When choosing a standard to unpack and work with over the course of this Unit and Module, I faced several applicable choices. While I will speak a little bit more to my impressions of incorporating Common Core State Standards into my courses and curriculum in the conclusions of this post, for study and development I have decided to choose an ELA/Literacy standard focusing on Research to Build and Present Knowledge:
I will apply this standard to 8th Grade English Language Arts as the main part of a competency Unit in Information Gathering and Using Research. I expect that Unit would be taught concurrently with other applicable standards in the areas of Reading: Craft and Structure, and Speaking: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
I chose this standard to develop for Module 5 as it relates directly to my current work in English as a Second Language, and the vision of my current school to instill a level of academic preparation in its students to pursue University opportunities abroad in English-speaking countries. As such, students are often very unfamiliar with the standards surrounding proper use of information for academic purposes in English-speaking countries and education systems. Understanding plagiarism and paraphrase is a much higher-order thinking skill in the English subject area than students are used to dealing with: Learning the language by rote and having few opportunities to experiment with fluency and communication outside of school does not often provide enough opportunities for students to understand the importance of using information responsibly and striving to remain original when producing academic work.
Additionally, this standards supplies good foundation-work in research practices to be expanded in other subject fields, particularly the Sciences. Instilling the understanding of how to use information properly from a lingual standpoint will be utilized and integrated as students move into higher levels and perform more intense academic-based research intended to gain admission into high education institutions on an international level.
Student Proficiency
By the end of the Information-Gathering and Research Unit, Students will be proficient in the following areas:
- Students can use internet search to find and gather information needed for work on various topics.
- Students can identify and select appropriate source information for their research.
- Students can properly quote, paraphrase, and cite source information in their work.
Assessment
- Two-tiered Digital Information Scavenger Hunt:
- Find information related to a topic and relate that information to others.
- Find information related to a topic, and defend your source.
- Paraphrasing Quiz: Identification, and Production
- Written Assessment: Article about a Special Dish from another culture/country.
- Students perform research about a Special Dish, noting the significance of the dish in the following areas:
- Presence in cultural/traditional celebrations
- History and development of the dish
- Special or ceremonial preparation
Activities/ Learning Experiences
1. Digital Information Scavenger Hunt #1
- Primary/ Formative Assessment: Students use a list of topics to find detailed information about, noting the website on which they discovered the information and the search terms they used to find the website.
- Reinforces the standard of proficiency in identifying and selecting credible and accurate sources of information.
- Students explore the internet to experience false websites, websites that contain questionable/inaccurate information, and websites that are valid sources of information.
- Outcome: Prove or disprove the existence of the Tree Octopus.
- Guiding Question: How do you discover and determine the validity of information on the internet?
- Students complete a series of steps designed to uncover the truth of the Tree Octopus-- that it a hoax webpage.
- Students use a list of topics to find detailed information about, either proving or disproving the information and building a defense for their source of information.
- Students categorize source information in three ways: False/Hoax/Scam, Clickbait/Gossip/Tabloid, and Credible/Journalistic/Academic.
- Formative Assessment: Information Exchange and Peer evaluation: Students defend findings and source information.
- Students explore different types of inspirational/funny/witty quotes their source.
- Activity: Students paraphrase quotes in a variety of different ways, using a roundtable differentiation/variation activity that builds on information given in a previous response.
- Students apply foundations of paraphrase to different sources of information.
- Assessment: Quiz to identify correctly paraphrased material, and produce an acceptable paraphrase materials.
Other Standards Relevant to the Unit
In developing this Unit for Module 5, other skill competencies and their attendant standards have been revealed as useful connections to draw to the proficiencies outlined above.
Specifically, the following from 8th grade Reading: Craft and Structure and Speaking: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas, respectively:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.6Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.
Working backwards from the Reading standard, students will integrate comprehension skills to understand material contained in internet sources, as well as their perspectives and purpose.Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.
Applying the same method to the Speaking/ Presentation standard, students can utilize their understanding of selecting and using source information to build and present ideas, generate interest in chosen topics, and present their knowledge from a base of accurate information.
Integrating both of these standards into the Information Gathering and Using Research Unit can reinforce literacy across different types of reading materials, particularly electronic/internet-based materials, and move students forward into utilizing information to develop presentation and speaking competencies. The end result would be students that understand how to interpret different types of texts, identify their usefulness as sources of information, and interpret that information for the purpose of building a presentation.
Sources:
1. Common Core State Standards Initiative. Retrieved from: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy.
2. ACSDAuthor Jay McTighe: The Greatest Lesson Learned (2014 Jan 27) [Video File] Retrieved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUtzbJtS1aY
3. Wiggins, Grant (2005- Sept). Understanding by Design: Overview of UBD and the Design Template. [PDF document] Retrieved: http://www.grantwiggins.org/documents/UbDQuikvue1005.pdf
4. The Glossary of Education Reform (2013, Dec 13). Backward Design [Weblog comment] Retrieved: http://edglossary.org/backward-design/
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