Lesson #3
3/4 Gifted Classroom
Objective:
- To have the students demonstrate comprehension of the political and
personal reasons for walls in the world by comparing and contrasting different
walls.
Materials:
- The Seven Chinese Brothers
- reference materials (encyclopedias with the specific walls in the lesson
marked for the students-Vietnam Memorial Wall, Berlin Wall, Western (Wailing)
Wall, and Hadrian's Wall)
- student checklist for evaluation
Procedure:
To begin, show the cover of the book and ask the children to make some predictions
of what the story will be about. Read the story, The Seven Chinese
Brothers aloud to the class. After reading the story, ask the students
what references were made to China. Was anything mentioned that they had
studied? When someone mentions the Great Wall of China, ask the students to
tell what they know about the wall. Ask the students if they know of any other
walls in the world. Brainstorm and list other walls on the board: Vietnam
Veterans Memorial, Berlin Wall, Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem, and
Hadrian's Wall in Scotland. Break the students into groups to research one of
the walls for 10-15 minutes (1 different wall per group). Have the students
come up as a group and give an oral report to the rest of the class about their
wall. Take notes on the board, as the students discuss what they found. After
all of the groups have reported, as a whole class discuss the reasons for the
wall. Ask about walls in the classroom or at home. Are all walls bad? Why do
people build walls? Is there an alternative to walls? Have a class discussion
on these questions and any others the students bring up about walls.
* this lesson idea from Instructor magazine, May/June 1994.
Evaluation:
I'll evaluate the students' comprehension by their discussion during class.
Evaluation of Lesson:
First, I'm very glad that I had the reference materials already set out ahead
of time for the students. It took less time for the students to research by me
already having the materials ready. Also, I split the kids into groups myself
and so I didn't have to worry about the students dividing themselves. However,
even by doing these two things to save time the lesson took awhile. I ran out
of time while the students were reporting on their walls and I had to wait and
finish the lesson later on. I think this put a damper on the discussion we
later had because the information wasn't fresh in their minds from before. When
I first asked the students to name so walls, I was surprised that the first one
they mentioned were the walls in the classroom! I wasn't planning on talking
about these type of walls until later but I had to change gears because of
their responses.
I had to lead them in the discussion later in the day and this usually isn't
necessary. They weren't quite able to grasp being in a place where a wall was
stopping their travel, so I asked them how they would feel if a wall was built
all the way around Indiana. Many of them have relatives in Indiana and so they
were upset that they wouldn't be able to see them. After this point, the
conversation really took off.
The children discusses what I wanted them to which was that I wanted them to
realize why walls are built and the good and bad aspects of them. I was
pleased when the children came up with alternative consequences to walls like
peace treaties and trying to work things in a peaceful manner!!
Mrs. Douglas thought the lesson went very well. She was pleased with the
discussion and thought the students made some very good points. She feels
questioning is very important and so she was happy that I was asking
appropriate questions to the students so that they could critically think about
walls. She suggested that I not give so much time to the students to research
their wall because most of the students weren't on task. Maybe I could have
them doing something else after they have found the information needed.