Lesson Focus and Instructional Purpose

Cross Disciplinary Themes Addressed

• Food production
• Health
  
  

Unifying Essential Question

• Where does our food come from?

Subject Area Questions

• History  - How has our source of food changed over time?
• Math - How has technology changed the way we grow our food?
• English - Why would a young person choose to eat or avoid fast food?

Collaborative Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to analyze food production in the United States.
• Students will be able to respond to the essential question using evidence from primary and supporting texts.

Subject Area Learning Objectives

• History -  Students will be able to summarize how food production has changed over time
  
• Math - Students will identify and interpret relevant statistics related to food production
• English - Students will be able to identify evidence from primary and supporting texts to support an opinion about food production

Standards Addressed

Close Reading Text Set

Anchor Text

"Chew on This"

Supporting Texts

Organized Text Set and Learning Objectives

1. History Alive Textbook Ch. 3 - Students will be able to summarize how food production has changed over time
   
2. Agricultural Revolution Crash Course - Students will be able to summarize how food production has changed over time
3. Food, Inc. - Students will be able to summarize how food production has changed over time
4.  "Chew on This" excerpt - Students will be able to identify evidence from text to support opinions about food production
   
5. Discover Magazine article excerpt -Students will be able to summarize how food production has changed over time 

Student Activities and Tasks

Text-Dependent Questions

History Questions:

• What was the Agricultural Revolution, when did it occur, and what changes did it provoke?
• What do you learn about how food is currently produced in the United States?
• What are some differences in agricultural production before and since the mid-20th century?
  
  

Formative Assessment Strategies and Tasks

• Teacher examination of student annotations of "Chew on This" excerpt will help show to what extent students are understanding the text and identifying important ideas and details. 
• Student visuals portraying ideas about where they think food comes from will show us what they understand about modern food production techniques.
• Classwork and homework assignments related to the math topics will show what they understand about conversions and about percent increase and percent decrease.

Culminating Assessment

After reviewing the Agricultural Revolution, and studying written and visual texts about recent changes in food production in the United States, students will create a presentation in Google Slides to summarize and contrast information about food production before the Agricultural Revolution, immediately after the Revolution through the mid-20th Century, and in the modern United States.

Background Knowledge and Prerequisite Skills

Pre-requisite Learning

• Students should have a basic understanding of the changes brought about by the Agricultural Revolution.
• Students should be able to identify and interpret key details or information in a text.
• Students should be able to locate and interpret data represented by statistics and tables.
• Students should be able to calculate percent increase and percent decrease.
• Students should be able to convert among different-sized standard measurement units within a given
• measurement system (e.g., convert hours to minutes to seconds ), and use these conversions in solving multi-step, real world problems.

Pre-assessment of Readiness for Learning

• This unit relies upon a basic understanding of the Agricultural Revolution, which we studied earlier in the year.
• A quick review of key facts will determine how much students remember and how much additional review is needed. 
• Students have been practicing independent reading and text annotation throughout the year. An informal assessment of their oral comments in the academic discussion on the first day will serve to inform our teaching. 
• Students have done conversion problems in 5th grade. An informal assessment of their skills will determine how much students remember and how much additional review is needed.
• Students will most likely not have been exposed to percent increase and percent decrease problems. An informal assessment will determine the amount of instruction and practice needed on this skill.

Organization of Instructional Activities

• Academic Vocabulary and Discussion: Why do people choose to eat or avoid fast food? (1 class period)
• Agricultural Revolution textbook review/video notes ( 1 class period)
• Food, Inc. video notes (2-3 class periods)
• "Chew on This" excerpt close reading/annotation (2 class periods)
• Agricultural Timeline Highlights worksheet (1 class period)
• Agricultural Timeline Percent Increases/Decreases Worksheet (1 class period)
• Agricultural Clock worksheet p.1 (1 class period)
• Agricultural Clock Ratios/worksheet p.2 (1 class period)
• "Positive Effects of Fast Food" article argument outline (1 class period)
• History of Agriculture Brochure