Strategy Lesson Plan 1
Lawrence E. Hobdy
ED 572D
1.
Name and Purpose of Strategy
Strategy 18: Connect to it – Making Personal, Text, and World Connections to Text is the
strategy for this lesson plan. The strategy is most instructive and effective when reading
informational text. The purpose of the Connect to it strategy is to help students gain a better
understanding of what they are reading by relating the text to their own lives. Throughout the
Agriscience I curriculum, students are required to read, retain and recall specific information on
the topics covered over the course of the year. To help students accomplish this critical goal, the
Connect to it strategy allows students an opportunity to connect what they are reading to what
they have seen, heard, read, imagined or experienced. Students are provided guidance in how to
make connections from the text to themselves by following three types of connections to the text
– (1) text-to-self, (2) text-to-text, and (3) text-to-the world. The lesson for this class that will
incorporate the Connect to it strategy is entitled “Dairy Cattle”. The reason for this strategy
would work well with these students is threefold. The majority of the students in the class either
live on an active farm that has cattle or farm animals that require care, have relatives that support
their families working on an active farm, or are one or two generations removed from their
family or close relatives family’s primary vocation of farming and/or caring for farm animals.
Therefore, these students are in a better position to take the new information they learn, connect
to it in a way such that their connections allow them to take ownership of the information and
have a relational context for the information which can make it more memorable and usable.
2.
Description of Context of Lesson
Agriscience I provides students with basic knowledge of agriculture and its history and the
science applications in agriculture. This course includes units in animal science, soil science,
plant science, agricultural mechanics, basic carpentry, food science technology, and agricultural
leadership. Mathematics, science, English, biology, and human relations skills will be reinforced
in the course. Work-based learning strategies appropriate for this course are school-based
enterprises, field trips, Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) programs, and internships.
SAE programs and the FFA leadership activities are integral components of the course and
provide many opportunities for practical application of instructional competencies. The
Agriscience I class for this lesson include 9th through 11th grade students. The lesson plan and
strategy will be incorporated into the animal science lesson on “Dairy Cattle”.
3.
Lesson Standards
Agriscience I is considered a Career and Technical Education (CTE) course which counts toward
graduation requirements for both traditional diploma pathways as well as the Jump Start career
diploma. Agriscience I is considered an elective course as opposed to a required core course. As
such, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) provides school systems a list of
recommended content and learning objectives for Agriscience I that would meet LDE
requirements for course content and objectives as opposed to course standards (although the
objectives listed for each unit are written in the form of standards). The relevant objectives for
this lesson are contained in Unit 3 Animal Science under the content areas Animal Selection
Based on Physiology and Genetics, Animal Nutrition, and Unit 6 under Food Processing. The
relevant objectives under each content area include categorize animals according to history and
origin, use, type, and breed, identify nutritional needs of animals based on age and describe the
primary types of food processing. The written objective for this lesson on “Dairy Cattle” is:
“To determine the history, types, uses, care and management of dairy cattle and their products.”
4.
Lesson objectives
As stated above in Lesson standards, Agriscience I is a CTE course, and being such, has
recommended course content categories and specific objectives versus standards that must be
addressed under each Unit and topic area heading. Again, the objectives addressed in this lesson
are categorizing animals according to history, origin, use, type, and breed; identifying nutritional
needs of animals based on age; and describing the primary types of food processing. The
objective for this lesson is “To determine the history, types, uses, care and management of dairy
cattle and their products.”
5.
Steps of the lesson
This lesson is broken down and scaffolded in three segments, with each segment building on the
previous segment and using verbal, visual and written delivery of material to the students to try
and reach students through different preferred learning styles. The three segments include a
power point presentation, a short video followed by a handout where each successive segment
reinforces some of the previous material and adds some new related information.

Power Point Presentation – This segment of the lesson has 15 slides including the title
slide which includes the purpose/objective of the lesson. The power point slides are
divided into 5 segments: History and Origin, Economic Impact, Types and Breeds, Care
of Dairy Cattle – Calves/Care of Dairy Cattle = Cows, and Dairy Production. The power
point presentation last 15 minutes. Students will be required to take written notes
focused on the most critical information students should take away from the lesson. The
presentation includes basic information, graphics and pictures illustrating the breeds of
dairy cattle covered in the lesson. In employing the Connect to it strategy, the teacher
will ask students questions such as “How close do you think you come to consuming that
amount of dairy products and what is your primary source of dairy?” when the teacher
presents the information on the fact that the average person consumes almost 500 pounds
of diary products a year. Another opportunity to deploy the strategy Connect to it is
when displaying the pictures of the top five breeds of dairy cows and a key piece of
distinguishing information about each would be to inquire about how many of the
students have either been around, seen in person or have seen in a book, publication or
online. Another opportunity would be when discussing the size of the different breeds
such as the largest and most popular dairy cow, the Holstein, that weighs on average
around 1500 pounds would be to ask students “What are those little two-seater cars
called?” which the students more likely will reply “Smart Cars” (or the teacher can
provide the name if the students get stuck trying to come up with the name) and point out
to them it would easier to try and pick up the front of a Smart Car than it would be to try
and lift up the front of a Holstein cow - that’s how big they are and reinforces they are
the largest dairy cattle breed. Students can be asked whether any of their

Short video –“Make Mine Milk” This video discusses the healthy benefits of milk and
other dairy products and also takes students step by step through the milk production
process and the adolescents in the video create a little eight word song identifying the
four steps to milk production that they repeat. One way to use the Connect to it strategy
with this portion of the video might be to stop and have the students sing the song with
the teacher as the teacher animatedly and with some humor intended leads the students in
the song and at the end tell them they are going to be hearing this song in their head for
the next three months.

Handout – Students will be provided a handout at the beginning of the lesson. After the
video, students will be asked to read the handout and discuss with those at their table
what information on the handout they were familiar with through the power point and the
video and what new information they encountered and if they were familiar with the new
information in any way where had they been exposed to it. In this exercise, students will
be able to use all three areas of the Connect to it strategy by relating the information to
themselves and their own experiences, to the text presented in the power point and/or the
notes they took and the opportunity to connect it to information they have seen online or
someone else has talked about.
There are other opportunities to use the Connect to it strategy in the power point and the video
that present themselves based on the students’ collective knowledge and experiences. For
example, when discussing the economic impact of the dairy cattle business, the teacher will walk
the students through the capital investment required to have a working dairy farm with 100 cows.
The teacher will intentionally leave out some of the capital needs such as hiring staff, feed for the
animals, veterinarian visits and herd insurance and ask the students “What else is missing?”
when the other major costs have been identified such as cows, land, barn and milking equipment.
This will allow students who have knowledge of working farms as well as other students who are
looking at what else does the business need.
6.
Assessment
Students will be given a short 7 question and answer assessment form which contains at least one
question from the five areas covered. Five of the seven questions come from the information
students were instructed to write down in their notes.
7.
Attachments

Power point

Handout

Questionnaire