CEP Lesson Plan Form

Teacher: Kerry Reynolds

School:
Content Area:

Date:9/8/16
Grade Level:

college

all

Title: looking at both sides: a tug of war

Lesson #: 1 of 1

Content Standard(s) addressed by this lesson:

directly from the standard)
standard 4.3.a

(Write Content Standards

analyze how public policy - domestic and foreign - is developed at the local, state,
and national levels and compare how policy-making occurs in other forms of
government by
Understandings: (Big Ideas)
Develop understanding of varied perspectives.
Evaluate the strength of evidence of arguments.
Create empathy and foster open mindedness.

Inquiry Questions: (Essential questions relating knowledge at end of the unit of

instruction, select applicable questions from standard)
How can some evidence be stronger than others?
How can I apply this to other content areas?

Evidence Outcomes: (Learning Targets) AND (Success Criteria)

I can: I can look at an issue and effectively determine the reasoning and their
strength of both sides of the death penalty debate.

List of Assessments: (Note whether the assessment is formative or summative)

Students will be formatively assessed through in class discussion of tugs and
their reasoning

Colorado State University College of Health and Human Sciences

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CEP Lesson Plan Form

Planned Lesson Activities

Name and Purpose of Lesson
Should be a creative title for you and the
students to associate with the activity.
Think of the purpose as the mini-rationale
for what you are trying to accomplish
through this lesson.

Approx. Time and Materials

How long do you expect the activity to
last and what materials will you need?

Anticipatory Set
The hook to grab students attention.
These are actions and statements by the
teacher to relate the experiences of the
students to the objectives of the lesson,
To put students into a receptive frame of
mind.
To focus student attention on the
lesson.
To create an organizing framework
for the ideas, principles, or
information that is to follow
(advanced organizers)
An anticipatory set is used any time a
different activity or new concept is to be
introduced.

Procedures
(Include a play-by-play account of what
students and teacher will do from the
minute they arrive to the minute they

Looking at both sides: Tug of War

Purpose: To look at and understand both sides of the death penalty.

The materials need for this lesson are paper, dry erase board, dry erase
markers.
Ask students to think what tug of war might mean In the classroom and
give a brief intro to the strategy.
For demonstration get students hooked by using a slightly controversial
topic like the death penalty.

Teacher input: intro spend 3 minutes explaining what the tug of war
method is, its purpose and some ideas for application.
Whole class practice/ individual practice: Go through step one and
introduce the issue. Quickly!
In pairs: Have students do steps 2 and 3 by brainstorming tugs 2 ish

Colorado State University College of Health and Human Sciences

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CEP Lesson Plan Form

leave your classroom. Indicate the length
of each segment of the lesson. List actual
minutes.)
Indicate whether each is:
-teacher input
-modeling
-questioning strategies
-guided/unguided:
-whole-class practice
-group practice
-individual practice
-check for understanding
-other

Closure
Those actions or statements by a teacher
that are designed to bring a lesson
presentation to an appropriate conclusion.
Used to help students bring things
together in their own minds, to make
sense out of what has just been taught.
Any Questions? No. OK, lets move on is
not closure. Closure is used:
To cue students to the fact that
they have arrived at an important
point in the lesson or the end of a
lesson.
To help organize student learning
To help form a coherent picture and to
consolidate.

minutes
In pairs: students will then put values on tugs for both sides and put
them on the rope which is on the board.
Whole class practice: discuss and review if there is time.

If there is time use closure to model step six of tug of war.

If time is short ask class if they have any ideas for using this in their
classrooms, especially ask math this because this might be a difficult
strategy for them.

Students who do not like group work may opt to work alone.

Differentiation:

Students whom are more shy can elect to write a private reflection on

Colorado State University College of Health and Human Sciences

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CEP Lesson Plan Form

Differentiation should be
embedded throughout your
whole lesson!!
This is to make sure you have
met the needs of your students
on IEPS or 504

their reasoning for different strengths and things they didnt agree with
during the tug of war.

To modify: If the activity is too advanced

for a child, how will you modify it so that
they can be successful?
To extend: If the activity is too easy for a
child, how will you extend it to develop
their emerging skills?

Assessment Reflection: (data

analysis)
How will you know if students met the
learning targets? Write a description of
what you were looking for in each
assessment.

Assessment can be gathered through both take home reflections as well

as the physical tug of war built and the quality of in class discussion.

Colorado State University College of Health and Human Sciences

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CEP Lesson Plan Form

Colorado State University College of Health and Human Sciences

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