Middle School - Social Sciences
Diverse Lesson Plan and Paper
Amanda L. Duckworth
Department of Education and Human Services, Florida State College at Jacksonville
EDF2085: Introduction to Diversity for Teachers
Grade level:
6th Grade World History
Subject:
What exactly is civilization, and how did it start?
Objective:
Students will learn the effects of agriculture and metallurgy on humanity’s decisions regarding settlement and their ability to grow as a population. Students will also learn how civilization emerged and be able to identify key characteristics of it, such as: urbanization, specialized labor, advanced technology, government and religious institutions, and social classes.
Primary Standards Addressed:
SS.6.W.2.2 - Describe how the developments of agriculture and metallurgy related to settlement, population growth, and the emergence of civilization.
SS.6.W.2.3 - Identify the characteristics of civilization.
Materials:
The materials used will include: a whiteboard, an expo marker, a projector, artist renderings of ancient civilization, a video on the origins of agriculture and metallurgy in the ancient world, guided notes handouts, textbooks, student Chromebooks, newsprint, Gobekli Tepi handouts, exit quizzes, and markers or crayons.
Essential Questions of the Day:
Why did humans need civilization? What did humans do with civilization? How did civilization begin? What makes a group of people turn into a civilization? What does a civilization need to succeed?
Opening:
The teacher will ask students to name the oldest civilizations they can think of and write correct answers on the board. (Specifically trying to elicit: Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, Roman, Persian, Ancient Greek, Ancient China, Mayan, Egyptian (Nile Kingdoms), Incan, and Aztec.) The teacher will then show several artist renderings of what these civilizations may have looked like, as well as images of what their people would have looked like.
Guided Practice:
Present a video on the origins of agriculture and metallurgy in the ancient world, coupled with a guided notes handout for the students to follow along and record information with.
Independent Practice:
Divide the class into either six or three groups and assign them either one or two characteristics of civilization to research as a group. The students should take notes from their textbooks first, and from secondary resources if needed.
The groups will then be instructed to create a reconstruction of their characteristic for addition to a class-formed civilization, built by each group using the research of their characteristics. These recreations will be hung up in the classroom.
Modifications:
Remediation
Take-home review worksheets that help simplify and slow down the understanding of the different lesson concepts.
Enrichment
Instead of splitting the characteristics between the entire class, form groups and assign all characteristics to each group, and instruct each group to build its own civilization.
ESE Accommodations
Provide detailed teacher notes on the characteristics of civilization for the students to use as a reference.
ESOL Modifications
Pre-translate the handouts into the student's language or ensure the ELL teacher assistant has been provided the handouts in advance. Allow subtitles for the video in the student’s language if available. If there is a need to reduce work, eliminate the homework and civilization-building exercise.
Closing:
The teacher will instruct the students to choose one ancient civilization with which they identify and write a paragraph detailing their thoughts and feelings. Students will be encouraged, but not required, to share their paragraphs with the class if time permits.
Homework Extension Activity:
If needed, the teacher will supply a handout on the ancient site Gobekli Tepi, considered by many to be the first meeting place where civilization formed, with a short informational text to read and several questions to answer.
Assessment:
An exit quiz evaluating student comprehension of the characteristics of civilization and the effects of early agriculture and metallurgy on the development of civilization can be given.
Diverse Lesson Plan Paper
In this 6th Grade World History lesson, students will be taking a journey back in time to the dawn of civilization. The hope is that the lesson will be able to engage diverse student populations by using inclusivity in both the subject material and the classroom environment. The two standards being addressed leave a lot of room for accommodating diverse populations because we are talking about civilization and essentially different cultures that existed long ago.
Black Populations
“Present Black history and culture in ways that are affirming.” (Watts,2021) One of the five strategies outlined in the article by Watts (2021) instructs educators to include “images and stories of Black joy” for Black students to connect with in a positive light. I believe that within my lesson on civilization, I can create a positive connection between Black students and ancient civilizations by showing them that there were people in these civilizations who looked like them and did amazing things that helped progress civilization and society forward. These positive connections to their ancestry and origins are important because Black students should not see the beginning of their culture in a history book that shows them as slaves. Instead, this lesson will attempt to display inspiring role models of ancient Black culture in the hopes that Black students will feel empowered by their ancient origins.
Gifted Students
In this lesson, there is an opportunity for collaboration through group work to create one characteristic of a civilization. The class itself will be the entirety of the group, with all of the characteristics coming together to form a civilization of their own design. For a population of gifted students, though, we need to make the group work a bit more challenging. Since “the National Association for Gifted Children suggests that letting gifted students collaborate in groups enhances their academic achievements and benefits their classmates,” it stands to reason that the assignment given to the group must be challenging enough to engage the students, thus fostering a positive collaboration. To increase the challenge in the lesson about civilization, each group of students should be assigned all of the characteristics, thus giving the group the responsibility of making the entire civilization. Gifted students are often driven by competitiveness as well as the desire for ownership of their ideas, so modifying the lesson in this way should help challenge the students and enhance the entirety of the lesson.
English Language Learners
Accommodating English language learners can often feel impossible for lessons with heavy reading or discussion incorporated into them. A few suggested ways that the University of Massachusets Global (n/d) lists for “increasing comprehensible input” are; “ read out loud or play audio versions of texts, front load vocabulary and key concepts before reading, provide a similar text in the student’s first language, and include artwork, videos, guest speakers, and stories.” In this lesson, we can accommodate English language learners by providing handouts translated into the students’ first language if necessary. The video utilized can play the audio in English and have subtitles in the Student’s first language to add to comprehension. The characteristics of civilization can be translated alongside the student’s first language with visual representations to add comprehension. The teacher can also front-load certain main ideas about civilization for the English language learner to take home before the lesson. To ensure that group work goes well, I think it would be great to pair the ELL student with another student who speaks their language. If the teacher is unable to make this happen, then one of the ELL students’ group members should be allowed access to a translation application to assist and encourage communication between group members.
Works Cited
Rhodes, G. (2023). How to engage gifted students in the classroom. Slides With Friends. https://slideswith.com/blog/how-to-engage-gifted-students
University of Massachusetts Global. (n.d.). Innovative strategies for teaching English language learners. https://www.umassglobal.edu/news-and-events/blog/innovative-strategies-for-english-language-learners
Watts, R. (2021, June 11). 5 strategies to help Black students feel at home in school. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-strategies-help-black-students-feel-home-school/