Social Studies Unit Plan Alex Langman

December 5, 2011

ESST 310-40

Content (Topic) This unit focuses on the aboriginal peoples in Canada: as a foundational part of Canada’s heritage, and as a people who found innovative ways to live off the land we now call Canada. This lesson in particular (Lesson 1), focuses on getting students interested in the unit, and on assessing what they want to know; part of the lesson will be completing the first two parts of a KWL chart. This first lesson is the introductory activity of the unit, (especially the set). Rationale: My rationale for this unit in general is I want to interrupt the privileging of the part of Canada’s history and heritage that has to do with the successes of European settlers. I will want to include that as well according to curriculum requirements in the grade because that is also a part of our heritage, but I want to interrupt that with a deliberate effort to privilege and celebrate the contributions made by First Nations, and also to lament some of the tragedies aboriginal groups faced during Canada’s formation. The rationale for this first lesson has to do with using the opportunity the curriculum gives me, to highlight how central First Nations groups are to this land we now call Canada, and that it certainly was First Nations people’s home. Those nations truly belonged here, and their innovation in learning to live off the land is worth acknowledging, and celebrating. Unit/content questions: Lesson 1 The BIG question:

Does land (or the natural environment) have an effect on the way people live? Other questions I want to cover in the unit by the end:

How do you feel about the amount of land that is available now to be used and respected by First Nations, compared to the amount of land that used to be available to First Nations to use and respect?

We have begun to answer the question: “Does land (or the natural environment) have

an effect on the way people live?” Now we can take this deeper: “has that effect changed over time?”

*that last question needs some revision/ improvement, I think it could be better.

Do people depend on the land for their food in the same way as people did in the past? How does that change where they live, or where they can live?

Instructional Strategies Direct Instruction – just the basic directions really, and the things I have written down to say, which are mostly transitions and little pieces of information Indirect Instruction- some inquiry is part of the lesson (KWL chart) Interactive Learning- brainstorming and multiple discussions

Outcome IN5.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the Aboriginal heritage of Canada.

Indicator a. Locate on a map traditional First Nations and Inuit habitation areas in the era prior to European arrival, including the Northwest Pacific Coast, Interior Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodland, Sub Arctic, and Arctic.

Cross Curricular Competencies Developing Identity and Interdependence, Developing Literacies

Pre-requisite Learning -An understanding of the arrival of Europeans to North and South America (also a basic idea of the geographical location of those continents in relation to Europe mostly). -A basic idea of the concept of nations, and the concept of people groups and ethnicity. -An idea of what ancestry is, and a knowledge of their own on a basic level (e.g. are there grandparents German, or Irish, or Cree... etc)

Adaptive Dimension -my adaptive dimension tend to be listed in my Class Management notes, such as the adapting the method used for partnering students. -we are mostly discussing in this first lesson so I don’t expect the need for lots of adaptation, class discussion to me seems inherently adaptive, it goes at the speed and the depth created by the class as a whole. -One thing that will definitely adapt on its own is the dynamic of the discussions based on the backgrounds represented by the particular class. The discussion will be different for example if there is a student with Cree background, versus what the discussion will be like if there are no First Nations students in the class at all, which is unlikely but still may happen. Then I will have

to come up with a way to bring it closer to home and connect it with their lives so it’s not about First Nations of 100 years ago.

Preparation (equipment, material, set-up) -two large images of Canada (one with, and one without political boundaries, title, etc.) Basically one of the maps should be the land of Canada and nothing else, not even the word Canada. (I have both of these at home) -two dozen or so individual pieces of cardstock with the name of a local (or at least Canadian) First Nation. E.g. Cree, Dene, et cetera. -prepare a large board sized map of the “habitation areas of Canada” and make sure it is not labelled, prepare labels for the habitation areas similar to names of tribes (but bigger). The names of the Habitation areas are: Northwest Pacific Coast, Interior Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodland, Canadian Shield, Sub-Arctic, and Arctic.

Assessment Assessment in lesson 1 is pretty much exclusively formative -I will be copying the KWL chart to assess both what they have learned already (what they know) and also so that I can incorporate what they ‘want to know’ into the next lessons and the rest of the unit. -I think the KWL chart will also be a tool for me to assess interest level (I will just leave this to more informal, intuitive assessment). -Also, their ability to partner up responsible will be taken into consideration, and their choice in topic for their research paper. I don’t want to make this lesson to complicated by setting up a rubric for how well they as partners decided on their topic, or anything like that, I can save that for another lesson. I just don’t want to go overboard. The above info is for lesson 1, in terms of the rest of the unit, after looking over it, it is rather week on the assessment side of things, I think that will have to develop as the lesson plans begin to take form later on if I get the opportunity to actually teach this lesson. I hope so by the way because I really do like Grade 5. I really relate to them at that level, they can handle a lot, and yet still really want to learn. I will definitely be excited to teach no matter what Grade I get though, each will certainly have something special about it I am sure.

Set (minutes) 1. Begin by placing two large images of Canada side by

Class Management

side on the board. One will be a political map with political divisions and the name Canada, etc. The other will be a non-political map without the name Canada, etc. Ask students: “what is different about these two images?” 2. Direct student’s attention to the political map. Ask: “Has Canada always been like this?” -why, why not? Discuss as a class. Say: 3. “Before many of our ancestors, like our grandparents, our great grandparents, or our great great great grandparents arrived to North and South America – All of this, (point to and sweep hand across non-political map of Canada), belonged to somebody.” “Does anyone know who it belonged to?” (see what they say) “In truth, it was all available for the First Nations to use-the aboriginal people. And in our lesson today we are just going to be talking about Canada, just to keep it relevant to where we actually live, but most of this holds true all the way to the bottom of South America.” “It was all there for the First Nations to use, to live off, First Nations are even called First Nations because they were the first people we know of who lived off this land.” “In fact there were over 600 nations, or tribes that lived in Canada alone, not to mention all the way down to the bottom of south American, just in Canada there were over 600!”

-take time as a class discussing this, if they need it see if I can guide them towards noticing the political divisions and what that entails. -referring mostly to political boundaries. *note, I don’t think I will even go into the question of “has it always even been called Canada”, that doesn’t really seem to be part of this particular unit, at least not really part of this first lesson. -I struggle with this one, because in my understanding of First Nations understanding... land didn’t belong to anyone, but I don’t know if I want to spend time going into that at this point in the lesson, and simply saying... “who did it belong to”... seems to get the ball rolling in the direction I would like it to go... so I will have to puzzle over this one some more before teaching it.

“who has heard of some of the following?” Place onto the board a good two dozen or so individual names of (pre-written) nations/tribes such as Cree, Saulteaux, Ojibwe, Dene, Blackfoot, Sarcee, et cetera. “now these aren’t just 500 year old names of groups that you go see in the museum or in cowboys and indians movies, you live and play beside people who have some of these backgrounds, just as there are others of us who have different backgrounds like European backgrounds. Another way to think of this is thinking about ethnicity, or ethnic backgrounds. Basically if we look back to our ancestors they usually represent different nations. Let’s see how many backgrounds we have in this class, who are your ancestors? Me for example, my mom’s parents are Ukrainian, so part of my heritage, or background, is Ukrainian.” Write all of their backgrounds on the board and see how that list compares to a number as big as 600!

-make sure to include the Saskatchewan tribes. *note to self, it seems to me the number 600 is based on bands, and not on the broader tribal groups/ nations such as Cree, Ojibwe, etc. I could be wrong though I have to look more into it. Either way I think we will be able to come up with a nice big list of nations based on the wider groupings.

Development (minutes) So after all of that... “What do we know about these 600 nations?” “What do we know about where they lived, and maybe how they lived?” -fill out first part of KWL chart. -also fill out the second part, the ‘want to know’ part.

-I really think I am going to change that number “600” for the actual classroom instruction once I get a chance to look into what kind of specific grouping I want to use, I think I want to use groupings by tribe like Cree, Ojibwe, Blackfoot, etc because that will be comparable to Ukrainian, Italian, etc. Of course that Italian part is there to make you feel special Mike. If I use those groupings I really think there will be far less than 600 in Canada. Maybe more like a couple dozen? I

“Let’s start off by taking a look at Canada and what kinds of habitation areas (or regions) the natural environment provides” “We are going to do that because the characteristics of these regions often had a significant effect on the ways of life of the people who lived there.” “so let’s take a look.” Put up the other map I have prepared, with the different environmental regions, and randomly place the names of the regions on some other part of the board. Students can then come up when I choose them, and place the name of the region on to the map (I can correct these subtly as we go or at the end) Next: “do you want to know where some of these 600 tribes lived, which regions they called home?” Again have pieces of cardstock prepared with names of tribes and again have students come up and place them where they think they might have lived. When they are all done I can rearrange the tribes so they are accurate. Take this opportunity to explain, as I rearrange nations, that the borders of these nations where not like the borders of the Provinces and Territories, and Countries nowadays. They were more fluid and were not drawn on a map.

forget it’s been a while since my linguistics classes where I learned the tribes and language groups, it’s sad that more of this is not more common knowledge. -I will have to sit down and look for/design a map for this lesson, because I want to put on the board a big physical map of Canada without political divisions. Instead of political divisions I want the map to have more natural divisions demarcating the: Northwest Pacific Coast, Interior Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodland, Canadian Shield, Sub-Arctic, and Arctic. Then I want to have these areas written on placards, or whatever you call them (pieces of cardstock) arranged on the side of the board. -I think the students will enjoy the activity more if they are the ones placing things on the board, I can always rearrange them and I think they will even find that enjoyable, seeing how close they were.

Closure (minutes) “I personally would like to know more about how

-the process of partnering up will depend

these nations lived before Europeans arrived. Lets research these nations in groups and present what we find to the rest of the class. I will get you to partner up with someone, and in 5 minutes from now I will get you to tell me what group you have chosen, and what kind of environment in Canada they became skilled at living in (the place they are located on the board).” Wrap the class up by saying that next day we will brainstorm together and create a handout as a class that will guide us in doing the research, and the presentation to the class. But they can definitely feel free to start talking about the kinds of things they want to find out, and they can play explore the internet when they get home to start getting some ideas.

on the class. If we have done enough work on this as a class and they are able to partner up responsibly and effectively by this point in the year than I will have them do that on their own and on a piece of paper choose their topic.

*note: I had a couple nice colour printouts of the kinds of maps I want to use, and I left them on my

printer at home, the ones printed out at the University (the ones included here in this submitted unit

plan, are yucky black and white!) sorry about that.

A Brief Overview of the Remaining Lessons

The remaining lessons will work towards answering the big question, and other important unit/content

questions and cover the following outcomes and indicators:

Outcome IN5.1 - Demonstrate an understanding of the Aboriginal heritage of Canada

Indicators

a) Locate on a map traditional First Nations and Inuit habitation areas in the era prior to European

arrival, including the Northwest Pacific Coast, Interior Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodland, Sub Arctic, and

Arctic.

b) Research similarities and differences in ways of life among First Nations and Inuit communities prior

to European contact (e.g., men’s roles, women’s roles, children’s roles)

Outcome DR5.2 -Assess the impact of the environment on the lives of people living in Canada.

Indicators

a) describe the climate of different regions of Canada, and investigate how population distribution in

Canada is related to climate, resources, and topographical features.

b)explain how different traditional worldviews of earth affect the use of resources in Canada

c) Investigate the relationship of various First Nations peoples with the environment, including economic

relationships, migration, and settlement patterns prior to Confederation.

Lesson 2 Outcome IN5.1, Indicator b).

The second lesson of the Unit is significantly straight forward, it is the continuation of the first

lesson, and the transition into their research projects. The class will begin with a sharing time about any

of the information they already found out about the group they want to research, then as a class we will

brainstorm and generate a handout that will guide the research project so that everyone product is at

least somewhat similar in content and presentation. I should be able to print that out in the classroom if

our classroom is set up the way my pre-internship classroom is, and then we can head to the library as a

class and see what books are available (I will have done this long beforehand to see what is actually

there, and if there is not much I will have print-outs, copies of articles, web-sites, books, etc available in

the classroom for students to read through and use for their projects). For a lot of the writing we will

utilize other classes like L.A. so that I can provide enough time to do great work without resorting to

homework. Of course they can find more information about their nation of choice on the internet at

home, I just think it would be beneficial for students to be able to work together with their partner

during class time to generate the written portions of the project. This second lesson really dives in to

indicator b) for Outcome IN5.1 and the research project will also aim to touch on indicators a),b), and c)

of Outcome DR5.2. After the class I will have them hand in their completed data collection worksheet

(the one we generated together as a class) so that I can do some formative assessment and gauge if they

are ready to work on the written aspects during the next L.A. class.

*I do not remember what it was like to do research projects during class time in Grade 5, so I have no

idea if my expectations are reasonable or not during one period. I guess I will have to wait and see, and

then plan to adjust.

Lesson 3 Outcome IN5.1, Indicator b)

Outcome DR5.2, Indicators a) The first half of the indicator at least, and also touches on

b) and c) without being completely purposeful about it.

In lesson 3 students will be able to use half of the class to read each other’s projects. Again as a

class we will generate a worksheet together that they can complete while reading each other’s work.

That way we can learn about a wide range of First Nations adaptations to the land, without spending a

lot of class time doing it. Kind of like the strategy we used in our ESST class for our chapter

presentations. I really value the idea of using student/class work as learning material. Their worksheets

will be useful as both formative assessment and as sumative assessment of what each student has

learned about the various nations. Also, their research projects will be useful as sumative assessment

and can be included in their portfolios, the downside is that it’s a partner project and may not reflect

individual work. At the same time it is good to have work like this in the portfolio to highlight the social

skill of working together with a classroom. With that being said I would like to incorporate some self-

assessment of how well they worked together with their partner to accomplish the final product. I am

just not sure at this point where in the lessons that should fit in, I need to sit down and think about that

when I have a full set of lesson plans completed. I can’t seem to figure out where to fit it in without

going through that whole process. At this point I think this lesson would be the place to do some self-

assessment.

*after these first 3 lessons I am hoping students are starting to grasp that the environment used to have

a significant impact on the way people lived in the past. Now I want to show how geography effects how

people live currently.

*for the next two lesson I would like to move into contemporary issues... such as what is FNs

relationship like to land like now... what used to determine where they lived, what determines where

they live now.... what about the rest of the population.... what determines where they live?

Lesson 4 Outcome DR5.2, Indicators a) and c).

Starting here in lesson 4 I would like to relate what we are learning about in the past, by

comparing it to Canada’s current situation. I would like to approach that from at least two different

angles. In one sense I would like to show how the situation has changed for First Nations. They once had

all of Canada available to them, for land, and resources, basically for their livelihood. Compare that to

the current circumstance of having all of that reduced to reserves. An important part of Lesson 4 will be

comparing the quantity and quality of land available to First Nations before the 1500s to what is

available to First Nations in terms of quantity and quality now. I have some thoughts about how to teach

that through a bit of an object lesson involving the amount of their desk that is available to them. That is

probably enough for lesson 4, and so I will leave the other angle, or facet, for lesson 5.

Sample of some script for lesson 4:

“Through our last lessons together, one thing we learned was where the first inhabitants of Canada

lived. We learned why they lived there, and how they lived there. Let’s take a look next at how things

have changed now some 500 years later, what land is available for First Nations to use now and how

does that change things?”

Lesson 5

Lesson 5 deals with the same type of content, same outcome and indicator as lesson 4, but from

a different angle. It will focus on the mainstream population of Canada and where that population lives,

how they live, and why they live there. (One question for this area of the unit could be “Do people

depend on the land for their food in the same way as people did in the past? How does that change

where they live, or where they can live?”

For the introductory activities for this second half of the unit I would like to use the object

lesson in lesson 4 and the photographs I will talk about here in lesson 5.

For the set for lesson 5 I want to utilize the photographs of Canada (North America) from space

that show the amount of light we emit from the surface. Basically this shows population density in a

really neat way (at least personally I think it is pretty cool). I think as a class we could then do some

interesting comparative work about where mainstream Canadians live now... and why. We could then

compare that with where First Nations used to live, and why they used to live there. I haven’t yet

thought of what activities I could use to make this engaging, interesting, full of depth, and meaningful,

but I know the direction I want to go with it. It takes us in the direction of answering the question I listed

under the content/unit questions on the first page: We have begun to answer the question: “Does

land (or the natural environment) have an effect on the way people live?” Now we can take this

deeper: “has that effect changed over time?”

Lesson 6

Lesson 6 seems like it would naturally be an extension of lesson 5, where we could discuss, and

write about the exploitative way we interact with land and the natural environment now, and how that

allows us to choose where we live differently than in the past. We could then talk about pros and cons.

We could also watch the video clip “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard and relate that to what we

are talking about. There are lots of other videos and articles that could be used here that I can take a

look at.

The Story of Stuff: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8&feature=BFa&list=FLW7PK9dX-

3pnSD7VATty6eg&lf=mh_lolz)

Lesson 7

I also want to start to incorporate Outcome DR5.2 indicator b) explain how different

traditional worldviews of earth affect the use of resources in Canada. At this point I am not sure how I

want to go about doing that, but I think it fits in here pedagogically. In lesson 6 we really looked into the

pros and cons of some of the ways of life we have been looking at. I think we could now talk about how

worldview, or beliefs, also affects how we relate to the land around us. Oh and if possible... a neat way

to show this in a contemporary light is through the documentary “Down the Mighty River”. It is about

the struggles between Cree First Nations in Quebec and their struggles with Quebec Hydro initiatives

and corporations. I am really interested at working with things like that documentary in my classroom

because it is far from token and really brings First Nations content into the present.

Lesson 8

I think by this point I am really going to have to begin to wrap the unit up and tie it all

together. I am noticing that my lesson overviews are now becoming thinner and thinner, which

is unfortunate because it is the wrap up that needs to be at least second in effort to the first

lesson. I find though that as I am getting further and further from the complete first lesson plan

I am fuzzier and fuzzier on what exactly I have covered, so this wrap up lesson would certainly

have to evolve as lessons 2-7 develop. I know I would want to incorporate some meaningful

sumative assessment, but not a written test. I gravitate more towards the idea of a personal

reflection, but not so loosy goosy as that. One thing I just thought of that would probably be a

beneficial part of lessons 1-8 would be a continuous journal of what we are learning. That

would be incredibly helpful to both the students and myself formatively, and I could also use it

as sumative assessment at the end. The writing assignment at the end could take the form of

some kind of summary of their previous 7 entries in their journals? We could also do the kind of

letter writing that is talked about in the Wade text. The class could write letters, maybe

apologies to elders for the reserve system? (that one is tricky though because among many

other levels of complication... the reserve part of treaties can either be seen as a positive or a

negative, yes it protected what little land was left, but it also exacerbated the taking of land.) I

would possibly have to first talk to an elder and see what they think of the idea. I will definitely

have to put lots more thought into this wrap up lesson. My goal for it is definitely to provide an

opportunity for synthesis and application of all that we have learned since the first lesson.

Maybe the final assignment could even be to write a creative, or descriptive writing piece about

the ideal world, what it would look like to best relate to land. Should we relate to it the way we

currently do, or the way First Nations did pre-contact... or maybe a mix of both. What would

the ideal be, and how could we get there even as a classroom. Something like that could be the

final writing assignment.