ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

2. Students engage in the reading process.. 6. Human Development and Behavior.

Needs Assessment/Rational

In completing an analysis of need for this unit, I found that children did not know their unique abilities and was unaware of how they were different and like their peers. I want to help children develop a self-awareness for themselves through language arts and social studies. The “All About Me” book will enable the children to work with something interesting: themselves. This will develop creativity in expressing ideas about themselves and help them to compare themselves with their peers. It will also allow them to develop their reading skills while broadening their knowledge of facts about themselves and the world and people around them. Through this project I hope to find their reading level increase on the Direct Reading Assessment. A self-concept survey that is given to children at the beginning of the year indicated a need for self-awareness and discovering that uniqueness is a good theing. It is my hope that the end of the year survey will show an increase in self-awareness and self-concept.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: 1. Students will better understand themselves and their peers after presenting information about themselves.  2. They will discover their similarities and differences among each other. 3.  I would like my students to appreciate their uniqueness and learn more about their surroundings and families.  4. I would like their writing and reading abilities to increase as they work on their project.
Goal(s): 1. Students will transfer known and unknown information about themselves to text. 2. Students will read their peers books to understand similarities and differences between themselves.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: 1. What is your address? 2. Do you know how to get to school from your house? 3. What are some things you like? 4. What are some things you dislike? 5. How are those things compare to your peers? 6. How are you unique? 7. What are some things you like to do? 8. What are some things you’re good at? 9. What do you know about your family and other families? 10. How are our physical features different from others?
Objectives: 1. Students will learn to use the digital camera to show photographs of themselves.  2. Students will locate their address in relationship to the school on MapQuest through the use of internet. 3. Students will use the word processor to record information about themselves.  4. Students will make Kidspiration graphs to show information about themselves. 5. Students will use a computer generated book program to make books. 6. Students will present a powerpoint with pictures and information of their peers.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding?
1. Children will be required to finish each project, which will determine if they have knowledge of that information.  2. A rubric for each page completed will be used to assess the children.
What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding?
1. Probing questions that will enhance children’s thought process about their preferences.  2. Encourage age appropriate words to encourage peer reading.  2. Teacher modeling with on-going questions. What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?
1. Understanding of knowledge will be determined by the finished product on paper.  2.Children will be able to tell their peers about their book through a summarization process.
What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect?
1. Prewriting activities before the finished product. 2. Anecdotal records of behaviors and observations during activities. 3. Rubric for each product. 4. Reading fluency records.

Instructional Strategies

I will be using a project-based method with my students. The end project of their “All About Me” book will be assessed throughout the entire process. Children will be using their own known and unknown information to record and sharing with each other throughout the individual projects. They will be encouraged to share ideas in a group setting, but record what is true to themselves. The project will promote self-directedness as they share ideas about themselves and encourage higher-order thinking skills as they customize their books to their own world.