Course

Social Studies

1.d: Identify and describe how major political and cultural groups have affected the development of the region (DOK 1-2)

• iPads or taping/recording device
• Butcher paper, poster board
• Interview question sheet and note-catcher
• Historic celebration note-catcher
• Primary artifact analysis tools
• Poster creation materials (markers, glue, paper, cardboard, etc)

• National Archives Educator Website
• Colorado Encyclopedia People Page
• Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection by County 
• Coloring Colorado Book Lists

Here are some samples:

• Trinidad, Art, Craft Work, and Music
• Pueblo, PSS on Community Celebrations, especially for Cinco de Mayo  
• Alamosa/San Luis Valley, PSS on Art, Craft Work, and Music
• Alamosa/San Luis Valley, PSS Festivals and Recreation
• Alamosa/San Luis Valley, PSS Hispanic Cultural and Social Activity around 1900

Objective: We will analyze some characteristics of celebrations in our families and community. 

Essential Questions: What is a holiday and/or celebration? What can we observe in a celebration? What kind of celebrations are there in our families? Why do we have celebrations?

Language Structures: 

A celebration is ____________.

I know a holiday is ______.

At my house we celebrate _______ in order to ________.

When we have a celebration there is _______.

• Introduce what is a celebration or holiday
  • Define with students what is a holiday or celebration
  • Activating Background Knowledge: Ask students to give examples of holidays/celebrations they have heard of, what the components of these celebrations/holidays are. As students share, categorize them into the following components:
    • Food
    • Events/Activities
    • Decorations
    • Attendees
    • Specific Clothing
• Tell students tonight that they will go home and talk about holidays and celebrations that they celebrate in their family/community. They will need to choose one to focus on throughout this project.

Step 2: Modeling with Class Project

 Objective: Students create personal connections with Cinco de Mayo when sharing their homes celebrations. 

Essential Questions: Why is Cinco De Mayo Celebrated? How has this day and celebration changed throughout time? 

Language Structures: 

At my house we celebrate _____.

In my family we celebrate _______ with ______.

For this celebration we eat (dress)______.

We usually invite _________.

People like _________ gather to have a ____.

• Video Clip: After students share their personal celebrations with classmates during a think-pair-share, show a video on Cinco De Mayo Celebrations. Have students fill out the Historic celebration note-catcher. Make sure to have the essential questions as well as the sentence structures accessible for students to use as an anchor chart. While students share their thinking, start a celebration interactive word wall (a word wall on a pocket chart that has photographs or descriptions of the words that students can get up, physically touch the vocabulary word and bring it to their desk to use it in any activity). 

Scaffolding during the video: (Refer back to essential questions) 

What are the beliefs behind the celebration of Cinco de Mayo?

• I noticed that __________. (Noté que _________.)
• I already knew _______. (Ya sabía que _____. or Tenía conocimiento de ___________.)
• A new fact that I noticed _________. (Un dato nuevo que encontré fue que _______.)
• According to the video, _______. (De acuerdo al video ________. Según el video ___.)
• In the video it was stated that ________.  (En el video dijeron ___________.)
• I learned a new word __________. According to the video, it means _____. (Aprendí una nueva palabra. La palabra es _____ y de acuerdo al video significa ______)
• As stated in the video, Cinco de Mayo __________. (Como dijeron en el video, _____)

• Subsequently, through a shared writing activity, create a class paragraph/informational response that includes four important details about what Cinco de Mayo is and how it is celebrated. 

• Continue building the interactive word wall. Play the game “numbered heads together” to add a definition to each word. This game requires oral language practice from the students involved.  Students must orally practice complex sentences utilizing conjunctions as they restate the word and definition. These learned and practiced vocabulary will be expected to be incorporated in students’ final project.

Essential Questions: Why is ______ celebrated?  What are the essential elements of this holiday/celebration? How has _______ changed throughout time? What has influenced this change?

Language Structures: 

• According to ________ ,one way that ___________ has changed over time is ___________. This impact happened because of ___________./// De acuerdo al ________ una manera en que _________ ha cambiado a través del tiempo es que ____________.
• _________ is celebrated because ___________. /// _______ está celebrado para _______.
• In my community we celebrate _________________ in order to ____________./// En mi comunidad nos celebramos ____________ a fin de que __________.
• One essential element of ___________ is _________. It is utilized in this holiday/celebration to ____________./// Un componente esencial de __________ es __________. Está utilizado(a) para _______________.

Lesson: 

***STUDENTS SHOULD BE INTERACTING WITH THE UNIT WORD WALL THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT CREATION!***

• Students choose a holiday or celebration that is practiced in their community or family in order to research and present on.
  • Projects can be done independently (for personal reasons) or as a group if students are more interested in doing something that another family/community celebrates.
  • Student projects will need to answer the essential questions as well as have information and examples (primary sources) of the following components of the holiday:
    • Food
    • Events/Activities/Traditions
    • Decorations
    • Attendees
    • Specific Clothing
  • Student projects can be presented in a manner they choose–can be a poster, a skit, an experience, a video, powerpoint, etc.
    • Student projects should include some aspect of understanding in a written form.
  • Student projects MUST include primary sources from the holiday they have research and presented.
    • Examples from Cinco de Mayo:
      • Food
      • Decorations–papel picado, flowers
      • Activities/Traditions–Dancing
      • Specific clothing–students create costumes 
• First students must decide how they will present their information in what manner (poster, video, skit, etc).
• Students will create interview questions to support their answering of the essential questions.
  • These will be done as a group or independently.
  • Students should decide which information will be pertinent for them to gather in order to answer their essential questions; teachers need to check these before students actually do the interview.
• Students find at least two community members, family members, or school faculty in order to ask their interview questions.
  • Groups should practice these within groups, as well as with other groups, before the interviews–feedback should be provided.
  • Interviews will then happen with the group (at school or outside of school for family interviews).  Interviews will need to be recorded on an iPad other or device, so students can access this information in the classroom for the remainder of the project.
• After interviews are completed, students will create a graphic organizer for the 5 components and listen to the interview and fill in their graphic organizers with information from the interview.
  • Students will also take the time to answer their essential questions with the information they have from the interviews.
• The next step is to decide if more information is needed for their project (areas of their presentation that need further study or aspects of their projects that were not answered in their interviews).
  • Students will use the websites and links to primary source sets from Pueblo and Trinidad from the resources part of the lesson to deeper enhance their understanding of the holiday and to complete their graphic organizers for their projects.
  • Students can also access books in the library, videos online, and other resources for their projects.
  • It would be important to walk students through how to use the primary source sets as primary source sets. For this, a think a loud could be used to model a hypothetical celebration you would be using for your project and how one of the sources on the website would help you to support your interview and other project materials you already have. 
• Next students will create their project for a final presentation.
  • This will look different in your classroom (how you set up projects, resources, materials).
• Students should have a firm presentation date and specific time to plan, design, practice and receive feedback from their peers as well as the teacher.
• Finally, presentations should be open to other teachers, community members involved in the process, and families (somewhat like a science fair model where students can present multiple times to different groups of people).
• Teachers should use this time to assess students as their final project assessment.

• There are multiple opportunities throughout this unit to assess students learning both informally and formally/formative and summative.
• Student conversations throughout the lessons and group collaboration (fully collaboration of students is expected in all aspects of the project).  You can use any of your own rubrics, or find an applicable one online.
• Group collaboration can be evaluated with the use of a collaboration rubric (example).
• Practice rounds of interview questions can be used to evaluate speaking, presenting skills, and the information collected.
• Graphic organizers are great informal evaluations of their content knowledge as well as their ability to collect, synthesize, and organize information from independent research.
• Reflections can be used as evidence of student learning based around content as well as collaboration.
• Final projects should evaluate content understanding, presentation skills, and product with the use of a class/teacher created rubric.
  • Students choose a holiday or celebration that is practiced in their community or family in order to research and present on.
    • Projects can be done independently (for personal reasons) or as a group if students are more interested in doing something that another family/community celebrates.
    • Student projects will need to answer the essential questions as well as have information and examples (primary sources) of the following components of the holiday:
      • Food
      • Events/Activities/Traditions
      • Decorations
      • Attendees
      • Specific Clothing
    • Student projects can be presented in a manner they choose–can be a poster, a skit, an experience, a video, powerpoint, etc.
      • Student projects should include some aspect of understanding in a written form.
    • Student projects MUST include primary sources from the holiday they have research and presented.
      • Examples from Cinco de Mayo:
        • Food
        • Decorations–papel picado, flowers
        • Activities/Traditions–Dancing
        • Specific clothing–students create costumes 
• Reflections can be used as evidence of student learning based around content as well as collaboration.