because the students are constantly moving around which I have made sure to do in all of the lessons contained within this unit. It is important for students to not get bored, and it helps a great deal if students are able to move around a lot rather than stay at their desk for the entire class time. It is important that the students are used to moving around like this because if they are not than they can easily be distracted from what they are supposed to be doing. If students are not able to master the material learned in this lesson, an accommodation that could be made would be to take those students aside to reread the book to them again. Perhaps reading the book would help them to better grasp the information, and instead of just reading it straight through the teacher could have them stop her when they believe that an important point is made in the book so that they can discuss it.
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