Differentiating Lesson Plans High School English
Track and organize your meetings within your company
1. Objective
1.1. Students will be able to develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible biases.
2. Learning Profiles
2.1. Yasmina is a mixed (half Uzbek, half Kyrgyz) student who is very social, lives for Instagram and is quite responsive to visual stimuli.
2.1.1. Strategy 1: Differentiate process: Using Instagram and Snapchat, Yasmina will agree with, or refute the claim that Instagram copied Snapchat using evidence of key features found in both,
2.1.2. Strategy 2: Differentiate product: Yasmina will record a video of her claim for an audience in her parents age group, encouraging her to think about their knowledge level, concerns, values and biases.
2.2. Belek is a Kyrgyz male student with the need to stand a lot, fidget and touch things. He is very much a Kinesthetic learner who needs to be able to move around.
2.2.1. Strategy 1: Differentiate content/process: Because students will need to be able to develop claims and counter claims, I will post around the classroom several arguments whereby the student should be able to identify what claim the person is making. By walking around the classroom to read each claim, student movement will be directed and meaningful.
2.2.2. Strategy 2: Differentiate product: With two articles of clothing, the student will need to develop a claim that one article of clothing is more expensive than another by examining the style, material, feel, weight, etc.
3. Student Readiness
3.1. Fatmagul is a Turkish female who speaks four languages, though command of English grammar does not meet the expectations of her grade level.
3.1.1. Strategy 1: Jigsaw classroom - The classroom will be set up so that students will a) meet in a group as experts on a topic and b) use their expertise to share with other students in the class. In this scenario, students will be asked to 1) Show the steps in developing a claim/counterclaim 2) show how and where to find the most relevant evidence for a claim 3) identify and give examples of strengths and limitations in claims and counter claims 4) give advice on anticipating audience knowledge levels, concerns, values and biases
3.1.2. Strategy 2: Think Dots - This strategy will allow Fatma to choose how she wants to show her understanding of the objective without needing to write long texts. Since Fatma's grammatical errors tend to occur in more complex texts, a Think Dots worksheet will give her choice and the ability to express her understanding in more ways than just writing.
3.2. Asiaa is an 'A' student who scores in the top 5 percentile on nearly every summative exam. She enjoys reading and can sometimes get bored in lessons as her understanding of the content comes much faster than her classmates.
3.2.1. Strategy 1: Scaffold Reading - In this activity students will be given a reading from Newsela, a website that differentiates news articles according to Lexile scores. Asiaa will be able to read information that will challenge and interest her. All students will be asked a series of questions about how the claim in their article was developed over the course of the text, and to make sure Asiaa doesn't take answers from the easier text (a problem I face sometimes with teenagers) her article will be different.
3.2.2. Strategy 2: Expect more - while most students will need to show they understand the components of a well-developed claim/counterclaim and they know how to develop one themselves, Asiaa can explain the 'why.' Answering a series of critical questions, such as "why should we consider the audience bias when presenting a claim" should give a foundation on which to build her analysis of the objective.
4. It is important that teachers can reach every student in his or her classroom. We all learn, process and create differently, and acknowledging those differences in the classroom will foster an environment of curiosity and growth. Here are some ways to differentiate in the classroom
5. Differentiation Strategies
5.1. Learning Profiles
5.1.1. This category will look at students' learning style, intelligence preference (analytic, creative, logical, etc.), gender, and culture
5.2. Interests
5.2.1. This category will take into account what students are interested in outside of the academic realm, for example sports, cosplay or makeup
5.3. Student readiness
5.3.1. Here, students are identified by what they already know, and what they'll need to know in order to successfully master a concept, standard, or unit.
6. Interests
6.1. Muhammed is a Syrian male who is enamored with cars and metal music.
6.1.1. Strategy 1: Differentiate process/product: YouTube - in this strategy, Muhammed will create a playlist on YouTube of his favorite metal music. He will use the playlist to make the claim that metal music is better than the rest (he has said this many times). The class can benefit from discussion of the strengths and weaknesses to this approach of making a claim.
6.1.2. Strategy 2: Learning menu - In this task our learning menu could be changed from a traditional food menu, to a car menu. So for each task completed, the student gets an upgrade to a basic car. For example, the easier tasks can give the basic car power locks and windows, and the harder tasks will upgrade to self-driving units, big wheels or even a complete change in the make of the vehicle.
6.2. Deniil is a Russian male who enjoys drawing and design.
6.2.1. Strategy 1: Thinglink - Thinglink is an online platform that allows a user to design something like an infographic with interactive features. When you hover over the picture/text, more information appears. Deniil could use this to present his claim, counter claim, evidence and acknowledgement of audience knowledge level, values, concerns and biases.
6.2.2. Strategy 2: Screencastify - in this strategy Deniil will be refuting the claim that programming is much easier and can be done my most anyone. Because this tool will allow him to capture video of his screen as he programs, he can use this to help build his counterclaim.