GOVERNMENT TODAY

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GOVERNMENT TODAY

• 3rd Grade Unit

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Government Today

• Purpose of Local, State, and National Government
• Structure of Local, State and National Government
• Make Political, Social and Economic Change
  through Government

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Essential Questions

• What is government?
• What role do you play in government?

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Enduring Understanding

• What are the differences and similarities among
  the local, state and national government?
• Standard Distinguish among local, state and
  national government and identify representative
  leaders at these levels such as mayor, governor
  and president.
• Why do we need government in our society?
• Standard Explain the purpose of government.

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Enduring Understanding

• What rights do you have as a member of a larger
  group?
• Standard Examine the rights and responsibilities
  of the individual in relation to his or her
  social group, such as family, peer groups, and
  school class.

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Key Perspectives

• Making choices and taking action The students
  will be responsible in choosing the laws and
  rules within their classroom.
• Individual potential They will learn about, as
  they grow older, how their choices and actions
  are affected by the government.
• Justice, rights and responsibility Learn about
  equality in addition to learning about the duties
  of the various people in the different levels of
  government.

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Interview

• What is currently being done around the topic of
  government?
• Purpose of teaching government in third grade is
  mainly for exposure purposes.
• Introduce the students to the local, state and
  national governments as well as issues of laws
  and how they affect citizens
• For local government a teacher brings in a police
  officer to talk about local laws
• For state government a teacher has a state
  representative talk about state government
• The president is the focus of national government
• Distinguish between city, state and country
  because they have trouble distinguishing between
  them
• Keep it basic because they would forget all the
  details anyway

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Academic Readings

• -Social education should reflect and incorporate
  current and future issues and trends within the
  global society. (Zinn Chapter 1)
• Learning about the government and how it relates
  to their lives makes the children active
  participants in the global network. For primary
  level students, taking action means taking small
  steps to improve the quality of their day to day
  lives and if we make government meaningful to
  them by bringing it down to their level then they
  will better understand their role. We will be
  bringing in current events and discuss how they
  affect our lives currently and in the future. By
  bringing these issues into the classroom, we
  would also discuss how the government plays a
  role in those issues.
• -The important issues that young learners should
  explore are citizenship and decision-making.
  (Zinn Chapter 1)
• There will be a lot of decision-making in our
  classroom government which will give them an
  understanding of the kinds of responsibilities a
  government and citizens of society possess.

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Rationale

• Starting in third grade the students are becoming
  more responsible for their schoolwork and
  personal decisions. Because of this it is age
  appropriate to bring in the topic of government.
  It is also possible to bring it down to their
  level so they can make personal connections.
  (Levstik, p.44)
• It is also important to teach children about the
  government at a young age so they begin the
  process of becoming informed citizens.
  Government is a huge part of social studies and
  history. Many historical events have happened
  due to what political people have said or done,
  so it is important for them to know their roles.
  (Boring, p.98)
• The unit is going to be partially teacher
  directed and also the students will be exploring
  the issues further based on personal interest.
  Students will be encouraged to question and
  explore why the government runs the way that it
  does. (Levstik, p.45)

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Literacy Links

• Non-fiction government books
• -we would incorporate books on the different
  branches of government as well as books on how to
  serve your community. (These books are to be used
  as an aid to help the students have a better
  grasp of the concepts that they will be
  learning.)
• -At the third grade level, it is not exactly a
  topic that the students will be familiar with yet
  and the use of literature in our unit is
  substantial in order to create opportunities for
  the students to learn in the simplest of terms.
  (Steffey, Chapter 6)
• Childrens Periodicals
• -We would incorporate Time For Kids in our unit,
  because this magazine does a nice job of bringing
  challenging information down to a childs level.
  It also makes it interesting for them to get
  involved in.

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• Using newspapers
• -To begin our discussion on current events, we
  will have students bring in newspaper articles to
  get them more involved in the global and local
  world and then branch our learning off of those
  events. (Levstik, 58)
• Developing speaking/listening experiences
• -The students will be developing speaking and
  listening skills throughout this unit. The first
  experience with this skill will be through their
  interviews. There will be much public speaking
  throughout the unit which will aid in their
  development.

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Tuning In

• Decision Timeline
• Think about the decisions you had to make today.
  Did you make them? Did someone else make them for
  you? Were you happy with the decision that was
  made?
• Whether or not to wake up
• Whether or not to go to school
• What to wear
• What to eat for breakfast
• Students will create and share a timeline of
  these decisions.

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• Standard Examine the rights and
  responsibilities of the individual in relation to
  his or her social group, such as family, peer
  groups, and school class
• Instructional strategy Incorporating Current
  Events
• The students will be discussing the current
  choices they have made that day.

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Preparing to Find Out

• KWL Chart about what we think we know about our
  government
• Guiding questions
• Who are the people that make up the government?
• Where do they live?
• What do they do?
• How do they affect us?
• How do we affect them?

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• Standard
• Explain the purpose of government
• Distinguish among local, state and national
  government and identify representative leaders at
  these levels such as mayor, governor and
  president
• Instructional strategy Using surveys
• We will be surveying the students knowledge of
  government at this point in the unit.

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Finding Out

• Researching local, state and national government.
• The teacher will lead a discussion of the roles
  and differences of each level of government.
• The students will use both local and national
  newspapers and magazines to find pictures and
  articles that represent some form of government.
  Then they will place them in a 3 hula hoop Venn
  diagram for a better visual representation.

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• Standard
• Examine the rights and responsibilities of the
  individual in relation to his or her social
  group, such as family, peer groups, and school
  class
• Explain the purpose of government
• Distinguish among local, state and national
  government and identify representative leaders at
  these levels such as mayor, governor and
  president.

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• Instructional strategy
• Incorporating Current Events
• Using community resources
• Using documents/primary source materials
• They will be searching through current events
  using primary source materials such as newspapers
  and magazines from the community and beyond.

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Sorting Out

• Looking at profiles of government officials
• Research roles and responsibilities of president,
  governor and mayor
• Take artifacts from Venn diagram and integrate
  them into the lesson to further their
  understanding visually of these positions.

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• Standard
• Distinguish among local, state and national
  government and identify representative leaders at
  these levels such as mayor, governor and
  president
• Instructional strategy
• Using documents/primary source materials
• The students will use magazines and newspapers
  from the previous lessons to help them better
  understand the differences in the roles.

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Going Further

• The voice of the people
• Interview the superintendent, principal and
  teacher and compare their roles to those of the
  president, governor and mayor respectively.
• The students will be creating interview questions
  in order to find out about these peoples
  positions.

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• Standard
• Explain the purpose of government
• Distinguish among local, state and national
  government and identify representative leaders at
  these levels such as mayor, governor and
  president
• Instructional strategy Using interviews
• The students will be practicing their
  interviewing skills in order to gain more
  knowledge about these positions.

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Making Connections

• Creating a classroom government
• Students will discuss how and why they would
  classroom government.
• The students will elect classroom officers and
  create a classroom government explained through
  their own definition.

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• Standard
• Explain the purpose of government
• Examine the rights and responsibilities of the
  individual in relation to his or her social
  group, such as family, peer groups, and school
  class
• Instructional strategyUsing role
  play/debate/simulation
• The students will create a simulation of a
  government.

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Taking Action

• Proving your role as an informed citizen
• Through their evolving understanding students
  will see they the change they as third graders
  can make in the community.
• The students will come up with ideas of how they
  can help to improve and contribute to the
  betterment of their community.
• They will generate a plan to implement and make
  change.

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• Standard
• Explain the purpose of government
• Examine the rights and responsibilities of the
  individual in relation to his or her social
  group, such as family, peer groups, and school
  class
• Instructional strategyField experience
• The students will first handedly experience the
  process of making change within their community.

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Formative Assessment

• The students will journal periodically throughout
  the unit on different topics such as how the
  government has affected them that day, what they
  are still having questions about, what they think
  should change, etc.
• The teacher will have conferences with the
  students during the classroom government phase to
  assess progress, how things are going and answer
  any questions.

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Summative Assessment

• The students will work in groups to create a
  government for a newly discovered planet.
• They must come up with the rules, the various
  leadership positions, and other structural
  elements for their government.
• They will present their ideas at the end of the
  unit to their fellow classmates.

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Reflections

• Process
• If it was not for one of our cooperating teachers
  we would not have known where to start
• It is difficult to distinguish between essential
  and enduring questions
• It is so much easier to work with a group on units

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Big Picture

• Unit planning vs.. lesson activity planning we
  found to be much more feasible than individually
  completing each lesson
• Unit planning allows for the teacher to cater the
  lesson to his/her students needs

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Content

• The content of our unit focus is on a few key
  aspects of government as learning about the broad
  topic of government is too overwhelming. The
  benefits of focusing our topics allow the
  students to learn those areas more thoroughly
  than memorizing route facts. This is a unit that
  incorporates hands-on activities to enable
  learning on all levels.

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This unit will reflect our future work by

• Encouraging us to work with our peers in the
  future because of the obvious benefits in surplus
  ideas and knowledge

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Researching Local, State, and National Government
Lesson Plan

• Purpose
• Essential/Driving Question
• What is government?
• Enduring Understanding
• What are the differences and similarities among
  the local, state and national government?
• Key Concepts
• Justice, rights, and responsibility

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• Standards Alignment
• Examine the rights and responsibilities of the
  individual in relation to his or her social
  group, such as family, peer groups, and school
  class
• Students will learn how individuals have rights
  and responsibilities through various media
  articles and through class discussions about the
  different types of articles found in the class

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• Standards Alignment (cont.)
• Explain the purpose of government
• Searching through magazines and newspapers for
  articles about the government, students will gain
  a very brief and basic understanding of its
  purpose

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• Standards Alignment (cont.)
• Distinguish among local, state, and national
  government and identify representative leaders at
  these levels such as mayor, governor and
  president.
• This standard will be addressed when students
  sort out the articles they found into local,
  state, and national government. They will also
  begin to see how sometimes there is overlap
  between the three levels.

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• Materials Needed
• Variety of local and national newspapers and
  magazines
• 3 Hula-Hoops
• Large sheet of paper
• Markers
• Glue

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• Procedure
• The lesson begins with a teacher-led discussion
  about the roles and differences of each level of
  government. Students should learn from the
  discussion that local governments only make rules
  and decisions for their local area, state
  governments only for their specific state, and
  the national government oversees the entire
  nation. At this time, students should see if
  they can name any people who hold governmental
  offices and try and identify at which level their
  office is.

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• Procedure (cont.)
• After the discussion, students should get into
  small groups and go through the various
  newspapers and magazines in search for articles
  or photographs that are about government at any
  level. As they go along, they should begin to
  sort their articles into national, state, and
  local groups.
• Once all groups have had enough time to search
  through the different media, the class should
  gather around the hula-hoops arranged into a
  three-circle Venn diagram with a circle for each
  level of government. Each group should take a
  turn placing their article or photo into the
  appropriate hoop. (Some may fit into more than
  one level of government.) Students should explain
  why the chose to classify their articles as
  local, state or national.

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• Procedure (cont.)
• After all of the articles have been placed into
  the Venn diagram, discuss why students might have
  found more articles about one level of government
  than another. Also discuss why/how there could
  be overlap among the different levels. What kind
  of articles/photos fit into all three levels?
• Using the large sheet of bulletin board paper,
  recreate the Venn diagram. This can be done
  either by pasting the actual articles onto the
  paper, or by summarizing each article and writing
  it in the diagram.

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• Adaptations for individual or group differences
• If students are experiencing difficulties
  locating articles about government in the various
  medias, this step could be skipped and they could
  classify material the teacher has already
  selected. The difficulty of the pre-selected
  material would depend on the students
  capabilities.
• An adaptation to this lesson for one or two
  students would be to pair them up in a group of
  students and give them a certain role such as
  recorder of material found. They could also
  provide illustrations to go along with the
  articles students find.

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• Assessment
• We will use formative assessment to gauge student
  learning from this lesson. After the lesson,
  students will write in their journal about how
  their everyday lives are affected by government
  using the information they presented in the
  Venn-Diagram.
• Informal assessment will also be used throughout
  the lesson. The teacher will be able to see
  whether or not students are understanding the
  difference between each level of government when
  they are classifying their articles into the Venn
  diagram.

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Bibliography

• Teacher
• Knowing Your Government Your Rights and
  Responsibilities. Glove Fearon. Educational
  Publisher, 1994
• Levstik, Linda S. Doing History. Lawrence Erlbaum
  Associates, Publishers London, 2001
• Steffey, Stephanie and Hood, Wendy J. If This Is
  Social Studies, Why Isnt It Boring? Stenhouse
  Publishers. Portland, Maine, 1994
• Children
• Granfield, Linda. America Votes How Our
  President Is Elected. Scholastic Inc. 2003
• Both
• Giesecke, Ernestine. Local Government Kids
  Guide. Hanemann Library. Chicago, Il. Reed
  Educational Professional Publishing 2000