1. Briefly describe the theoretical framework and/or research that inform your central focus for
the instructional design you selected to develop your students' knowledge and abilities in social
studies, literacy and academic language during the learning segment. Why is the content of the
learning segment important for these particular students to learn? (TPE 1)
This unit blends social studies and language arts instruction and focuses on students learning history
by taking the perspective of historical participants. Blending social studies and language arts instruction
provides for longer blocks of time for each subject and makes better use of the limited time in the
classroom than teaching each subject separately because students can learn in both areas
simultaneously. Roser and Keehn (2002) cite author Jean Fritz describing perspective taking in social
studies as an opportunity to “climb inside history and look out” (p. 419). In this unit students practice
taking perspective by studying primary and secondary source material about the Angel Island
Immigration Station and then writing and performing a skit as if they lived at the time and were
detained there. Midway through the unit students may very literally “step inside history and look out”
when they visit the partially-restored Angel Island Immigration Station and look out at the beautiful
island and bay through barred windows. Perspective-taking not only helps students to understand
history at a level they are unlikely to attain through reading only outsider and retrospective views, it also
helps students to meet other key goals in the social studies: developing pride in their heritage and
respect for diversity and another’s point of view and challenging prejudice in themselves and in others
(Skolnick, Dulberg, Stokes, & Maestre, 2004).
The social studies portion of the unit focuses on the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station
and its role within the large scale immigration to California around the start of the 20th century. This
history is closely linked to the personal histories of the students in the class. All of the students either
emigrated to the U.S. as young children or have parents or ancestors who emigrated. Some relatives
may have even been detained on Angel Island. However despite the geographic and relational
proximity, many people in the bay area do not know the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station
(KQED, 1994). The stories of the immigrants detained there are what Skolnick, Dulberg, Stokes &
Maestre (2004) would call “hidden perspectives”. Study of this history provides an opportunity for
students to uncover institutionalized racism in the past while considering fairness – an issue important
to many elementary aged children. Both discrimination and immigration are still very relevant topics and
it is hoped that students and teacher will be able to connect what they learn through this unit to a
consideration of the current situation.
The language arts portion of the unit focuses on interpreting poetry, mining multimedia sources for
information, and on written and verbal expression in the first person. With its succinct expression,
figurative language, and blend of information with sensorial, emotion-evoking, and artistic components
poetry is a challenging genre. But as Gregg and Sekeres (2006) assert, “children need the challenge of
books with complex and difficult language…” (p. 105). An online video is a non-traditional resource for
studying language arts, but in an increasingly tech-driven world, students are frequently turning to
YouTube and other online video sites in their independent research. The multimedia format offers
multiple simultaneous modes of transmitting information, but how much of this information are
students actually absorbing? This unit gives supports to help students pull big ideas and important
details from a video. The first person expression is primarily meant to help children take the perspective
of the historic figures they are studying, though the skits tie in with the school focus as a performing arts
school.
2. How do your choices of instructional strategies, materials, and the sequence of learning tasks
plans build on each other to develop all students’ abilities to comprehend and/or compose text,
and to meet challenging academic language demands (see definition below) in social studies?
Describe specific literacy strategies integrated with social studies content you are using for this
learning segment (TPEs 1, 4, 7,9). Describe how you structure all your students in groups in
order to access the content and learning tasks? How do you use surrounding resources (in and
out of school) to strengthen their knowledge? (TPEs 4,6,7,8,9)
The sequence of tasks in this unit are designed to support students in completing increasingly
demanding tasks and meeting objectives requiring increasing levels of background knowledge and
subject area expertise. Throughout the unit receptive tasks generally precede expressive tasks and
group discussion and modeling come before independent work. Attention is paid to the three main
issues in “reading to learn” identified by Gregg and Sekeres (2006), “building and activating background
knowledge, teaching vocabulary, and scaffolding instruction,” (102). For example in Lessons 1 and 2,
background knowledge is built through the video on Angel Island and by studying the poetry before
introducing key vocabulary words and then re-watching the video with an information sheet designed to
help students identify big ideas and pull out key vocabulary.
The unit uses a variety of literacy strategies to study the historic content and includes four of the six
strategies for perspective taking identified by Skolnick, Dulberg, Stokes and Maestre (2004): use of
primary resources, writing activities, the arts (dramatic performance), and visual tools (graphic
organizer). Challenging tasks are broken into smaller tasks with scaffolding along the way. In lesson 1
students respond to a historic poem. First student volunteers take turns reading lines of a poem that
was carved into a wall of the Angel Island Immigration Station, then the whole class reads chorally. They
work as a class, guided by their teacher, to interpret the overall meaning of the poem before doing a
close line-by-line analysis. The teacher models note-taking for them during this discussion and guides
them in completing a graphic organizer to organize their analysis and ideas before writing a response to
the poem. Other key instructional strategies used throughout the unit include think pair share,
frontloading vocabulary with both definitions and child-friendly contexts as suggested by Gregg and
Sekeres (2006), guiding questions while watching a movie, brainstorming and recording prior knowledge
about letter-writing, using sticky notes to add details to their writing based on real life exploration, use
of a rubric to help understand the expectations for their performance and to evaluate peer
performances, modeling, and group and pair work. The groups will be based on the students’ current
table groups because the classroom teacher and student teacher have already spent considerable time
organizing students into these groups to balance academic strengths and areas for improvement,
gender, and to facilitate positive and focused peer interactions. The current organization is working
quite well.
This unit uses both primary and secondary sources to study the history of the Angel Island
Immigration Station. The primary sources include the interviews and poems from the book “Island” and
the video testimony of Dale Ching. The secondary resources include the rest of the information
presented in the movie, the information sheet from lesson 2, and the information gathered from signs
and the tour guide on Angel Island. In school the unit uses the powerful firsthand accounts from the
book “Island” and a movie to help bring history to life for the students. Outside of the school the unit
takes advantage of the school location with a field trip to Angel Island.
3. Explain how the teaching strategies you use support ELLs, special needs/IEP, and GATE
students? How do these strategies and learning tasks tap on students’ background, interests,
ways to learn new content vocabulary and build on their academic progress? (TPEs 5,7, 9. 12)
There are many ELs in the classroom and supports are built into every lesson that will be helpful for
all students but especially for ELs. Chinese versions of the poems may help the Chinese-reading students
to understand the content and connect it to other knowledge from home and the community. The
movie and fieldtrip both provide multimedia transmission of information giving students access to
redundant information provided through written and spoken words, pictures, realia, etc. These are also
engaging ways for most students to learn. Think-pair-share is featured in one lesson just before a large
group discussion. The opportunity to share ideas with a peer before sharing them with the whole class
has been successful in the past in getting more large-group discussion participation from the ELs in class,
who are generally underrepresented in classroom talk. Frontloading vocabulary with contexts showing
how the words are used will help EL students understand a text dense with information as well as the
movie. Discussion and clarification of difficult or figurative words in poetry are expected to help
students make sense of this challenging genre. The teacher models the types of notes students should
be taking in lesson one, and records information brainstormed by students in other lessons. Use of a
graphic organizer should help EL students to organize their ideas before putting them into writing.
Group and pair work are prominent throughout the unit.
There are four students with IEPs in the classroom. The supports for each student are slightly
different, but there are also some commonalities. These four students are also the four ELs in the class
with the lowest proficiency levels as measured by the CELDT, so all of the strategies meant to support
the ELs in the class are also meant to support these four students. In addition these students have other
needs that can be supported through preferential seating and partnering and extra attention from the
teacher. S1 and S2 frequently miss directions and benefit from directions written on the board as well as
a check-in and possibly re-explanation at the start of independent work times. S3 and S4 have attention
issues that make frequent check-ins and closer monitoring by the teacher a must. Both of these also get
frustrated and sometimes give up when faced with tasks in which they believe they cannot excel.
Frequent positive feedback for on-task behavior is key to supporting their self-esteem and to keeping
them focused.
4. Explain how the assessments from your learning segment allow you to evaluate your students’
learning of specific student standards/objectives. (TPEs 2, 3)
Each lesson includes both formal and informal modes of assessment. Generally the informal
assessments focus on watching and listening to the students as they work independently or participate
in group discussions. The formal assessments evaluate student written work or oral presentations and
include both finished products like the poem response, detainee letter, and final presentation, as well as
the tools they used in creation of those products such as the graphic organizer or video answer sheet.
There are rubrics to help evaluate the poem response, detainee letter, and dramatic presentation. The
assessments for each lesson are linked directly to the objectives for that lesson and every objective is
linked to an assessment, either formal or informal. At the end of the unit, students will take a
summative assessment using short answer questions. This assessment is meant to be as open-ended as
possible to allow the teacher to learn as much as possible about the conceptions and misconceptions
that students have at the end of this unit.
Works Cited
Gregg, M., & Sekeres, D. (2006). Supporting children's reading of expository text in the geography
classroom. The Reading Teacher, 60(2), 102-110.
Roser, N., & Keehn, S. (2002). Fostering thought, talk, and inquiry: Linking literature and social
studies. The Reading Teacher, 55(5), 416-426.
Skolnick, J., Dulberg, N., Stokes, S., Maestre, T. (2004). Through other eyes: Developing empathy
and multicultural perspectives in the social studies. Toronto: Pippin Publishing.
KQED (Producer). (1994). Discovering Angel Island: The story behind the poems [Video file].
Retrieved from http://www.kqed.org/w/pacificlink/history/angelisland/video/