ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Needs Assessment/Rational

The thought process used in developing this unit is to create a relevant cross-curriculum unit between the U.S. History class and my American Literature class. Too often, educators feel that what they teach students is not reinforced in other disciplines. Instead, the student learns the material for playback on a paper/pencil assessment given at the end of the unit. By creating a cross-curriculum unit, I will reinforce the material taught by Ms. Tarno in her history class and my readings in American Literature.

I have been an educator for 25 years and consider myself at times to be a traditional teacher. This is Ms. Tarno’s second year in our school system. She uses performance based assessments frequently in all of her courses. Students are always completing a project of some nature for her. I am also Ms. Tarno’s mentor through the ND Mentoring Program. We visit about our courses in our discussions and have tried to align our courses so we are discussing the same time era in both classes.

The era I requested to complete a performance based assessment was World War II. In previous years, we have read the book by Tom Brokaw entitled, “The Greatest Generation”. I have always felt it lacked follow through. We read the book, discussed it—the end. As stated in “Understanding By Design” by Wiggins and McTighe, it was difficult for me to specify what understanding had occurred for the student. This unit will address this concern for me.

One of the questions often posed by students is, “why do we have to learn this stuff?” Through the process of reading about World War II in history and then reading about the individual’s war experiences and by conducting interviews with veterans; they will understand why we read and study this “stuff”. In addition, the events discussed in history will come alive in the stories of these men and women who lived those factual events. For example, a portion of the video, “Saving Private Ryan” will be shown in the history course. We will read about an individual who actually participated in the invasion and was invited to a private showing of the movie before its release to the general public.

The instructional unit also brings together three key standards and several benchmarks. The standards are:

Language Arts
Standard 2: Students Engage in the Reading Process
Benchmark: 11.2.9. Evaluate literature based on social, cultural, and/or historical contexts.

Library/Technology Literacy
Standard 1: Research

U.S. History
Standard 1: Nature and Scope of History
Benchmark: 12.1.4. Understand how key events, people, and ideas affected United States History.

The unit will address the concepts of a cross-curriculum unit for reinforcement of material learned in two disciplines plus the implementation of skills learned in computer applications. The final assessment will be a performance-based assessment tool rather than a paper/pencil assessment.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding:
Students will see the correlation between what is studied in history concerning World War II and the non-fiction literature read about these people in American Literature.

Goal(s):
. To become acquainted with the men and women of the World War II generation and their contributions to the war effort and our world today.

Questions Answered

Essential questions:
1. Why is this group of individuals referred to as ‘The Greatest Generation’?
2. What contributions did they make to the war effort?
3. What contributions have they made to society that still affect us today?
4. How were they personally affected by their war experience?
Objectives:Students will be able to identify the role that the men and women played in the war effort. Students will be able to identify the role that the men and women played in their contributions to our world today. Students will be able to transfer their knowledge of World War II events to the lives of the people they are reading. Students will research and interview veterans in order to describe how their war experience made them the person they are today.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding?
  Quizzes will be used to assess factual recall. Tests will be given to assess factual recall on the World War II events.

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?
  Students will interview veterans of past wars and current wars to discover how the war experience affected them as a person and has made the person who they are today.

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?
  Students will create a PowerPoint presentation in which they will highlight the individual about whom they read in the text “The Greatest Generation” and also provide information about the veteran that they interviewed. A rubric will be established for the criteria for the PowerPoint and information the student should discover from the interview with the veteran. The Grant County High Music Department has scheduled a patriotic concert for Monday, May 16 at 7:00. I have been given permission to set up laptops with the presentations so they may be viewed by the public and especially those who were interviewed.

What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect?
  Rubrics for the interview, PowerPoint presentation, meeting of assigned deadlines as decided upon by the instructor and students. Discussions held with the students concerning the veterans in the text as well as those interviewed.

Instructional Strategies

In the implementation of this unit the students will be required to use both inquiry-based and project-based learning strategies. One strategy will reinforce the other to assist in the culminating product.

Students will use the inquiry-based learning strategy when reading the book, The Greatest Generation. They will note specific details related to the individuals about whom they are reading. In addition, when they interview the veteran they have contacted for the project, they will use an established set of questions to be used for documentation of the information that they are seeking. Unlike the traditional lecture method used for introducing a unit, the students will be required to read and come to conclusions on their own about the material they are studying. They will see the correlation among their history textbook, the Greatest Generation text, and the actual interview of the veteran.

The PowerPoint presentation will be the culmination for the project-based learning strategy. Students will create the presentation using the data that they have gathered from the text and the interview and present it in the presentation. The presentation will be viewed by those who are in attendance at the patriotic concert.