Designer: M. Swanton (5th Grade)
Publication Date: Revised 6/18/04, 9/06/04, 11/01/04 and 11/10/04
Standard: History/Social-Science
- 5.1 Students describe the major Pre Columbian settlements including the cliff dwellers and the pueblo people of the desert Southwest, the American Indians of the Pacific Northwest, the nomadic nations of the Great Plains and the wood-land peoples of the Mississippi River.
- Describe how geography and climate were important to obtaining food, etc.
Key Concepts:( vocabulary) interdependence, Great Plains, Lakota Sioux, environment, geography, climate
Learning Outcome/ “Big Idea” (Objective): Students will begin to understand the interdependence of the Lakota Sioux with the horse and the buffalo, for survival in the geographic area of the Great Plains.
EL/Inclusion Strategies: Since this is a visual and body-kinesthetic lesson, EL children should be able to be completely included. Group discussion and decision making will also help language learners achieve success.
Materials: Dramatic pictures of a Lakota Sioux buffalo hunt will be the focus of the lesson. Four pictures will be used to make transparencies for the visual discovery lesson. Two will be from Paul Goble’s book Buffalo Woman, and two will be from his story The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. More than one picture will be used to allow more student participation. Paper, pencils and a reporter microphone (play) will also be needed.
TCI Strategy: Visual Discovery (Group Presentation Act-it-out)
Procedure:
- Preview: Describe how you would feel if your parent’s only car had to be taken into the auto shop for repairs, and would be gone for the entire weekend. Do a quick write in your notebook and be ready for discussion. Call on volunteers or choose children to present their answers.
- Visual Discovery Lesson
- Transparencies (pictures) of a teepee and several Indians conversing will be projected on the screen. Ask the children,” What do you see?” Have the children write their responses in their notebooks. Next ask, “What is the structure in the picture?” “Does the structure give us a clue about the environment?” “How are the people dressed?” “What does that tell us?” “What do you think they are talking about?” Responses will go in notebooks.
- The next transparency is of a man (warrior) with his arms outstretched facing a multitude of buffalo. Ask the children, “What do you see?” “What is the man doing?” “Why are there so many buffalo there?” “Does this transparency give us any clues about the environment the man is living in?” Responses will go in notebooks.
- The last transparency is showing the actual hunt with horses, riders and buffalo. One of the horses and its rider has been thrown to the ground. Ask the children, “What do you see?” What is happening in this picture?” “What does this tell us about where and how these people lived?” Responses will go in notebooks.
- A discussion of responses will follow as each transparency is put up again.
- Group Presentation Act- It- Out
- Students are put in groups of 4.
- One character will be assigned to each group.
- Teacher questions relating to the characters will be given to each group
- Who are you?
- Where do you live?
- Why did you settle here?
- How have you adapted to your environment
- Groups will be given time to prepare responses. ( 5 to 8 minutes)
- One member of each group will step into the image and take the assigned role.
- The teacher will act as a reporter, interviewing the characters, etc.
Procedure Continued:
- The children will be asked to read section 3.6 in their History Alive books (Native Americans of the Great Plains). Key words will be discussed and connections with the Visual Discovery part of the lesson will be made through discussion.
- The short book Buffalo Woman will be read as a teacher read aloud. The children will make more connections through discussion and visual images in the book. *The Reader’s theater of Buffalo Woman can (optional) be used next. The children are assigned roles and read through the script.
- Finally the short story The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses will be read silently by the children and discussed as a group.
Technology Component: Overhead, transparencies, computers for extension activity
Resources:
- Buffalo Woman by Paul Goble
- The Woman Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble
- Reader’s Theater Buffalo Woman, History Alive (TCI resource)
Processing/Assessment: The children will work on a very simple graphic organizer that shows the flow of interdependence between the Lakota Indian Nation, the horse and the buffalo. The teacher will put this graphic organizer on a transparency for the children to copy.
Interdependence- Indian Nation
- The children will be given 3 minutes to brainstorm the ways the horse was crucial to the Indian’s survival. Next, they will be given 3 minutes to do the same for the buffalo. Their answers will be written in their notebooks. The teacher will write their cooperative answers on the transparency organizer.
- The second part of the processing assignment is the most difficult. Using the entire day’s foundation, their notebooks, graphic organizers etc., the children will be asked to write a first person account of a hunt from the perspective of an Indian young man or woman, or a horse or buffalo. The account must contain a good beginning, middle and end. It must have a strong lead that will bring the reader very quickly into the action. There must be descriptive language and good sentence structure and variation.
Assessment: The teacher will check to see if the processing assignment is completed or not. The history content of the processing assignment will be graded on a simple teacher made rubric (attached). The actual writing assignment will be graded on the FUSD 4 point grading rubric. All of the children will take this piece of writing through the writing process and try to improve their weak areas. Their final drafts will be written in the computer lab, thereby using technology to improve writing conventions. Notebooks will also be checked and recorded on the teacher’s recording grid or grade book.
Reflection: I was very surprised that the majority of the first person accounts were written from the perspective of a buffalo or a horse. The children clearly understood the importance and interrelated roles between these animals and the Lakota Indians. Their writing was very typical of a class of 32 fifth graders. The most effective pieces contained colorful images and evoked emotion, while the least effective pieces lacked , not only length, but colorful images. Nevertheless, the children understood the concepts. They had a much clearer picture of the environment, adaptations and culture of the Lakota Sioux. In addition, it was quite enjoyable to let the lesson flow naturally into the literature base. It allowed the children to build a much stronger foundation, which helped their writing.
Modeling, criteria, assessment adjustment: I made major changes in this lesson because it was not complete enough to truly take the children in the direction I wanted them to go. I wanted them to be immersed in the Plains Indians , and this revised lesson plan did just that. The downside was that it literally took all day. I integrated reading and writing into the lesson plan so that it flowed naturally. The most difficult part of the lesson was Part 2 of the processing. The content of the children’s papers was generally very good, but writing conventions continue to be a challenge for some.
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