Leanne Abushar A40451886

CEP 804A
Literacy Methods for Students with Language and Learning Disabilities
Assignment #5: Inquiry Unit
Section I: Student Information
This project was done with a group of sixth grade students coming from
different socioeconomic backgrounds. The middle school is in a rural setting with
students coming from the local cities in the area. The classroom that participated in
this activity is made up of about an even number of males and females (27 students
in total). None of the students in this classroom have IEPs. Overall, this class has
performed the highest on tests, assignments, and in behavior in comparison to the
other three sixth grade classes in the school.
A typical day for these students consists of the following: Prime Time
(reading intervention or arts appreciation classes); Math (students in the 6
th
grade
complete the same mathematics courses no honors options); Science/Social
Studies (students switch subjects every other week); Reading; and Language Arts.
The Reading and Language Arts classes are based on the Reading Street curriculum.
The school follows this program with strict fidelity and the principal checks in
frequently to make sure that the program is being followed, based on the guidelines
that are given by Reading Street.
The classroom starts out each day with 10 points. They lose points from their
points board for not following the directions, misconduct, etc. The points total up to
allow them to reach a goal amount that gives them a classroom reward day. This
could be anything from a dance party, movie day, ice cream social, etc. On average,
this class loses about 2-3 points per day and is able to achieve their goals faster than
other classes.
Section II: Planning My Unit:

When planning for the project, I consulted the two teachers that work with
my group of students that I would be working with. These two teachers have been
my mentor teachers for the past semester and are in charge of the following
subjects: Reading, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics. I wanted
to make a lesson that integrated the first four subjects listed, but I did not want to
overwhelm the students with a lot of reading writing, since they would be writing
papers for both of the weeks that we would be working on this project. The students
are also in Reading and Language Arts classes for half of their day already. I
discussed my project with Troy before I started and followed a similar schedule to
the one that we had drawn out to make sure that the project would be finished in
the timeframe that my class had available for this project.

I utilized resources on Teachers Pay Teachers to find meaningful worksheets
and activities that were related to the students topics. I also used internet research
to find sample projects, rubrics, and fake websites that would be used throughout
the project. This project was focused on the curriculum that other classes would be
focusing on and allowed students to go more in depth with the information than
their peers from other classes.

Section III: Planning, Activating and Building Background Knowledge

Day 1: Activating Background knowledge and Gaining Interest
Presentation on how our choices affect the environment
Students brainstorm topics to do their research on topics are related to
ways that the environment can be negatively affected; students have access
to books and articles on several different types of topics that can be studied
Poster is created to be posted on the wall of the classroom on different
research topics that can be studied for the final project
Students also brainstorm ideas of ways that they can present their research
to their peers (i.e. PowerPoint, video, brochure, etc.); poster with their ideas
is made to be posted on the wall of the classroom

Day 2: Planning and Preparation for Research Project
Students are placed into teacher-made groups based on the selections that
they chose (8 groups of 3-4 students)
Teacher models how to use a KWL chart. Teacher gives students a KWL chart
to fill out on their own of the things that they know about their topic and
things that they want to know; Students then get together with their groups
to consolidate their KWL charts into one group chart to guide their learning
process throughout the project
Students are then given charts with descriptions of the different jobs that
their group members are able to take on in the project; students decide with
their groups how they want to divide up the jobs fairly (every student takes
on the researcher job)
Students decide and submit the type of presentation that they want to use to
showcase their project

Section IV: Teaching Strategies for Gathering, Recording, and Organizing
Information

Day 3: Reading for Research
Students work together in groups to look up vocabulary words that are
related to environmental science and sustainability; these are words that
may be seen by students when they complete their research
Students are given different research articles and/or books relating to their
topics
Students are given questions to help them guide their reading and help them
to find information in the articles that are important to being a good
researcher

Day 4: Rubric Day
Students are given clear directions on what it means to be a team member;
students are given peer review sheets that show how they will rate
themselves and their peers, as well as a rubric that lets students know
exactly what they should be doing in order to earn a 5 (highest score) and
not earn a 1 (lowest score)
Students are given a chance to finish their questions on the reading from Day
3

Day 5: What is a good website?
Students learn how to identify if a website is credible or not through a
PowerPoint that goes through different ways for students to test the
credibility of a website (i.e. fake university names; no citations; etc.)
Students are given a sheet of questions to help them identify if a website is
credible or not; students will be able to use these sheets when they are in the
computer lab to help them identify sites that are
Teacher uses Smartboard to pull up websites and ask students if they think
that the websites are credible based on the information they have learned
about credible websites

Section V: Building Additional Background Knowledge

Day 6-7: Ecosystems and Energy Use in Our Lives
Students are given different research articles and/or books relating to their
topics
Students are given questions to help them guide their reading and help them
to find information in the articles that are important to being a good
researcher (see below)
Students are given an Energy Use in the Home worksheet on Day 6 for
homework to see how many resources and how much energy their family
uses on a regular basis; this sheet is discussed on Day 7 to see the trends in
the class; this sheet is also used to help students understand how much
energy their families use and when used in discussion, helps students to find
ways to reduce their ecological footprint

Section VI: Drafting, Editing, and Revising Final Product(s)

Days 8-10: Computer Lab Research/Presentation
Students are given the next three days to create a presentation that they will
present to their classmates, principal, and teachers on their specific topic
Students are given a checklist with the requirements that must be in their
presentations NOTE: Students were given the choice on how they wanted to
present their information, all of the groups chose to do PowerPoints, so
students were only given a checklist for what should be included on each
slide of the PowerPoint.
Students take the folders with the information that they had compiled over
the last several days to better guide their research and presentation.
Teacher facilitates computer lab to answer any questions, check the
credibility of websites, etc. These presentations are supposed to be
completely student-directed and led, so teacher should only assist students
when necessary.


Section VIII: Reflection and Critique of Unit (narrative of strengths,
weaknesses, and next steps)

Overall, I am excited and happy about the results of this inquiry unit project. I
feel that the project could have run smoother if we did not have such a time crunch.
The sixth graders had just spent the couple weeks before this project working on
PowerPoints for student-led conferences, so they were very familiar with how to put
together quality presentations. This saved us a lot of time in the lab, since we did not
have to focus on the basics of putting together a presentation and could focus more
time on research and putting more detail into presentations.

I would have spent more time working with the students on reading research
and looking through texts or using other resources to facilitate this project, but
there was not enough time to be able to do all of this within the timeframe that we
were given. I really wish that I had taken the students to the library and had them
spend a day with the librarian learning how to find books that were related to the
topics that they had chosen.

I would have also worked more with groups to make sure that they had put
in all of the necessary information from the rubrics and checklists that they had
been given. All of the groups had at least one slide missing from the PowerPoint
checklist, with most of the groups having the citations page missing. I would have
liked to spend more time on citing information if I was to do this project again.

At the end of the project, students had three rubrics that they were using to
get graded on for their work. They had a peer review sheet, a sheet that scored the
components of their presentation, and a sheet that allowed them to go through
multiple categories to grade themselves on their individual participation in the
project. I would have removed out the individual rubric from this, because the peer
review sheet had a place for students to rate themselves and give a reason for why
they felt they got that rating. Surprisingly, students were very honest with
themselves and most students understood how they contributed to the project.
Having anonymous peer reviews was also helpful, because it allowed students to be
honest about their peers without feeling like they were tattling or being a bad
friend.
On the peer review sheets, I placed a section for students to write a few
sentences on how they felt the project went, what they liked and didnt like, and any
other general comments that they had about the project. Majority of the students
were really excited about the project and wanted to do another project that was
similar to this one again! I also heard from students in other sixth grade classes, that
they wanted to do this project, so they must have heard exciting things about the
unit from their peers! The students enjoyed seeing their peers presentations and
were excited to present their own projects.