As I wrote these lessons, I looked at the Center for Research, Excellence, Diversity in Education (CREDE )for recommendations in as far as proven strategies and methods that take into account the needs of English Language Learners(ELLs) in their second language acquisition process. Thus, I outline key elements necessary to meet their needs. I set up both content and language objectives as I developed the skills needed to successfully complete the tasks. Additionally, I created a series of extension activities in other areas of the curriculum to provide the student with meaningful opportunities to explore with the content and language in more unstructured situations.
Sample lesson 1. What is History?
Content objective: Students will create a chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or an institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events.
Content concept: History is a chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or an institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events.
Language objective. Students will be able to describe orally and in writing (following chronological order) the most important events in their lives or the lives of their families.
Curricular framework 5.0: History and People: Students will understand how history helps people view themselves over time.
Content Standard: Students will compare various cultures presented in the classroom and contrast these with their own. Students will recall, retell, and explain information based on content area activities, using appropriate vocabulary.
Data Gathering Skills: Locating information from a variety of sources.
Intellectual Skills:. Distinguishing fact from opinion.
Materials: World maps, chart paper.
Vocabulary: history, chronological order, timeline, event, ethnic group.
Supplementary Materials: See children's readings.
Links to previous concepts: Being members of a family, a church, community, class, or ethnic group. In order to better understand a story, a good reader pays attention to when the events take place. We use timelines everyday. A schedule is a type of timeline.
Links to previous content: All families are different but share some important common characteristics. We have been studying about organizers. They help us to organize and summarize information on something we know. They also help us in planing as when we are ready to write something.
Procedure: Everyone and everybody has a history of their own. Additionally, the individual lives within a group of people (family) who share a history in common, which at the same time, lives in a community and a society that makes them who they are. Today we are going to create a list of chronological events in each of our lives. We are going to call it a history of who we are. Each of us has a different history but many of our histories have many things which are the same. In order to be chronological we must order the events in our lives according to when they happened. You are to make a new type of organizer. It is called a timeline. A timeline lists the year or the time and gives the reader a phrase or sentence of why that date is important. It can be as simple as a year, a year and month, or a specific date. A timeline needs to be in "chronological" order so it makes sense. That means the dates need to be listed in the order that the events took place.
Which would be the first and most important event in our lives? (birthdate) This is the beginning of our history. What are some other events? (learning to walk, first words uttered, first day of school, hospitalizations, etc.)
First the teacher will create a listing of the most important events in a person's life. The teacher then will write them in chronological order as he/she models what a timeline looks like.
Now that I have a timeline I can begin writing my history by explaining with words the events in the timeline. Who, when, what, how, why those events are part of my history.
Assessment: Students choose main events and sort them chronologically.
Extensions: Children will read about the most important life events of other children who immigrated to the U.S. Students will locate and graph the distances from their countries of origin to where they now live.
Sample lesson 2. Historical Events and Information
Content objective: Students will differentiate between primary and secondary sources of information.
Content concept: History, as a chronological record of events, often includes an explanation of or commentary on those events. Who writes down those comments and how the information is gathered is very important to the veracity of the events and makes a big difference.
Language objective: Students will list a series of live events in chronological order and orally discuss how they know if the events are a fact and how they came up with the facts. Curricular framework 3.0: Cultural Contexts: Students will use English and their native language in a variety of cultural contexts.
Content Standard: Students will investigate and clarify information.
Data Gathering Skills. Locating information from a variety of sources.
Intellectual Skills. Asking appropriate and searching questions.
Materials: Chronological individual's history, timelines.
Vocabulary: fact, fiction, primary and secondary sources and information.
Links to previous concepts: Differentiating between "I know so because it says so here" from "Someone told me so" and "I was there so I know....".
Links to previous content: Timelines and chronological order.
Procedure: Yesterday we created a list of the most important events in our lives. Then, we wrote them in chronological order in the form of an organizer called a timeline. Finally, we wrote some comments about the events. Today we are going to take a closer look at how and where did we find that information. Who did you ask? How do you know? The teacher will model differentiating between primary and secondary sources of information related to the individual's history created in the previous lesson. The teacher will take out a copy of the birth cerificate (primary source) and show how this source is objective and of the type "I know so because it says so here". A sample of a secondary source , "someone told me so" is the event when I began to walk. "My mother said I started walking when I was 3 years old...." Children will be asked to talk about the information they gathered about their lives from the day before and with the help of the class and the teacher, determine if the information is a primary or secondary source.
Discuss differences and simmilarities. Students are asked to sort information between primary and secondary sources. Is a recollection of a past event primary or secondary? What about a photograph?
Assessment: Students make a list of life events separating between primary and secondary sources of events.
Sample lesson 3. History - Who,What, Where, How, When, Why?
Content objective: Students will discuss and write different accounts of the same event.
Content concept: A chronological record of events and the explanation of or commentary on those events varies according to who is the one relaying the story and the type of sources they are using.
Language objective: Students will discuss the reasons as to why the explanation of the account of the events is different to that of others.
Curricular framework 5.0: History And People: Students will understand how history helps people view themselves over time.
Content Standard: a. Students will express interests and opinions using appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication. b. Students will demonstrate an understanding of the different way people view themselves over time.
Data Gathering Skills. Extracting and interpreting information.
Intellectual Skills. Compiling, organizing, and evaluating information.
Materials: Puppets.
Vocabulary: Objective, subjective, point of view.
Supplementary Materials: See Children's readings. Three Little Pigs. The Real Story of the Three Little Pigs as told by the Wolf.
Links to previous concepts: You get into a fight with a brother or sister. Your mom arrives and sees you hitting your brother. When she asks why is it that your brother is crying each of you gives her a different story.
Procedure: Yesterday we looked over our life events history. What is a primary source? Is a birth certificate a primary or secondary source of information?
Who was able to find other types of primary information? Secondary? Tell the class that today you are going to have a puppet show about the life of a family but that they are to work divided into separate groups. Each group of students will receive a card explainiing what is going to happen with the character or the situation they are going to observe.
One group is told that the boy in the family is lazy and always fights with the sister. Another group is told that the sister is always taking the toys away from the brother and that she never shares her toys. Another group is told that they are brother and sister and that because the sister is always afraid, the brother now has to sleep in the same room and he can not bring his friends home. The puppet show begins with the boy in the family room reading a book. The sister comes and begins interrupting him to come and play. He says that he needs to finish the book. She begins to cry. The boy gets mad and yells for his mother. The girl starts screeming. The mother arrives... In the groups, create a timeline of the events in the story. Tell me in your own words what happened from beginning to end. Are there similarities?Differences? Why? Whose account is the best? Why?
Assessment: Students can find simmilarites and differences among the different events.
Extensions: Different versions of traditional tales :i.e. The 3 Billy Goats Gruff, The Little Red Hen. Students observe three dimensional geometric shapes and draw pictures of what they see.
Sample lesson 4. 4 + 3 = 1
Content objective: The Basque country is historically formed of 7 regions. 4 regions in Northern Spain plus 3 regions in Southern France make up what was once a nation.
Content concept: The world is made up of independent nations.
Language objective: The students will be able to describe(capitals, main rivers) the 7 regions of the Basque country.
Curricular framework 1.0: Communication: Students will use English and their native language for effective communication. 4.0 Geography: Students will demonstrate a basic knowledge of world geography so that they can understand its importance in influencing the development of societies and history.
Content Standard: Students will understand the difference between continents, oceans and islands.
Data Gathering Skills: Acquiring information by observation.
Intellectual Skills 1. Comparing things, ideas, events, and situations on the basis of similarities and differences.
Materials: World map, map of Europe, map of the Basque country.
Vocabulary: Independent nation, country, government, United States, Spain, France, Euskadi (Basque country).
Supplementary Materials: Geography Map of the Basque Country.
http://free.freespeech.org/ehj/html/frmap.html
Links to previous concepts: Where does your family come from? Where were you born? What is the name of the country where you were born?
Procedure: We are living in the United States of America. This nation has a government which is in charge of the day to day functioning. The political system of the U.S. is a democracy. Not all the countries are made up in the same way but all follow different paths to be governed the way they are. History is the narration of past events and tell us how it is we became who and what we are. Every person and nation has a history.
The world is made up of 7 continents, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Antarctic.Students will locate the United States in a map divided by continents. The students will locate the state and the capital of the state were we live. As a point of reference the students will also locate the major countries where they come from (Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) and describe them in terms of which continent they are. Because these are our points of reference, anytime we look at any other country, we will depart from these continents and focus then on the nations. We will discuss the type of government that they currently have, the capitals, and their locations in relation to were we live. Terms such as south of the US, north of Mexico, etc., will be used. We will follow by locating Europe, followed by France and Spain. The 7 regions that make up the Basque country will be outlined and described in terns of the country which administers their land (Spain, France).
Every person lives in a country which is governed by a type of political system. The U.S. is a democracy. Spain has a parlaimentary democracy with a king as the head of state. France is a republic.
Assessment: Students can locate the Basque country in the map.
Extensions: Children will read about the history of the United States. Children will write the population of each of the regions that make up the Basque country.
Sample lesson 5. War and Consequences: Refugees
Content objective: Although the number of conflicts has declined since the end of the cold war, long lasting ethnic, religious, political, territorial, and commercial disputes continue to ignite into discord, dissention, open conflicts, and wars.
Content concept: The consequences mainly affect civilians and their effects can be felt long after they are over.
Language objective: The students will be able to describe some of the experiences refugees have to endure.
Curricular framework 1.0: Communication: Students will use English and their native language for effective communication. 4.0 Geography: Students will demonstrate a basic knowledge of world geography so that they can understand its importance in influencing the development of societies and history.
Content Standard: Students will understand the consequences of war as it relates to children refugees.
Data Gathering Skills: Acquiring information by observation.
Intellectual Skills. Comparing things, ideas, events, and situations on the basis of similarities and differences.
Materials: Children accounts as refugees, electronic resources.
Vocabulary: Refugee, displaced person, child soldier.
Supplementary Materials: The following tour entitled "War Child Expo" (http://www.warchild.org/artists/expo/hoffman.html) portrays some of the consequences of open armed warfare in the civilian population, and especially some of the effects it has on children.
Children in Ingushetia: A War Child project photo exhibition
http://www.warchild.org/artists/Ingushetia/index.html
Students will be able to see, especially in the report on Ingushetia, the conditions in which the children and their families have to endure. Living in tents and train wagons, the children in these refugees try to lead normal lives. This photo report, made during a field trip in summer 2000 to the War Child projects in Ingushetia, depicts the horrors of ethnic conflict between Russia and Chechnya guerillas.
Spanish Civil War Basque refugees
http://www.caerleon.net/cambria/basque/page13.html
The following paragraph represents an account of the situation of Basque refugee children in Wales.
…. in making known as widely as possible the fact that 30 children will be remaining under the care of the South Wales Basque Children's Committee. Need we remind ourselves that these children and their parents have suffered and are suffering because a brave attempt was made for three long years to stem the tide of Fascism in their own dear country? The challenge was not accepted, except by the Spanish people and the International Brigade. They played their part bravely and well. Let us continue to do our part for their 30 children, victims of Fascist aggression who still need our help. Jack Williams, Hon. Secretary.
This site includes children's primary and secondary accounts of the day to day living as refugees and their understanding of war.
A trench is also a good thing during a bombardment, unless a bomb falls right inside it. Trenches should not be very deep, because if a little earth falls on a person, he can still get out, but if the trench is very deep he can't. Menda
Trenches are useful for many things. When they make trenches, they make them in zig-zag form, and do you know why they make them that way? It is because a bomb is not likely to fall right inside a trench, but if it does, only the people in one part will be killed, and the others will be safe. If a trench were straight, and a bomb fell in it, all the people would be killed. The "Terrible Twins"
http://www.caerleon.net/cambria/basque/page11.html
Pictures of Basque children at Evington Hall, England, in July 1937.
http://www.newitt.freeserve.co.uk/history.htm
Fifty children, from the ages of 7-15 who came from Bilbao, landed in Leicester on July 1937 and stayed at Evington Hall. Many of them were adopted by local people were they stayed until they were repatriated. The Secretary of the Leicester Committee for Basque children, Mary Attenborough, wrote:
"If we were to write to the refugee mother of one of our families at Evington and say that we had decided to send her children back to Bilbao into the hands of those same people who are holding her husband prisoner, it would not be much comfort to her. If we can send back children to parents with homes to receive them, then we think they should go, but we will never deliver up children to their parents' enemies."
General Spanish Civil War Pictures
http://free.freespeech.org/ehj/html/frcwar.html
Child Soldiers from Youth Ambassadors for Peace,
http://www.freethechildren.org/peace/childrenandwar/soldiers.html
Assessment: Students describe children refugee experiences and name differences and simmilarities between Basque Spanish Civill War and Chechnya refugees.
Extensions: Students will be able to compare the differences between the way the Basque refugee children of the Franco dictatorial regime during the Spanish Civil War were hosted by typical families before the creation of the United Nations, and the way in which Chechnya refugees are now being helped.