West Virginia Coal - KWL

Grade Level - 5th grade, Thomas Paine
Teacher of Lesson - Beth Anderson
Approximate Time - 30 minutes

Objectives:

  1. Students will brainstorm ideas of what they know about coal and mining.
  2. The class will begin a list of questions that we intend to solve about coal and mining.
  3. The class will be able to follow procedures for using the "Coal Library."

Materials:

  1. Large sheet of white paper (to hang on board for brainstorm session to be recorded).
  2. Markers (to write on paper).
  3. Crate with books ("Coal Library").

Procedures:

  1. We will begin the class discussion immediately after current events (which I will also be teaching). I will explain what the K-W-L chart is and what we will use it for. Every day we when we have a lesson from this unit, we will try and add to the "What we learned" chart. The "What we want to know" chart is so that children can know what they are all interested in. If one student can help another find an answer to their question, then they have both learned something new. It will also hopefully give them a focus when looking through the Coal Library.
  2. We discussed categories yesterday in science, so I can relate that to the three different categories on our chart. Some of my initial questions:
    3. -What is coal?
    -What do you use coal for?
    -Where do you get coal from?
    -How do you get coal?
  3. If students are unable to answer any of these questions, we can put them all in the W column ("Want to Know"). If these questions are easy for them, I will ask other questions such as:
    4. -What are the reasons its good to use coal?
    -Can you see any problems involved with using coal?
    -What is black- lung disease?
    -How does mining affect a community?
  4. We will talk about ways to find our answers. The most obvious, easy answer to that question is books. That will lead into an explanation of the Coal Library. I expect them to all come back and browse every now and then during the day. They will all be encouraged to read these books during Reading Buddies time.
  5. During the last part of the lesson, I will explain the "Coal Library" to them. It consists of a white crate that will be on my desk. It holds different books about Appalachia, mining, and West Virginia. I will encourage the students to come back and check a book out. They have to fill in their names on the clipboard, even if it is only for a couple of minutes.
  6. At the end of the class discussion, we will talk about where we would like to put our chart - possibly on the Newsweek bulletin board? Do the students want a smaller version on our bulletin board? Are there any students who would like to help construct that bulletin board? Would they like to work on it at lunch time or at break time?
  7. I will then take down the chart and I will redirect the children's attention to Patsy and she will lead them into the next lesson.

Evaluation:

Hopefully the students will all contribute to the chart. If there is a student who doesn't know anything about coal and mining, they can fill in the "Want to Learn" category very easily! You can check if a child was listening and knows what's going on by watching their interest in the Coal Library. If a student doesn't know what is going on, and has to ask questions, it is very likely that they were having problems paying attention or following directions. Comments:
Cooperating teacher: "great what we know, good summary, appropriate visual aids"
Fall advisor: "You seem really comfortable in front of the group, student writing is great, hard to come up questions when they don't have a background on the subject, flexible, changed tactics when things slowed down - good, try pairs or small groups to discuss and come up with questions, Coal Library is a good idea, good pointing out to them that they can't fill in the L chart until they learn something."
Supervisor: "Presented lesson in an organized way, great thinking on your feet, students writing questions encouraged greater involvement and participation, responded to student ideas and questions in positive and supportive ways, KWL seems like a useful way to begin the unit, Coal Library is a great resource, provided nice opportunities for student ownership in the unit."

Changes and revisions I would make:

This lesson worked relatively well, other than the fact that some students were more willing to respond than others. What worked really well with this class was to have them each write down a question. This assured that everybody participated. It also served as an evaluation tool to see if there were some who were paying attention to what was going on or if there were some students doing other things. For some classes, they might have been more talkative without having to write down questions. My fall advisor's suggestion of pairs or small groups could also be effective, depending on the class.
Some students were overwhelmed by the topic because they had little or no background information. After much consideration, I think it would be appropriate to read a short story before making the chart. My original idea was that they would have preconceived notions about the topic. However, they had so little knowledge about the topic that they were unable to find a point to start their questioning from.

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