Unit Presentation Lynette Kampa

 Natural Disasters occur in our world daily. You will use organizational and graphic features to read and comprehend expository text on natural disasters. You will then research the natural disaster of your choice in order to create a digital report using music, graphic and organizational features, and words to present your disaster to the class.

Essential Question:  How do humans respond to events that are outside of their control? Unit Questions:  Why do natural disasters occur?  How do natural disasters impact us?  How do we handle with unexpected events? Content Questions:  What are the graphic features of expository text?  What are the organizational features of expository text?  What happens to the environment as a result of natural disasters?

Collaboration with peers. Research on the Internet to find information Evaluation of the accuracy and relevance of the information. Evaluation of the relevance of music/pictures to their topic. Composition/creation of a “digital report” to communicate their learning.

 Purpose of Pre Assessment To gather information about what students think and know about the Essential and Unit questions related to the content—to activate their prior knowledge and stimulate interest in the topic.  Purpose of the K-W-H-L chart and Pre-Assessment To determine student prior knowledge regarding Natural Disasters and the purpose, structures, and elements of expository text.  What I want to learn from my students? What do students know how they will use organizational and graphic features to read and comprehend expository text on natural disasters. What they will need to know before researching the natural disaster of their choice in order to create a digital report using music, graphic and organizational features, and words to present their disaster to the class.  How I have tried to promote higher-order thinking? The K-W-H-L chart will be used to help students to evaluate, apply, and judge based on their own opinions and experiences. determine what they need to research about their topics.

How the assessment information helps me and my students plan for upcoming activities in the unit?  If students do not have any knowledge of the topic, I will know if I need to direct them to specific websites rather than allow them to search for information without guidance.  Students will be able to use the K-W-H-L to create questions for research, to gauge their own learning, and determine how the learning will occur.

 Help students understand that people react different ways to the injustice in their lives.  Help students evaluate others’ reactions to injustice/think about how they react to injustice and evaluate the effectiveness of choices people make.  Learn about digital storytelling and how it can help students become aware of how media can be used easily to create bias/show one side of an issue.

To think like researchers by:  Exploring multiple informational text and media sources  Looking at multiple perspectives of natural disasters  Identifying the immediate effects of natural disasters  Identifying long-term implications of natural disasters To improve their technology and research skills by:  Asking questions about reliability and accuracy of websites and information sources  Learning to download video, pictures, and music  Use a “digital report” storybook program to create a multimedia presentation that is content-rich yet scientifically accurate

Other activities to increase student comprehension of expository text How do I fit in a component where students can write about or do something related to perceived a Natural Disaster in their lives or in society today? How do they think they would react and respond in a natural disaster? Why? How would their responds to a natural disaster differ from before and after this learning unit?

 Slide pictures taken from Microsoft Clip Art  Unit Summary slide:  “ _______________ ” by ______________