Being Afraid: What Are You Afraid Of?
Plan Author: Mathew Needleman Date Created: 4/3/2003 8:28:29 PM PST
School: Saturn Street
Grade Level: 1
Students: 16 students. 8 boys and 8 girls. 8 English only or IFEP, 8 ELLs. One student is receiving resource services.
Subject Area(s): Language Arts (English)
Goal(s): Students will research and create a HyperStudio report on some things that people are afraid of.
Concept(s): Students will practice forming answerable questions. Students will learn how to research answers to their questions. Students will prepare a report using technology that is visually appealing and uses appropriate conventions of the English language.
Standards: CA- CCTC: Aligned CSTP's and TPE's • Standard : CSTP: Standard for Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning TPE: C. Engaging and Supporting Students in Learning CSTP Description: Teachers build on students? prior knowledge, life experience, and interests to achieve learning goals for all students. Teachers use a variety of instructional strategies and resources that respond to students? diverse needs. Teachers facilitate challenging learning experiences for all students in environments that promote autonomy, interaction and choice. Teachers actively engage all students in problem solving and critical thinking within and across subject matter areas. Concepts and skills are taught in ways that encourage students to apply them in real-life contexts that make subject matter meaningful. Teachers assist all students to become self-directed learners who are able to demonstrate, articulate, and evaluate what they learn. • CSTP Key Element : Facilitating learning experiences that promote autonomy, interaction, and choice.  Question : use the classroom environment to provide opportunities for independent and collaborative learning? CA- California K-12 Academic Content Standards • Subject : English Language Arts • Grade : Grade One • Area : Reading • Sub-Strand 2.0: Reading Comprehension Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They draw upon a variety of comprehension strategies as needed (e.g., generating and responding to essential questions, making predictions, comparing information from several sources). The selections in Recommended Readings in Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Eight illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition to their regular school reading, by grade four, students read one-half million words annually, including a good representation of grade-level-appropriate narrative and expository text (e.g., classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, online information). In grade one, students begin to make progress toward this goal. • Concept : Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text  Standard 2.7: Retell the central ideas of simple expository or narrative passages. • Area : Writing • Sub-Strand 1.0: Writing Strategies Students write clear and coherent sentences and paragraphs that develop a central idea. Their writing shows they consider the audience and purpose. Students progress through the stages of the writing process (e.g., prewriting, drafting, revising, editing successive versions). • Concept : Organization and Focus  Standard 1.1: Select a focus when writing.
Objective(s): After creating questions and researching their answers in groups, students will create a HyperStudio presentation which maintains a consistent focus (e.g. it's all about a single topic), is factually accurate, and uses proper conventions of the English language with ninety percent accuracy.
Prerequisite Background Skills/Knowledge: Children must have knowledge of what HyperStudio is (examples will be shown) and must be familiar with using the internet for research. Students with more computer experience will be teamed with those who have less and will be able to help them.
Vocabulary / Language Skills: Vocabulary on this project will depend on the topics which students choose to investigate. Vocabulary will have to be made comprehensible "on the fly" as it comes up. As a group, I will focus on developing meaning for the question words (who, what, when, where, why, how) which still present some difficulty for English language learners. Using the internet for research will assist students in formulating better questions as incorrect syntax may result in unusable information.
Materials: Computers with internet access Index cards HyperStudio program and samples
Classroom Management: This is a completely new type of assignment for students. They will need guidance on how to conduct research in order to stay on task. Also, internet usage must be carefully monitored to avoid exposure to inappropriate content.
Procedure: Open Review with students their list of things people are afraid of. Ask students to help you determine which of these things actually exist in real life. Put a star by the names of things that are a real. Remind students that through the literature we have read, often we see that things people are afraid of cannot really hurt them. Knowing more about what we are afraid can help us not to be so afraid. Explain to students that they will be preparing an interactive report that visitors to our classroom can use on our computers. Body Have students select topics they want to research and get into groups. Have groups come up with questions about their topics. For example, where do scorpions live? With teacher assistance, allow students to type their questions into an internet search engine and print their answers on paper. Also assist students in finding appropriate books on their subjects at the library. Students will need to write out their question and their answer and find or draw illustrations to illustrate their points. Have students plan out what they are going to do by drawing it on index cards. These index cards may be translated into a neater computer copy or scanned directly into the computer. Assist students in designing and creating their HyperStudio stacks. Close Have different groups take turns looking at other groups' HyperStudio stacks and summarize their learning. Invite other classes to see the HyperStudio stacks.
Assessment: The HyperStudio stacks will be evaluated to make sure they each have a consistent focus, are factually accurate, neatly laid out, and use proper conventions of the English language with ninety percent accuracy.

See student work sample