1. 3rd Grade
State Standards:
a. Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.
b. Students Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
Content Summary: Students will research an environmental threat and the species affected. They will present their findings to their group for discussion. Each group will present a summary of their findings to the class. Students will turn in a chart with drawings and info for four animals.
Content Objective:
TSW explain an environmental threat, the different species affected by it, and what can be done to help.
Language Objective:
TSW orally present information to their classmates
TSW identify four affected species and their environmental threat in writing from their classmates’ presentations
Scaffolding by Domain
Identify the language supports you will provide for a beginning EL in this lesson. Don’t forget to look at your WIDA Performance Definitions and/or WIDA CanDos for guidance on what students are able to do at these levels.
Reading: Provide illustrated texts for students to use to conduct their research.
Speaking: While presenting to classmates, students will describe pictures using short phrases; students could also restate simple facts.
Writing: Students can be given a chart to complete to record four affected species and their environmental threat from their classmates’ presentations. If needed, students may be provided with sentence frames/starters to effectively complete their chart.
Listening: Students should be able to follow two-step oral directions to complete research conduction, group discussions, and chart completion.
Differentiation by WIDA level
Domain: Writing - The student will be able to identify four affected species and their environmental threat in writing from their classmates’ presentations
Level 2
The student will be able to complete a graphic organizer, using word banks/walls and/or labeled visuals, to identify four affected species and their environmental threats.
Level 3
The student will be able to string related sentences together to identify and describe four affected species and their environmental threat using classmates’ presentations.
Level 4
The student will be able to summarize classmates’ presentations to identify four affected species and their environmental threat in writing.
Domain: Speaking - The student will be able to orally present information to their classmates.
Level 1
The student will be able to identify pre-taught name(s) of his/her species, using a picture/diagram, orally to classmates.
Level 2
The student will be able to orally describe his/her species, using a picture, in short sentences to classmates.
The student will be able to orally restate content-based facts about his/her species environmental threat using phrases/short sentences.
Level 3
The student will be able to orally present content-based information, about his/her species and its environmental threat, to classmates.
2. 11th grade
State Standard:
a. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
Content Summary: After students have studied the basics of fusion and fission as well as the splitting of the atom, groups of three choose a nuclear chemistry topic to research, finding the “what, how, where, and why” of their subject.
Content Objective:
TSW demonstrate the ability to conduct research on nuclear chemistry using a variety of resources including websites, print materials, and databases.
TSW evaluate sources to determine which are best for their research.
Language Objective:
TSW identify the what, how, where, and why related to their research in writing.
Scaffolding by Domain
Identify the language supports you will provide for a beginning EL in this lesson. Don’t forget to look at your WIDA Performance Definitions and/or WIDA CanDos for guidance on what students are able to do at these levels
Reading: Provide students with research that matches sentence-level descriptions to visual representations.
Writing: Provide students with a graphic organizer (divided into what, how, where, and why sections) to take notes related to their research.
How would you integrate active listening and speaking into this lesson?
Have each small-group pair up with another small-group to teach about their nuclear chemistry topic. During this time, ELs could match oral descriptions to content-related examples as he/she listens to the small-group presentation. Additionally, the student could provide features of content-based material (using words, short phrases, memorized chunks of language).
Differentiation by WIDA level
Select any 3 WIDA levels (at least one MUST be a beginner (Level 1 or 2). Using the formula language function + content + support (see example above), create an MPI for the two most critical domains related to this assignment.
Domain: Reading - The student will be able to conduct research on nuclear chemistry using a variety of resources including websites, print materials, and databases.
Level 2
The student will be able to locate main ideas in a series of related sentences to conduct research on nuclear chemistry.
Level 4
The student will be able to conduct research, on nuclear chemistry, by interpreting visually-supported information.
Level 5
The student will be able to draw conclusions from different sources of informational text and identify credibility of sources to conduct research on nuclear chemistry using a variety of resources (including websites, print materials, and databases).
Domain: Writing - The student will be able to identify the what, how, where, and why related to their research in writing
Level 1
The student will be able to supply missing words in short sentences to identify the what, how, where, and why related to his/her research in writing.
Level 3
The student will be able to use a graphic organizer (distinguishing the what, how, where, and why) to identify the what, how, where, and why related to their research in writing.
Level 5
The student will be able to produce a research report, in writing, to identify the what, how, where, and why related to their research.