Lesson Plan for Henrico 21 Awards
Teacher Name: Paul Cassimus
Collaborators: ITRT/Librarians
Lesson Title: In Someone Else’s Shoes
Target Grade/Subject: 8th Grade/Foundations of Spanish B (Spanish I)
Length: 2 weeks
Summary:
Before beginning a research project to explore the way of life in countries such as Bolivia,
Mexico, El Salvador, and others, students will watch a powerful and moving documentary
about a 14 year old child in Bolivia who is the main bread-winner of a family of 4.
Afterwards, students will begin investigating the lives of people in Central and South
American countries to compare how life might be for the average person specific countries
in those regions. Students will make comparisons in things like Gross Domestic Product,
Per Capita Income, cost of common items, cost of luxuries, and more between the country
they are researching and the United States of America. In order to do this, students will
learn to convert foreign currency in order to make accurate comparisons. Students will
share their research with the class and will write a brief essay (in English) to reflect on
what they have discovered and their own lives in the United States.
Essential questions or objectives:
 What is life like for children of your age who live in Mexico, Central America, or
South America?
 How do economics impact the quality of life?
 Is poverty a function of politics or natural resources or both?
 To what extent does one’s economic situation affect the course of one’s life?
 Students will get a more global sense of what life is like outside of the US by
investigating the economics of their researched country.
SOL’s
SI.7
The student will develop an awareness of perspectives, practices, and products of Spanishspeaking cultures.
3.
Identify some important historical and contemporary individuals associated with significant
events from Spanish-speaking cultures.
4.
Identify some products of Spanish-speaking cultures, such as natural and manufactured items,
creative and fine arts, forms of recreation and pastimes, dwellings, language, and symbols.
SI.8
The student will recognize that perspectives, practices, and products of Spanish-speaking
cultures are interrelated.
SI.9
The student will connect information about the Spanish language and Spanish-speaking
culture(s) with concepts studied in other subject areas.
2.
Relate content from other subject areas to topics discussed in Spanish class, such as current
events from Spanish-speaking countries or the influence of Spanish-speaking explorers and settlers on
various regions of the United States.
SI.10 The student will demonstrate understanding of the significance of culture through comparisons
between Spanish-speaking cultures and the cultures of the United States.
1.
Compare patterns of behavior and interaction found in the United States with those of Spanishspeaking societies.
2.
Demonstrate an awareness that social practices and personal interactions differ among cultures.
3.
Demonstrate an awareness of unique elements of the student’s own culture.
Resources:
Technology: DVD player, The Devil’s Miner DVD, laptops, access to Google docs, internet,
television, Web 2.0 presentation tools, or projector, handheld calculators (optional)
Lesson Development:
Process/Tasks:
Introduction:
1. A week prior to lesson, distribute permission slips to students for watching the DVD.
2. Form/establish student teams prior to watching the DVD.
Part I
1. Begin the lesson using a class discussion board to allow students to consider the
following questions. Students will first post information about their personal
experiences (before watching documentary) and then compare and contrast it with
Basilio’s experiences.
What is your real-world? Think about your daily life. Think about what you do on a
regular basis. You go to school, you may participate in extra-curricular activities,
play sports, hang out with friends, eat out in restaurants. Think about the struggles
in your life. Maybe you get a low grade on a quiz, maybe you get in a fight with a
friends. Finally, think about your role in society. What do you contribute, what are
you strong qualities?
2. After the class discussion (virtual and real-time) about the topics above, the teacher
will ask students to go back to the discussion board and define the word
“documentary”. Based on the responses additional discussions will take place
and/or a review of “everyday research in the virtual world” will be used as a
teachable moment. Once the term has properly been defined, students will be
introduced to the video.
3. In this video, we are going to take a look at a student who is the same age as you
who probably lives a much different life than what you’re used to. As you watch this
documentary think about the answers you posted to the class discussion board as
well as your classmates posts and think about how your lives compare and/or
contrast with what you see in the documentary.
4. Play “The Devil’s Miner” DVD (runtime 81 minutes). As the students watch the video
they will use the same chart from above to make notes about Basilio’s (student in
documentary) experiences and compare and contrast their daily lives.
5. At the conclusion of the video the teacher should facilitate a class discussion using
comments from the discussion board about students thoughts and feelings.
6. Invite students to make further connections and assumptions about what they just
learned. Do they think that students their age in other countries have more common
experiences with their lives or with Basilio’s? What about in specific Spanish
speaking countries? Also invite students to consider why the filmmakers created
this documentary about Basilio. This question will serve as the introduction to part
II.
Part II
1. Continue thoughts, discussion, and reflection from item #6 above.
2. Challenge students to consider why the documentary was created and how they can
also become active participants in sharing information about students in Spanish
speaking countries. After all they are studying this language so can they identify a
reason why they as well as others may want to know this information?
3. Students will form collaborative teams and select a Spanish speaking country to
research and find out more information about the experiences of students their age.
4. Student groups will select a country of interest. (examples: El Salvador, Nicaragua,
Colombia, Guatamala, Ecuador, Paraguay)
5. Student groups will work together to find, evaluate, and use information about their
country. Student groups are responsible for working together to evaluate and
ethically use the information they find. The teacher will remind groups of the
process for finding and using information online, but no direct instruction will be
offered on researching.
6. To help guide student/group work, the teacher will start a discussion about what
type of information they think they may need. Student groups will use their own
discussion board to post their ideas and formulate guiding questions about their
country.
7. After the discussions and input from groups, the teacher will share a comparison of
Bolivia and the United States to help inspire groups and share possible areas of
interest.
Part III
1. Review information from Part I and Part II of the lesson
2. Ask students about the process for working in teams. Do teams have roles within the
group? Why or why not? Facilitate group discussion about the possible roles and
checks and balances that are needed to ensure all group members contribute
equally and quality work. Also invite students to consider how they are going to
share electronic work with group members (Google Docs, School Space, etc. – allow
students to select the most appropriate tool according to their identified need).
3. In addition to talking about group roles, invite the students to contribute/create a
component of the project rubric (hand out here).
4. Student groups will now start the research portion of the project.
5. Students will investigate the daily lives of the people living in their chosen country.
6. As the research is being conducted, students will investigate various methods of
presenting their information (google website, glogster, movie maker, facebook
profile (template provided), etc.) We will use www.xe.com as a source for accurate
and updated conversion rates.
7. Students will use a class ePals account to access blog postings created by students
from around the globe that describe what life is like for them in a variety of areas.
This will be used as an additional resource to help students have a global context
and perspective about how their “life” compares and contrasts with their peers
around the world. http://www.epals.com/forums/131.aspx
Note: In future implementations of this lesson we would like to have our student
groups post their stories/information and make connections with students in South
America. We recommend further investigating this component of the lesson if one
chose to implement something similar.
8. Students will have two class periods to work on this part of the project.
9. After the research is conducted, students will need class time to collaborate and
make conclusions about what they found.
Part IV: Presentation Creation
1. Using the documentary as inspiration, student teams will work together to create an
original work that effectively communicates information about the country they
studied noting what they find to be the most relevant.
2. Students will use their information, conclusions, and other information along with
relevant and appropriate pictures, images, and other media.
3. Student teams are responsible for working together to create a product that clearly
conveys a message to others about their country (through a documentary style OR a
novel way).
Part V: Presentations
1. Student teams will work together to creatively share their findings.
2. Teams will be expected to employ public speaking skills and strategies when
sharing projects with the group.
3. Each group will submit their projects to the class dropbox and streamline all of the
resources so students can access as needed and the projects can be shared with
other students in the Byrd Foreign Language/World Language community.
Part VI: Reflection
1. Students will chose an essay topic from a list and write a page on that topic. This
part is to be done individually. Rubric will be provided.
Topics:



If you lived in your researched country, would you try to make a better life
for yourself there or try and come to the USA? Use information from your
research on your country to support your writing.
What would it be like to live in a country with little money and few
opportunities for education and jobs? Use information from your research
on your country to support your writing.
Write a narrative from the perspective of a student your own age in the
country you researched. Using information from your research, write about
what a typical day might be like.
2. After completing the essay students will use Wordle to create a text synopsis of
their writing and include a reflection about their keywords and why they think their
Wordle looks the way it does. Note: Wordle is an online tool that takes a bunch of
text and creates word clouds. The most prevalent words appear the biggest in the
word cloud.
Evaluation Procedure:
Assessment of objectives: RUBRIC(s)
- Need one for presentation delivery - attached
- Need one for the presentation-attached
- Need one for essay - attached
TIPC Assessment:
Research and Information Fluency: Ideal/Target. The research topic is specific yet
provides students with the opportunity to approach the research in a manner they deem
fit. They are responsible for finding, evaluating, and using information they find from a
variety of sources. They also have the opportunity to elaborate on their research and draw
conclusions based on what they find.
Communication and Collaboration: Ideal/Target. Communication and collaboration are
essential to this lesson. They are communicating and collaborating with each other to
assemble the research and data and evaluate it. They will then present and share this
information with the class.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Approaching. Students are analyzing and
comparing data in a way that will give them a good idea of what life is like for a citizen of a
particular country. Furthermore, they will use math skills to draw the perspectives from
economic numbers and convert foreign currency.
Creativity and Innovation: Ideal/Target. In the final portion of the group work, students
will use various resources to creatively share their research. Students are provided with
the opportunity to expand, to elaborate, and to go beyond the normal assignment. They get
to work with classmates to determine the best tool to use to communicate their
information. The ideas listed above are merely suggestions, and the students will be
encouraged to use any method they wish to present their material.
Name:_______________________________
Length
Research
Media/Visual
Aid.
4
Presentation met
the expected time
(5 minutes)
Information
reflected proper
research and
clearly shows
objective of
research.
A proper tool
was selected that
effectively
communicated
research.
3
Presentation was
short of the
expected time (44:30 minutes)
Information was
adequate for
presentation, but
lacked clarity.
2
Presentation was
well short of the
expected time (3minutes)
Information fell
short of
expectations.
1
Presentation was
an unacceptable
length (less than
3 minutes)
Little to no
information
given.
A proper tool to
present research
was selected but
fell short of
communicating
all information.
Information was
not clearly
presented.
No visual aid
was present.