John M. Adamovich
Multiple activities will be constructed in an attempt to further expand upon the information presented to the students in regards to disease and illness prevention. Students will be able to apply their vocabulary and skills learned in order to generate several critical thinking projects.
KWL Worksheet
At the start of the unit I felt it would be in my best interest to grasp what the students already know about the subject matter prior to implementing the background knowledge into each class lesson. A KWL worksheet allows the student to tell the teacher what he/she already
knows
(K) about the subject,
What
(W) they would like to know, and more importantly at the end what's new that they have
learned
(L). The worksheets are typically set up in the simple three-chart system and students are able to fill out each column when asked. My worksheet will allow students to use this worksheet throughout the unit as check in's with the instructor. The section on what they know and what they want to know is actually a detachable piece at the bottom of the worksheet allowing the students to rip them off and hand them into the teacher. This allows the teacher to know in what direction to start while also gaining topics of interest from each of the students.
IE
Video
ESPN 30 for 30 Video, "The Announcement" This video goes into the physical and mental toll a severe illness has effected Magic Irving Johnson, who had become contracted with HIV as well as it has effected the others around them. Open-ended questions can be those, which make the viewers think outside of the box. (Video can either be found on youtube, ordered online through Amazon/Ebay, or downloadable through: http://espn.go.com/espn/espnfilms/story/_/page/theannouncement/announcement
Questions such as these may be used to draw students :
What lifestyle risk factors led to Magic (Irving) Johnson to contracting such a deadly disease?
How did the other athletes react when they heard that Magic Johnson had contracted the disease? Do you feel that this was a fair reaction? Why or why not?
How did the players react when they heard that he was going to still play in the NBA? What would your reaction be if you knew that the person you played against have a deadly and highly contagious disease?
What issues did Magic Johnson face throughout his NBA career? Home life? Social/Media?
Close reading
This activity will allow them to become more familiar with the basic information of what is a vaccine and what it does. Students will conduct a close read on the history of the first vaccine and how it was used. Students will have had a basic understanding of the anatomy and physiology behind how the body systems work prior to this reading. Close reading is a process of breaking down a text that's above the students reading level. The entire process allows students to take a paragraph, or several paragraphs, and analyze only a sentence or two at a time.
Sections of the book entitled: "Surviving the Extremes: What Happens to The Body and Mind at The Limits of Human endurance" written by, Kenneth Kamler M.D., can be used for close reading exercises on the body systems.
Manifesto Activity
Students will create their own medication, which would need to be written up as a manifesto. Student's criteria for this activity will be composed of several parts. Creation of the manifesto is one of the steps in creating their medication. Students will need to research what ingredients in medications interact with the body and will use those in their ingredients list for their future medication (this is will minimize outlandish medications being presented). Students will then create their medications packaging using Microsoft publisher or Photo Shop a current medication packaging to give a close to real appearance for the made up medication.
Final Persuasive Essay
Students are always being told that they must be vaccinated against multiple illnesses and diseases prior to attending college. However, what if one decides not to become vaccinated? Can one opt out of becoming vaccinated? This next activity/ written assignment allow the students to act on behalf of the parent of a student going to attend the school or the president of the university. In their writing they must defend their decision with facts identifying whether or not vaccinations should be given/allowed in order to attend the university.
After reading multiple articles on vaccines and the controversies between whether or not to use them students will be asked to generate a five paragraph essay on whether or not vaccines should be used? Students will then be given time in class to research debatable websites. A few of the websites I currently use with my students for this activity are, www.vaccinationdebate.net, www.vaccines.procon.org, and http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/parent-child/vaccine-debate.
Students are given a rubric to follow for the paper. This rubric has been formatted across curriculums with two other sophomore teachers. This allows students to stay consistent throughout their classes writing processes.
Each of the five sections will be designed to focus on the several areas in which they would need to improve to stay on track for the following school year. There will be five sections each scored on a descending scale starting at four. Section one focuses on the student's thesis statements and introductions. Section two will be based on basic essay structure. Section three will be supporting paragraphs being used throughout the body of their papers to determine if each body paragraph has its own idea/purpose. Section four will be used to determine supportive reasoning, allowing students to cite other researchers work. Section five focused on their concluding paragraph. This allowed me to see if the student were able to restate the thesis statement while also giving a summative conclusion to the paper