Sample Technology Lesson Plan

Subject: Social Studies

Grade Level: 4th

Objective:
 

• TLW identify various ways we learn about a culture.
• TLW describe what life may have been like for Native Americans of a specific region based on research and hypothesizing.
• TLW demonstrate the Native American use of pictographs by creating a clay pot story of their own.

How can I help students gain content knowledge?
Start with a K-W-L chart to assess prior knowledge.  Determine what student’s desire to know about Native American Storytelling.   Incorporate lesson plan (lead students), assess often to reinforce.

Environment/Task length:
Lesson and activities will be classroom based.  Lesson should take approximately two weeks to allow for adequate research.
Daily schedule will consist of group rotation on computer station, writing center with focus on the editing process, clay pot creations center.

Lesson:
Anticipatory set: Ask for ways that we can learn about a culture.  Write student responses on the board.  Tell students that they will be exploring the Native Americans of the Southwest’s culture.  Some of these tribes include the Navajo, Hopi, Anasazi, Hohokam, Mogollan, and Mimbres.  Students are then asked to identify the southwest region on a map and define what states belong in that region.  Explain to students that they will be discovering about their culture through research on the Internet about Native American storytelling pottery.  Explain that pottery storytelling was a way for the tribes to describe what was going on or had happened.  Also read Byrd Taylor’s “When Clay Sings” to class.
Instruction: Ask students to describe their impressions of Native American life based on the story.  How did these pots tell us so much about the culture?  By examining the pictures on the remains of these pots, we learn about beliefs, customs, and everyday lives of these people.  Ask class why the Native Americans did not just write down their stories like we do today?  Explain that Native Americans did not use the alphabet we use today.  They used pictures to represent what they wanted to say.  These pictures are called pictographs.  Pass out a pictograph dictionary to each student.
Explain to the class that research will be done, in groups of two to discover some of the different symbols used long ago to tell stories.  Each group will find two new symbols and try to determine what those symbols represent if no explanation is given.
At the end of the lesson students will each write a story about their culture using word processing software, then transfer the story using symbols to a clay pot of their creation.  Class will then try to figure out the story being told by examining the symbols on each pot.

Interactions:
Students will work in a collaborative setting, two to a group, with teacher advising and assisting when needed.

Applicable Standards (National, State, or Local):
Local school 4th grade standard, Social Studies, learning about the state they live in.  State Standard, 4th grade.

Assessments:
Assess understanding often with question and answer, group discussion.
Assess understanding of clay pot stories with the completion of their own clay pot story.
Assess research by oral presentation to class about what was discovered.

Materials and Resources for Lesson:
“When Clay Sings” by Byrd Taylor
Pictograph Dictionary
Modeling clay for clay pots
Black markers to transfer design
Map of United States
Computer with Internet access
Microsoft word processing software
Printer to print research and story

Project Outcome and Closure:
Ask students what constitutes the Southwest region on a map.  Ask students to identify some Native American tribes from that region.  Ask what students have learned about culture.  Fill in K-W-L chart to reflect new knowledge from lesson.  Class will then share their clay pots and tell their stories.  Lesson will end with a journal entry about the clay pot and storytelling techniques Native Americans used, and what the student discovered during this lesson.