Integrated Unit

Michigan State University

TE 803: Professional Role and Practice: Social Studies: Spring 2015
By Kendra Asher
Overview of Lessons and Assessments

a) Narrative Overview: Provide an overview for EACH of the ten to twelve (or more)
lessons in your unit. The overview gives the big picture of the unit. Write an abstract (one
paragraph) for each of the lessons you plan for your unit. Each should be numbered, and there
should be a logical flow between lessons. The first should be an introductory lesson and the last
should be a closing/wrap-up lesson. 10 points.
Lesson 1: Students are introduced to the unit on Colonial America. They are also introduced to
the unit assessment: a colonial brochure. They will randomly select a colony to research.
Through reading the textbook, students will learn about the geography of the 13 colonies and
where they are on the map. They will learn about New England including the famous and
influential people. Students will begin to fill out their table which will help them record
information for the 3 different colonial regions. After reading, students will be presented with a
PowerPoint that elaborates on how the geography impacted the 3 regions and take a
corresponding quiz.

Lesson 2: This lesson focuses on the Middle and Southern Colonies. Students will read to learn
about the founders and relationships with natives. To gather information for their brochure,
students will meet with others who have the same colony as them and read about the founding of
their colony. They will determine a representative and what information to share with the class.
Students will also be provided with another document that gives additional details. As classmates
present, students will record details on a fold able for the colonies.

Lesson 3: After learning about the 3 regions, students now begin to learn about life in the
colonies. They will focus on life for young workers, trades, work and life on working farms.
Students will pose questions to the teacher about work in the colonies after reading the textbook.
The teacher will do her best to find answers in If You Lived in Colonial Times. To end the

lesson, students will respond to the following prompt: How was the life of a worker similar and
different from today?

Lesson 4: This lesson finishes out working and trading. Again, students will read the text during
a class activity. The topics covered will be how the colonies had different economies and what
they were. More specifically, that New England used the forests and seas, the Middle Colonies
were known as the breadbasket and the Southern Colonies. This will build off of their new
knowledge of the geography of the regions. Students will then analyze and look for patterns of a
Natural Resource and Products Map. Finally, students will watch a video clip about the
economies of the three regions.

Lesson 5: Over the next two lessons, students will learn more about life in the colonies. They
will be exposed to information about city life and what it was like to live on a farm. After
reading, students will work in small groups to compare and contrast periods paintings and
drawings of cities and farms. Students will then be given time to fill in more of their table to
prepare them for their brochure.

Lesson 6: Students will continue to compare and contrast colonial settlements. They will read
about what towns or settlements looked like. New England towns were self-sufficient and has a
common but southern towns were less common. Instead plantations were the norm. The textbook
provides a drawing of these two types of settlements. Students will be comparing and contrasting
the features of the two. To end the lesson students will respond to the following prompt: Write
two specific features of a southern plantation and New England town.

Lesson 7: Now that the students know what settlements looked like in the colonies, they will
now learn more about daily life beyond occupations. Information about education and religion
will be read from the textbook. To gather more information about daily life, Sarah Morrisons
Day will be read. It details the life of a little girl in New England including getting dressed and
eating.

Lesson 8: Newspapers were the social media of the colonies. They were part of everyday life
and provide insight as well. Students will gain some background knowledge about reading and
food. If time permits, students will be given time to fill out more information on their table. The
assessment will have students create a daily time line detailing your daily life as a child in
colonial times. Include at least two activities of your parents. Use a minimum of 8 events.

Lesson 9: Slavery was a social, cultural, political, and economic aspect of the colonies. Students
will learn about slavery in New England and the Middle colonies. More time will be spent on
slavery in the south and why it thrived there. They will learn about what it was like to be a slave
and resisting slavery. Students will then be read excerpts from Slavery and the Making of
America: Education, Arts and Culture. This will introduce them to more specific ways that slaves
retained their culture. Show students examples of quilts and ask them what patterns they see.
Students will then make a quilt square using what they learned about elements African
Americans used in the quilt with a maximum of four colors. This will then be assembled to
make a class quilt.

Lesson 10: This lesson will occur near the end of Lead Teaching. Students will be encouraged
throughout the lessons to be working on their brochure. This will be the lesson in which they
look at their classmates brochures. Students will participate in a gallery walk. Brochures will be
placed around the room. They will read through the brochures and present theirs to others. This
is the closing lesson of the unit. The brochure summarizes all the details and information they
have learned through out the unit. Students will be asked about what they learned.
b) Assessments: Construct a bulleted list of assessment tasks that assess each of the unit
objectives There should be at least four and no more than eight assessment tasks, and should
cover a range of forms including quizzes/tests; performance tasks; conforming writing; divergent
writing; and one culminating (end-of-unit) assessment. The culminating assessment task should
have a scoring rubric. 5 points.
Assessment: On a map of the thirteen colonies, students will be asked to identify which states
and areas represent New England, the Middle and Southern Colonies. Students will write their
answer on a piece of paper and this will be an exit ticket.
Objectives: Locate on a map the location of New England and the Middle and Southern Colonies

Assessment: Using your notes and textbook only, name three groups of people and detail why
they came to the colonies. Your answer must include the name of the group of people, why they
came, where they came from, and where they settled.
Objective: Name 3 groups of people and why they came to North America

Assessment: Create a daily time line detailing your daily life as a child in colonial times. Include
at least two activities of your parents. Use a minimum of 8 events.
Objective: Assume that you are a child in colonial America. Detail your daily life and that of
every member of your family.

Assessment: Exit Ticket. Write two specific features of a plantation, town, city, and farm.
Objective: Identify features of a colonial town, city, farm and plantation.

Assessment: Exit Ticket. Write 2 sentences to explain what life could have been like for an
African American in the colonies. Then give 2 examples of how they integrated their culture into
their colonial life.
Objective: After detailing the life of African Americans, summarize how they integrated their
culture into their new home.

Assessment: Students will take a quiz after a Power Point about the geography of the regions.
Objective: Formulate an argument for the regional differences in colonial America with
evidence.

Assessment: Students will answer the following prompt in a quick write: How was the life of a
worker in colonial times similar and different from today?
Objective: Compare and contrast the life of a worker in colonial times with today.

Colonial Brochure
Overview: You are tasked with creating a colonial brochure. You will randomly be given one of
the 13 colonies. You will be taking notes through out the unit to gather information. A table will
be provided to help you take notes from the textbook, which provides general information for the
3 regions. You will use a fact book to find out more specifics about your colony. This
assignment will require a significant amount of work outside of school but you should bring your
work to school each day in case time is given.
Requirements and Grading:

Requirements

Points

Name of the Colony

/1

Founder of the Colony

/1

Reason for Founding

/1

Year of Founding

/1

Major Settlements

/2

Diagram of Town or Plantation

/3

Description of Economy and Major Products

/2

Reasoning for the Major Products

/1

Detailed Relationship with at Least One Other Group of People

/2

Food that was Eaten

/1

Description of Clothing

/1

Types of Occupations

/3

Free Time/Fun Activities

/2

Prominent Religion and Why

/2

Detailed description of life as a woman, man, child

/6

Description of the Geography

/2

At Least 3 Pictures

/3

Use of Color

/1
Total

/35

Comments:

c) Out-of-school learning: opportunities to expand and enrich the curriculum outside of

class (home assignment): Two paragraphs describing how students will apply what they learn
in the school to out-of-school settings? What tasks or assignments will you give to students to
complete outside of school? You can write opportunity per lesson, or you can write several to
cover the entire unit. 5 points.

Homework is typically not assigned in Social Studies. Social Studies instruction is many
composed of classroom work. Homework students may have is the completion of their note
taking table. After reading from the text and any additional readings or presentations, students
should be able to add information into their table. Thus, if time does not allow for this task to be
done in class students must complete this at home. In the event that a student is absent when
reading takes place, they will be required to do the reading as homework. In addition, if an
assessment is not an exit tickets students will have the opportunity to complete most tasks at
home to be collected the next day. Another source of homework is the colonial brochure. There
will not be much dedicated time in school for students to complete the brochure. Thus, they must
work on it at home. In conclusion, no specific homework assignments will be given. Instead
homework would be any work not completed in school and working on their unit assessment
project.
Although students do not have homework, attempts will be made to connect their
learning to their home life and life outside of school. Their prior experiences on the East Coast of
the US will be drawn upon if they have been there. When learning about trades, students will be
asked about their parents occupations to look for a connection to an apprenticeship. Students
will be prompted to think about how their daily life would be different if they lived in colonial
times. So although students may not get assigned homework, throughout the unit there will be
opportunities for students to relate Social Studies to outside the classroom.