Developing report writing skills through research on United States geography and demographics

¶ … America

Grade Level:

Social Studies

This activity is intended to focus on developing critical thinking, research, reading and writing skills in Students by making students motivated about learning necessary facts about United States, its demographics, history and distinctive attributes of U.S.

Education Standards Addressed

This particular lesson plan adheres to the Education Standard of United States (Teaching standards of the respective states)

Enable students to develop report writing skills by following a given template.

Enable students to develop and demonstrate their understanding regir undertsanding e elop report writing skills by fts about United States, its demographics arding overall geography of the states, its history, important places of tourists interests, structure of the government, general economy, and demography

Enable the students to understand the report making process and develop reports using electronic tools such word processor and other softwares. The activity will also focus on developing graphs and necessary tables as well.

report

Resources Needed:

1) Pencil

2) Notebook

3) Computer

4) BOOKS: Suid, Murrey & Wanda Lincoln, Recipes for Writing,

Motivation, Skills, and Activities. Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park,

California, 1989.

Information

Verification

Additional Resources

SOFTWARE: B-GRAPH. Commodore Business Machines, Inc., 1984. DATA

QUEST, THE 50 STATES, MECC, 1988. GEOS, Berkeley Softworks, 1985.

PRINTSHOP, Broderbund, with states' graphics, public domain software for use with PRINTSHOP

Activity

Students will select a state and write a letter requesting necessary information for the report. This letter will be required analyzing current formal writing skills of the students.

2. Students will be taught how to use encyclopedia and other online resources for gathering necessary information.

3. Students will be given ideas regarding information collection and how to incorporate that information in the report.

4. Planning the report, gathering information from relevant resources, organizing information and drafting report.

5. Teacher's supervision will be available at all stages of report writing.

6. Individual sessions with students will involve sharing teacher's feedback on student's progress and the highlighting the areas requiring amendments.

7. Peer reviews will be encouraged by the teacher.

Summary

The whole activity is intended to make students aware of various report writing, information gathering and organizing, and use of relevant software for report writing.

At the end of the activity, students will be allowed to share their individual experiences of report writing. A test will be taken by the end of this activity during which students will be asked to identify the sources of information related to question asked by the teacher.

Additional Notes

Current Events

Grade Level:

5

Subject:

social studies, language arts

Prepared By:

Teacher's Name

Overview & Purpose

The students are observed to have lack of interest in the current affairs. Therefore, the particular activity is intended to create interest in students regarding other nations of the world, their locations and cultures.

Education Standards Addressed

This particular lesson plan adheres to the Education Standard of United States (Teaching standards of the respective states)

Objectives

To enable students to extract information from Encyclopedia and other resources regarding other nations of the world and develop a report about it

Resources Required

1) Encyclopedia

2) Computer

3) Construction paper

4) Markers

Information

Information will drawn regarding various nations and their respective cultures

Verification

More than a single resource shall be used for verification of the information

Additional Resources

1) Costumes

2) CD of a song "it's a small world"

Activity

1) Students will be given the names of the nations by the teachers and the students will select ones that interest them.

2) The students will be required to perform research not limiting to encyclopedia only regarding cultures, languages and demography of the selected countries.

3) Students will now be required to submit a report about their findings and will ask to present a doll reflecting the dresses worn by that nation.

4) On the day of class presentation, students will be expected to wear costumes resembling to the dress code of their selected nations.

Summary

Students will be required to participate in the Annual Day function wearing the same costumes and marching on the song selected by the teacher

Additional Notes

Grading will be performed by considering the quality of research performed and report written during this activity.

Sequencing of Events

Grade Level:

5

Subject:

Social Studies

Prepared By:

Teacher's Name

Overview & Purpose

The activity is aimed at comprehending the colonization era and for this purpose, a blank soft board will be used with skeletal structure of the U.S. Empty spaces will be filled in progression as the colonies will transform into individual states till the Civil War Unit is reached.

The activity is intended to make students critically evaluate both sides of Civil War.

Education Standards Addressed

This particular lesson plan adheres to the Education Standard of United States (Teaching standards of the respective states)

Objectives

1)Enable students to identify the union of the states and adherence of other states to the Confederacy

2) Identify the possible reasons of the Civil War

3) Identify the differences of reasons of War carried out at North America and South America.

4) Critically analyze the difference of motives of Northern and Southern states

5) Analyze the different leadership styles of prominent leaders irrespective of their adherence

Resources Required

1) Soft Board

2) American Map

Information

Verification

Additional Resources

Props will be required for role playing. Available at the School.

Activity

1) Comprehension of seceding states and the possible reasons behind these actions. Seceding states will be removed progressively from the board.

2) Students will be divided into two groups representing Union and Confederacy. They will select their leaders, design and make their own flags, slogans, other recruitment posters.

3) Students will perform research on their respective group in order to understand their historic position

4) The Northern and Southern groups will be asked to write a report on their respective historic leaders and submit it to the teacher.

Summary

The students will be asked to present the course of actions of Abraham Lincoln assuming that he lived till reunion. This area will reflect students understanding of the war and also will help the instructor in critically analyzing the imaginative skills of the students.

Additional Notes