Planning the inquiry
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
Class/grade: 2nd grade
Age group: 7-8
School: Roberts Elementary
School code: 7207
Transdisciplinary Theme
Where We Are in Place and Time: An inquiry into orientation in place and time;
personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations and
migrations of humankind; the relationships between and the interconnectedness
of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.
Central Idea:
Title: History Tells a Story
Teacher(s): 2nd grade team
PYP planner
Date: September 28, 2011 revised
Proposed duration: 3 hours a day over 5-6 weeks
Events in individual’s lives shape their personal histories.
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central
idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Students will share their thoughts about the following questions - What is history?
They will then select an event from their life and predict how it might affect their
future. In addition, they will pick another person they have learned about (famous
person or parent) and explain how events made them special and different.
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection,
perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Causation, Connection, Reflection
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?

personal histories

histories of individuals

attitudes and attributes of historical figures
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
1. Why should we care about the past?
2. Why is it important to record our personal histories?
3. Do historical figures have similar characteristics?
4. What are the different ways to record our histories?
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Planning the inquiry
3. How might we know what we have learned?
4. How best might we learn?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to
encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving
questions?
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills?
What evidence will we look for?
Pre-Assessments:
Class discussion - What is history? Why is important to study biographies? After discussing
these questions, students will write in their IB notebooks about why they think these are
important.
Students will draw a self-portrait and then identify the 3 Learner Profile attributes they need to
develop.
*Frontloading – Teacher’s “Me Bag”. Students will view history items to learn about their
teacher.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines
of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
Formative Assessments:
*Students will present a “Me Bag” to the class to show important artifacts from their life. (do we
still want to do this?)
*Student will present to the class about the origin of their name.
*Students will create a stand up folded timeline (or use Timeliner) of important events in their
life.
*Students will choose one important event in their life to write about. They will include the
significance of the event and the effect it has had on their life.
*Who’s in the Bag – students will explore a bag of artifacts and determine who the person was
and the significance of the artifacts.
*Using IIM, students will take notes from biography videos (animated hero) and texts focusing
on important events and the IB Learner Profile and Attitudes of one famous person (ie Harriett
Tubman). After collecting notefacts, students will create a product detailing important events in
the person’s life, character traits that led them to their accomplishments, and the IB attributes
and attitude that they best exemplify. Students must include the person’s name, major events in
their life, and their impacts on the world.
* Using Writer’s Workshop students will experience oral story telling with partners
* Students will take personal history questionnaires home and interview their family members.
This will include information about where the family ancestors originated, the origin of the
student’s name, and 5 important events in the student’s life.
*Students will interview their parents and record the events that shaped their parent’s lives.
*Invite Grandparents for lunch and to share the events in their lives.
* Through class discussions, the class will create a chart listing characteristics shared by
important historical figures and identify these figures:
- contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Cesar Chavez
- state & local figures such as Henrietta King & Barbara Jordan
- inventive pioneers such as Amelia Earhart & Robert Fulton
- good citizenship in Florence Nightingale, Paul Revere, & Sojourner Truth
* Students will select a famous person from a list and then create a visual display to describe
the person’s significant events.
*Create a class timeline of major events illustrating elapsed time from the dinosaurs to today.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner profile?
Transdisciplinary Skills: This unit is very strong in research and communication skills. The
students have multiple opportunities to grow in these areas. Attitudes: The students will be
reflective of their history as well as the history of important figures. Learner Profile: Student will
have a better understanding of tolerance and open mindedness from studying individuals that
have different backgrounds and viewpoints than their own.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
Scott Foresman Social Studies text - Unit 6; First Start biographies
“The Artist’s Family” by Henri Matisse
Life Long Ago; Keeping Quilt; Daily Life in a Covered Wagon; A Golden Age; Who’s Who in My Family?; A Picture book of JFK; Marshfield Dreams The Colors We Are by Katie Kissinger
United Streaming (animated hero), BrainPop video (Harriett Tubman)
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Guest speakers talk about significant events in their life. A blurb will be put in the Front Page to solicit parent volunteers, Archeologist to share artifacts and the story
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Reflecting on the inquiry
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’
understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the
planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a
more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
Originally, we had students write about three important events in their life, but we feel
it would be better for them to concentrate on one. We are also going to try to spend
the first half of the planner focusing on student’s personal histories and the second
half focusing on the history of other people (biographies). This will help the students
make personal connections at first and then be able to relate to important individuals.
The changes we made this year really did help. But we need to make sure that we
add in a task where the students write about one event in their life.

develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to
learn?”

demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?

develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
Concepts:
Causation: Students interviewed their family to find out about their family history and how
they came to the point they are today.
Connection: Students made natural connections to their classmates and historical
figures they studied through the myriad of activities.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea
and the transdisciplinary theme?
During researching individuals throughout history, students were really able to focus
on the events which occurred in people’s lives. The students didn’t focus so much
on the facts of the individual’s lives, but more on the event which shaped their lives
and the lives of others.
Perspective: After hearing about their classmate’s histories and reading about important
figure’s histories, students were able to understand and appreciate reasons for
differences among individuals.
Reflection: Students wrote about one event in their life and how it has affected on them.
Skills:
Research: Students used a variety of resources to extract information and take notes
about the important information.
Communication: Students will take notes, write a report, and then orally present their
project to the class. Classmates will observe and take notes about what they heard.
Learner Profile and Attitudes:
While creating a class chart about each individual studied, we spoke directly about
attributes and attitudes displayed in those people. Students also wrote which profile and
attitudes were displayed from the biographies presented during the students’ oral
presentations.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Reflecting on the inquiry
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
9. Teacher notes
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any
that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
We also would like to make sure that we get to “Who’s in the bag. We want to buy
more biographies (leveled readers) for this unit. We want to be more representative
of international people.
Why did my family move from China?
I wonder how humans started. Who was the first human?
The partnering and group work went much smoother this year. Students had an
easier time making connections. Venn diagrams went well. Bifold booklets
comparing an individual’s life and the life of a historical person and the IB attitudes
and profile attributes each expressed. The revised biography information form
worked better. The rough draft of biography should be written in IB Notebook.
I wonder my friends think I’m from Mexico.
Interview family member ask:
I wonder why George Washington fought in the Revolution.
What similar hobbies and interests do you share?
How do we shape ourselves?
What events in your life have made you who you are today?
What happened in my dad’s life which caused him to become a scientist?
What would have happened if Lincoln did not free the slaves?
Why do I want to be a tennis player?
I wonder why my dad is an engineer.
Who was the 1st person on the moon?
Were any of my ancestors slaves?
What were my parents like when they were small?
I wonder why my dad goes to work.
Why when we grown up do we live separately from our parents?
How do I make the world a better place?
How did I get my name?
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and
highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the
inquiries.
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to
reflect, to choose and to act.
Students became very interested in asking their parents about why certain
things happened in their family. They have also become very interested in
reading biographies on their own. It’s opened a new world for them.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Celebrate Grandparents Day – invite Grandparents to come for lunch and share
information about their lives
September 11, 2011; September 9, 2012; September 8, 2013