Understanding by Design-Compassionate Community Plan

Understanding by Design Unit Plan

Compassionate Community Plan  

Taker & Leaver Lifestyle

This unit is designed to guide students of upper elementary grade levels to develop an understanding of their role as citizens of the world. This unit will leave students with an understanding of what it means to be a “leaver” and a “taker” as described in the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The students will learn skills and achieve several goals during the unit but the main focus is to guide students to see a perspective of the world that is different from the typical views of society.

Goals:

• Standards
• 5.W.3
• Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, descriptive details and clear event sequences
• 5.SL.5
• Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes
• 5.W.4
• Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• 5.RIT.3
• Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas or concepts in a historical, scientific or technical text based on specific information in the text
• 5.RL.3
• Compare and contrast two or more characters, setting, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text
  
  

• Understandings
• Students will understand the difference between a materialistic and spiritual way of life.
• Students will understand the difference between a “taker” and a “leaver” lifestyle
• Students will understand their role in society and their ability to take action in their community
  
  
• Essential Questions
• What do value most in your life? Are the “things” that are important to you material items or are they spiritual?
• Why/how has society created the taker mentality? How is that related to capitalism and/or our economy
• What community projects could you put in place to support leaver culture?

Assessment

• Performance Tasks
• Simulation
• Evaluating written work and engagement in simulation looking for evidence of understanding their role in society as a taker or leaver
  
  
• Other Evidence
• Lists of important items
• Looking for differences from first list to the second to see if there were changes as a result of discussion of materialistic & spiritual way of thinking
• Evidence will include journal entries demonstrating perspective, sympathy & empathy, biographies of characters, participation in development of cultural artifacts & physical representations to be used in simulation, participation/engagement in group problem solving
• Community Action Plan
• Evaluating student’s written plan to see if student use problem solving method to move from taker to leaver lifestyle

Learning Plan

1. Show and Tell Activity
1. Teacher shares photo/object to students to that represents something/someone important to them as a model for show and tell activity
2. Students bring in an artifact to share with class
3. Artifacts will represent something/someone important in their life
4. Students will write descriptions of their share items
5. Class will create a bulletin board of writing with photos of students with their share items
   
   
2. Materialistic/Spiritual way of life
1. Students draft lists of important items in their life
2. As small groups or whole class discuss lists/create a class list and put lists in order of priority
3. Review lists- Do lists contain material items or non-material items
4. What does it mean to be spiritual?
1. Spiritual does not mean religious
5. After discussion students revise their lists
   
   
3. Homelessness Reading/Writing Activity
1. Students will read an article about children and homelessness
2. Students will reflect on article in journals
3. Students will reflect once more right before going to bed for homework
4. Next day students will share their reflections and compare two reflections looking for differences after spending the evening at home with family
   
   
4. Taker & Leaver Lifestyle
1. Discussion of differing lifestyles
1. How are they similar/differ from your personal life
2. What does it mean to be a giver/taker
3. Discuss each cultures values/different perspectives on life, environment,government, leadership, etc.
4. Have students write a paragraph in their journals about how they see themselves and identify which community they believe they are a part of and why.

5. Simulation Initiation
1. Review idea of taker vs. leaver
2. Split class into two groups/communities
3. Assign roles
4. Explain roles and answer any questions  pertaining to their groups and their personal role in that group
   
   
6. Simulation Development/Preparation
1. Develop roles/characters
1. Students will be taught how their role in the community affects their society as a whole including their environment, economy, and other member of the their community.
2. Students will begin to create a biography/history of their character that fits the role they were given.
2. Develop communities/set
1. Students will begin creating their physical environment in the room, students should bring in the props, costumes, and anything else they think they will need to properly portray their role in their community

7. Simulation
1. Spend time acting in roles
2. Problem solve in character
1. A problem will be introduced to the two communities and students should react to the given problem as their role in society would react
2. Students will write a journal about the problem, how it affected them, their community, environment, economy, and how their society might want to this problem. Students will also write how the opposite community might solve the same problem
   
   
8. Simulation Closure
1. Wrap up to simulation
1. Students will meet as a community to figure out how they are going to solve the problem and share with the class as a whole how their community dealt and solved the problem. The two communities will compare and contrast how they responded to the problem and the different effects the problem had the community members, everyday life, the economy, and the environment.
   
   
9. Community Action Plan
1. Students bring to life ideas how to live as leavers rather than takers- what can they do to be leavers in their community?
2. Teacher presents a model of a community action plan ie- community garden and discusses how a garden makes impact on a community
3. Students reflect on their personal transformation from taker to leaver
4. Students will brainstorm and draft plans to create individual or group community action plans