Texas History: 7th grade Social Studies
Learning Goals: In this unit, students will be able to explain, describe, and sequence events in Texas history events that occurred during and after the Texas Revolution.
Daily objectives will include Texas Essential Knowledge Skills for the following chapters: (Chapter 10)"The Alamo and Goliad"; (Chapter 11) "Independence Won"; and (Chapter 12) "The Lone Star Republic".
Student Interest, Prior Knowledge, and Misconceptions:
Prior to the lesson, I asked students to share with the class what they knew about the Texas Revolution. A few students mentioned the battle at the Alamo. However, many students were confusing the Texas Revolution with the American Civil War.
Technology and Resources used in this unit will include: Discovery Education United Streaming to watch and learn about the Texas Revolution. Students are highly interested in watching videos; but they will be required to write down notes as we watch these videos; some are video segments that are anywhere from about 10 minutes in length up to approximately 50 minutes.
Stuents will be working in groups of 3 or 4, depending on class size. Each group will create a blog about our topic: Texas: From Revolution to Annexation. They will access various sources such as wikipedia, YouTube, Portal of Texas, and other sources dealing with Texas history.
Order of activities:
1. We will be reading the district-assigned textbook,"Texas and Texans". From this textbook, students will read orally, participate in class discussions, and complete various activities from the book. Some of these activities include: Foldables, timelines, end-of-section and end-of-chapter assessments. We will also be reviewing study skills that will help them successfully complete all their assignments. One extension activity will be for students to create artwork that will illustrate the significant events that occurred throughout the Texas Revolution and proceeding to annexation of Texas to the United States.
2. Hands-on activities (mentioned above) will take place after some oral reading and discussion of the text. Access to computers is dependent on availability of the school's computer lab.
3. Lenght of time required for completion of this unit will range from 2 to 3 weeks.
4. Assessment is ongoing. This means that as students work on their project, I will be monitoring their progress by asking them critical-thinking questions to looking over the work they are engaged in accomplishing.
Curriculum:
The state-mandated curriculum will be followed as usual. The following is an example of our district's lesson plan template/format:
Social Studies: Grade 7
Learning Standards:
Identify individuals, events, and issues during the Texas Revolution and the annexation of Texas to the United States. Identify individuals including Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, Maribeu Lamar, Anson Jones, and Chief Bowles;Compare the strengths and weaknesses of the Texas army; characterize the factors that led to the Texan defeats in their struggle for independence; exlain why Santa Anna stayed in Texas; summarize what occurred at the Battle of San Jacinto; explain why Texans wanted the United States to annex Texas;and to describe the annexation of Texas to the United States.
Texas Essential Knowledge Skills:
TEK 7.1 The student understands traditional historical points of reference in Texas history.
TEK 7.3 The student understands how individuals, events, and issues related to the Texas Revolution shaped the history of Texas.
TEK 7.4 The student understands how individuals, events, and issues shaped the history of the Republic of Texas and early Texas statehood.
Warm-up:
Academic Language (key terms)
Bell Ringer (beginning of class activity while teacher takes attendance)
Procedures:
a) Reading and discussion (textbook)
b) Students will form in groups
d) Students will work on assignment for the day
Materials:
Texas and Texans (textbook)
Computer (for research. This will take place in the school's computer lab).
Students will retrieve information from websites which will include: Portal of Texas; YouTube; www.aande.com (A&E Television); www.historychannel.com (The History Channel)They will create a 'group' blog using Blogger.
Materials for foldables and Thinking Maps
Interactive Student Notebooks
Resources and Materials
· Texas Primary Documents:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/ssc/primary_resources/primary_sources.html
· Texas Revolution Article:
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/TT/qdt1.html
· Causes of the Texas Revolution: http://education.texashistory.unt.edu/lessons/notebook/Causes/
· Texas Declaration of Independence: http://education.texashistory.unt.edu/lessons/notebook/Declaration/
· Notable Texans of the Texas Revolution:
http://tides.sfasu.edu/Teachers/Tides/docs/LessonPlans/MiddleSchool/social/MurphreyNotable.html
· Who’s who in the Texas Revolution:
http://www.tshaonline.org/tools/lessonplans/grade7/revolution/index.html
· Texas Quarter Activity:
http://www.usmint.gov/Kids/teachers/lessonplans/50sq/2004/0406-3.pdf
· Texas Frontier Timeline Activity:
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/teach/images/Timeline-Frontier.pdf
· Texas Revolution Resources:
https://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=55138#132681
· Curriculum Corner (7th Grade TX History Resources)
http://www.georgetownisd.org/ccorner/socstudies/7th.asp
Evaluation:
Student responses to questions
Student work (progress) product
Notebook check
Weekly OER (Open Ended Response) quiz is mandated by the district. These evaluations will be taken from the district curriculum.
Teacher created quizzes and tests will be given to students to either complete in class as time allows or as a take-home quiz/test.
Summary/Conclusion
When studying history, students need to appreciate the significance of the struggles and accompishments of our forefathers. In this geographical area (El Paso, Texas) we have diversity of cultures. In order to appreciate history, each student is capable of identifying with history due to the fact that they come from different cultures such as Mexico, other places in North America, and around the world. We have a number of families who are in the military; therefore, these students are exposed to many cultures; in turn, they can share their backgrounds and experiences with our local students who have never been to other cities, states, or countries.
My observations have proven time and again that after we complete a unit study such as the current topic (Texas: From Revolution to Annexation), students come away with a richer understanding of history. They are also better prepared for eighth-grade Social Studies and the other subjects they study in school.
The learning goals are well addressed in the lesson plan. You might want to embed the Texas Essential Knowledge standard into the lesson. I see that you included the chapter that will be used in the lesson and this is very helpful for teachers as well as to the administrator because it is convenient when doing check on what the teacher is teaching.
ReplyDeleteI see that you addressed that students had trouble distinguishing between the Texas Revolution and the American Civil War. The way that you are addressing this problem is great. Student knowledge will increase after they watch the stream on the Texas Revolution. I learn more when I combine text and videos because students learning by hearing, seeing, and doing.
When students write on the blog will it be your blog or will they be creating the blog themselves? Have you considered using a wiki created by you and having the students post their answers there? I find that wikis are more users friendly because students edit and save.
The activity where students read the district-assigned textbook, “Texas and Texans" can provide you and opportunity to use audacity as students will be doing a textbook reading and they will be read orally. The great activity that you can do for the oral reading will be to have the students recording themselves reading using audacity. We did a similar activity for Dr. Zhang when we read an article or book for one of the activities. This can help your technology integration portion of the lesson and I am sure that students will love doing the activity.
Some of the types of assessment that you might want to include in your activity would be authentic assessments by having the student create an audio recording using audacity and you will be monitoring they progress.
You can create a multiple choice testing using Google doc and embed it into your blog page. You can instruct students to visit your class blog and comments on the readings.
You can create a class wiki and have student write their reflection on the Texas Revolution. The wiki is easy because students only edit and save their responses to the wiki.
Paper and pencil exam
Your statement in activating prior knowledge is so true. Unfortunately students think all history whether its US, Mexican or Texas history is joined in some way and forget U.S. History is going on while Texas History is being developed. I can see Minority group( Mexican American ) experience is very important to you and your class. I can also agree with you that the importance of showing the impact El Paso has on Texas History is of great importance not only to Texas History but to US History as well because it lets our students know that coming from El Paso is as important as coming from other major cities like San Antonio or Austin who are younger cities than El Paso. I really like History because it is venue to show social enlightment as well.
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