First Am
Lesson Focus and Instructional Purpose
Cross Disciplinary Themes Addressed
First Amendment: Freedom of Speech
Unifying Essential Question(s)
How do documents created by a government directly affect its citizens?
Subject Area Question(s)
| Subject | Supporting Questions |
|---|---|
Collaborative Learning Objective(s)
Joint: I can analyze how the language used in a government document directly affects its citizens.
Subject Area Learning Objectives
| Subject | Learning Objective |
|---|---|
| ELA | I can compare the U.S. Bill of Rights to the dystopian government ideals in my novel. |
| Social Studies | I can analyze and identify author’s purpose and intended audience in the U.S. Constitution. |
| Math | I can design and implement a poll of citizens’ interpretations of the First Amendment. I can draw conclusions from my poll. |
Standards Addressed
| ELA/Literacy | Social Studies | |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.4 | CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.6 | |
Close Reading Text Set
Anchor Text
Supporting Texts
| Subject | Title of Supporting Text | URL of Supporting Text |
| ELA | 1984, Animal Farm, The Giver, Maze Runner, City of Ember, Across the Universe, Legend, short stories from Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury | |
| Social Studies | Articles of Confederation, Federalist papers, Constitution, current events/news articles? Other government documents (Magna Carta, etc). | |
| Math | Future of the First Ammendment | http://www.knightfoundation.org/media/uploads/publication_pdfs/Future-of-the-First-Amendment-full-cx2.pdf |
Organized Text Set
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Student Activities and Tasks
Text-Dependent Questions
What is a Utopia?
Why might citizens founding a government write a Bill of Rights?
What is the purpose of the Bill of Rights?
What does the First Amendment say?
What rights does the First Amendment protect? (religion, speech, press, assembly, petition)
What examples of each type of free speech can you think of?
How might we measure freedom of speech?
Specifically, how might we measure religion, speech, press, assembly, petition?
What would a constitution for our classroom look like?
Formative Assessment Strategies and Tasks
book club homework
exit tickets
weekly reflections
current events analysis
checklists
Culminating Assessment
Social Studies: Student selects a current event news articles for an event in the United States that relates to one of the first ten amendments (Bill of Rights). Student discusses which right their chosen amendment protects and to assess whether or not this right was protected during his/her current event. Student will present findings through a poster, powerpoint or paragraph.
ELA: Student writes a dystopian novel in which they have created a dystopian world which breaches one of the first 10 amendments of the constitution.
Background Knowledge and Prerequisite Skills
Pre-requisite Learning
Conditions leading up to the founding of the US constitution.
Tropes of dystopian literature
Close reading skills
What is a poll?
How to use samples to make inferences about a population
Pre-assessment of Readiness for Learning
-Practice close reading assignments with other non-fiction texts
-Activities distinguishing between author’s purpose and content, identifying author’s purpose in other non-fiction texts
-Pre-assessment data will determine which book clubs students will be assigned to and how scaffolded their book club work will be
Organization of Instructional Activities
ELA:
Week 1: Students finish dystopian book clubs and analyze the their dystopian worlds through the frame of the bill of rights. Students produce a poster in which they find evidence from their book to demonstrate a right that has been taken away.
Week 2: Introduce dystopian story archetypes, analyze story elements, and start to develop dystopian worlds that breach one of the first ten amendments.
Week 3: Students create characters that struggle within their dystopian worlds and write short stories.
Math:
Week 1: Introduce scatter plots, sample size, clustering, outliers, positive and negative association, linear and nonlinear association. Investigate existing bivariate data and form inferences. Students create poll questions, choose sample size, and make preparations for conducting their poll.
Week 2: Use linear equations to approximate best fit correlations between bivariate data with existing poll data. Students work through poll checklists, gathering data in two-way tables.
Week 3: Students construct a scatter plot based on their poll data using two variables of their choice. Students make inferences from their scatter plot using correct statistical terminology.
Social Studies:
Week 1: Students are introduced to the U.S. Constitution with a series of short videos, a close reading activity of the Preamble, and an introduction the U.S. Constitutional Convention role play (Bill Bigelow).
Week 2: Students prepare for and participate in the US Constitutional Convention role play. Students reflect on populations that were represented at the convention and populations that were marginalized and ignored.
Week 3: Bill of Rights introduction. Students participate in a Bill of Rights translation activity where they match the actual language for each amendment with a modern day version of the text. Students translate 3 chosen amendments to 5 key words and an image.