Concept Formation Lesson: Communism

Transcription

1 Concept Formation Lesson: Communism Grade Level: This lesson is designed for a ninth grade World History II class. The lesson will be used as an introduction to a unit on communism. The lesson will center around SOL WHII.9b which states: The student will demonstrate knowledge of the effects of the Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century by explaining the emergence of capitalism as a dominant economic patter, and subsequent development of socialism and communism. Length: 90 minutes (full block period) Instructional Model: The instructional model for this lesson is concept formation. In this model, students identify a particular concept in this case communism by examining examples. Using the information provided in the examples, students answer a set of questions about each example. They then establish differences and similarities between the examples. Next, students extract critical attributes from these examples and use these attributes to form their own definition of the concept. This model is useful for students because it gives students tangible examples of a concept, which is an abstract idea. Additionally, this model forces students to engage in a process in which they create the concept themselves, as opposed to having the teacher give it to them. Finally, the concept formation model provides students with a concrete way to see whether they understand the concept, because it requires students to classify additional examples as portraying the concept or not. Overview: Communism is a concept that seems to be one of the more difficult ideas for students to grasp. This is partly because there are so many varieties of the definition of communism, and also because the term is frequently used incorrectly in today s society. Despite the difficulty that arises when defining communism, this concept is crucial to the understanding of major worldly conflicts and political interactions between powerful countries. In this lesson, students will learn what makes a society communist, and they will be exposed to historical examples of communist societies from around the world. Students will gain an understanding of the general definition of communism, but they will realize that communism can vary depending on the society. Rationale: Concept formation is appropriate for teaching communism in a ninth grade world history class because this is the first time that many of the students will be engaging in a study of this concept. By using the concept formation model, students will gain a very complete and thorough definition of communism. Additionally, students will have access to several specific, historical examples which they will not only use to build their understanding of communism, but they refer back to in case the concept ever becomes confusing (which frequently and easily happens with this concept). Communism is crucial in a student s understanding of the world around him or her not only because communist societies still exist today, but also because the relationships between communist societies and non-communist societies have a lot to do with the relations between countries today.

2 Objectives: Academic: Intellectual: 1. Students will be able to list the five critical attributes of communism. 2. Students will be able to define communism. 3. Students will be able to separate examples of communism from nonexamples. 4. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the effects of the Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century by explaining the emergence of capitalism as a dominant economic patter, and subsequent development of socialism and communism (WHII.9b). 1. Students will be able to identify similarities and differences after examining the examples. 2. Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of communism by writing a paragraph essay about why other and more countries did not adopt communism in their societies. 3. Students will compare how values and beliefs influence economic decisions in different societies (National Council for Social Studies Standard). Resources: 1. Date Retrieval Chart (one for each student in the class) 2. Computer hook up to overhead projector 3. Computer with Microsoft word processing 4. LCD overhead projector 5. Mixed list of examples worksheet (one for each student in the class) Communism Assessment (one for each student in the class) Content and Instructional Strategies: I. The Concept Definition a. Communism is (1) a classless society in which (2) society as a whole is more important than the individual, (3) there is a command economy, (4) and there is collective ownership of land and businesses. II. Hook (15 minutes) a. The hook for this lesson will be part of a homework assignment from the pervious day. On the day prior to doing this lesson, I will tell students that their if they bring in their current event assignment (a regular assignment due every Friday),

3 III. then they will receive a homework pass. At the end of class, I will ask 5 students to come visit me during AEP period (the school s study hall period). When the students come to me during AEP period, I will give these students some hints about the lesson we are doing the next day. I will tell three of the students to actually do their assignment but when I ask for it pretend as though they do not have it, but that they still deserve a homework pass. I will tell the other two students that they need to get angry when I say that I am going to give the students who did not turn in their work a homework pass. Essentially, I am asking these students to role play, because they are part of the simulation that we will be doing in class on the day of the lesson for the hook. b. The next day (the day of the lesson), I will have all the students come in and ask them to take out their current events. After the students have taken out their current events, I will ask any student who did not bring his or her current event to raise his or her hand, and I will make note of how many students did not bring in the assignment. Next, I will go around the room to collect current events and begin to give students who did the work a homework pass. At this time, the students who were in on the set-up will begin to ask for homework passes and get angry. c. I will let the anger escalate a little bit, and then I will engage all the students in a short discussion about whether they think it is fair that the students who did not bring food get to have some. After about three minutes of discussion, I will reveal to the students that I set up the situation to demonstrate how certain types of societies function. I will then ask the students a few more discussion questions such as whether they would like to live in a society where everyone received equal distribution of goods even if not everyone did the work, and what they believe a society that functions according to these principles might be like. After discussing for about five minutes, I will tell the students that in today s lesson we will be learning a concept that helps to describe a type of society that would be function under the types of principles we demonstrated in our simulation as well as we determined in our discussion. Data Retrieval Chart (15-20 minutes) a. After the hook activity, I will explain that for today s activity, students will work in groups of three. They will be working with the people they are sitting next to. b. I will then hand out the data retrieval charts. As I am doing this, I will remind the students of those in their groups (so that they are aware of exactly who they are working with). c. After handing out the data retrieval charts, I will put the worksheet up on the document finder and turn off the lights. I will explain to the students what they need to do in order to complete the sheet. I will say that they are going to work in

4 IV. their groups to read each example in the left hand column and answer the questions in the rest of the columns. d. We will then do the first example (China) as a class. I will read the first sentence or two aloud and then call on other students to read each sentence for the rest of the example. When we are finished reading, I will call on volunteers to answer the questions. I will write the answers in the chart so that the students can see exactly how I expect them to fill out the worksheet. e. When the first example is finished, I will ask if there are any questions. Then I will ask the students to work with their groups to fill out the rest of the chart. Students may either read the examples silently to themselves or in the popcorn style we did as a class. They should collaborate with their group members to answer the questions. f. Once they have finished filling out the chart, students should complete the last page of the worksheet as a group. They should list 5 differences and 5 similarities. g. I will circulate through the room while the students work on the chart to assess their progress and ensure that they maintain on task. Example Analysis (10 minutes) a. After all the students have completed the chart and questions, I will call their attention to the front of the room. b. I will ask for volunteers to come up and use a colored pen to write differences on the front board and similarities on the side board (5 or 6 volunteers for each). c. After students have listed their answers on the board, we will go over them as a class. I will mark any answers that match the critical attributes of the concept. If there are any missing answers, I will prompt students for the remaining characteristics. Once we have identified all the characteristics, I will have students write them on their worksheets. V. Defining and Labeling the Concept (5-8 minutes) a. After establishing the critical attributes, I will ask each student to use these attributes to write their own definition of the concept about which we are learning. Students are to work silently on their own, and their definition must include all the critical attributes. b. When the students have written their definitions I will ask them to compare their answers with their partner. Each group should collaborate and create a definition. c. I will ask for volunteers to share their definitions, putting all the answers up on the word document on the overhead projector (maybe 3 answers). d. After viewing their definitions, we will combine them to create a definition similar to the following: A classless society in which society as a whole is more

5 VI. VII. important than the individual, there is a command economy, and there is collective ownership of land and businesses. e. Once we have come up with a final class definition of the concept, I will ask the students to share what they think the concept is. Ideally, one of the students will come up with the concept of communism. If the students are struggling to get to this concept, I will tell them what it is and explain how it relates to the critical attributes we extracted from the examples. Classifying (15-20 minutes) a. After the students have discovered the concept, I will distribute another worksheet to each student. This worksheet will contain a list of four mixed examples. b. I will tell students that for this activity they will be working on their own. Students are to read each example and determine whether or not it is an example of the concept. c. When students figure out which are examples and which are non-examples, they will raise their hand and I will come and check their work. d. Once either of us have checked their work, we will tell the students individually that they are to take one of the non-examples and rewrite it on the back of their sheet making the necessary corrections to turn it into an example of communism. Assessment and Closing (10 minutes) a. When the students have finished creating their own example, I will bring them together and ask if there are any questions about the concept of communism. I will clarify any questions, and reiterate the definition/critical attributes of communism. b. If time permits, I will hand out a worksheet for students to complete as a form of assessment. They will complete this sheet and turn it in at the end of class. c. If there is not enough time, students will be asked to complete this worksheet for homework and turn it in on Monday. Differentiation: In order to incorporate all types of learners into this lesson, I could vary the way in which the students work through the examples. We could do one example as a class, have them do one with a partner, one on their own, and one with a small group. To bring more students into discussion about the concept, I could have the students work in groups of four instead of two. This way, students have more classmates with whom they can collaborate. Adaptations:

6 Even though this lesson has students constantly moving from one task to the next, there is a considerable amount of reading, which might be difficult for students who have trouble focusing or who have other disabilities. In order to combat these challenges, I could read the examples aloud to the students and then have them work on the questions. Alternatively, I could have the students read the examples aloud with their partners instead of silently on their own. In one of the classes, there are several students with IEP s that require that they sit close to the front of the room. Since I have the students paired with the person next to them, I might want to assign groups so that not all the students with disabilities are working together. Reflection: The main concern I have with this lesson is that it is going to take too long. Since the students have never done a lesson like this before, I anticipate that they will have lots of questions. The combination of questions and a lesson that requires students to do quite a bit of reading makes me nervous that we will run out of time before completing the lesson. If we become pressed for time during the lesson, I plan on cutting out one of the example types in class and assigning that for homework instead of the critical thinking exercise I had originally assigned. Another concern I have is that students might not be able to come up with the concept. If I sense that they are having trouble coming up with critical attributes, I will have to substitute some of the discussion time to help the students grasp the ideas and steer them in the correct direction. Overall, I think the lesson is going to be a very effective tool for the students to learn the concept of communism, but I think as the teacher I will have to make many judgment calls during the lesson to ensure the students get the most out of the lesson. Post-Teaching: In reviewing this lesson to see how it fairs according to the PASS standards, I think that the lesson does very well in three of the six standards. This lesson receives a 4 for the Higher Order Thinking standard, the Deep Knowledge standard, and the integration standard. Students engage in several levels of higher order thinking as they extract critical attributes and construct their own definitions of the concept. While teaching this lesson, students were able to move past the details of the examples and connect common themes and ideas across the lesson. The knowledge of the lesson is deep because the teacher is providing the students with several examples that show the complexity of an important idea (in this case, communism). At the beginning of the lesson, students had trouble seeing how the examples related to one another, but after completing about half of the data retrieval chart, they established connections between the separate examples. Finally, the lesson features two types of integration. First, the lesson uses the knowledge and skills integration because students are asked to analyze examples and extract specific information from each one. Second, the lesson uses the time and place integration

7 because it incorporates examples from different time periods and asks students to draw connections between historical, more current, and fabricated examples. The areas in which this lesson does not score well according to the PASS standards, are substantive conversation, connections to the world beyond the classroom, and ethical valuing. Substantive conversation receives a 2 for the first time I taught the lesson, and a 3 for the second time I taught the lesson. The first time I taught the lesson, I did not get as far along in the lesson as I wanted, so the students did not have a chance to complete the mixed examples sheet and discuss it with their neighbors. The second time I taught the lesson, I was able to better manage my time while teaching, and the students were able to complete the mixed examples sheet in class and discuss their results with one another. After reviewing this lesson, I thought that connections to the world beyond the classroom standard would score a 2. I gave this category a low score because the majority of the lesson was rooted in historical examples. However, the lesson did make some attempt to go beyond the classroom during the hook, because we created a communist-like scenario that related directly to students lives. In terms of the ethical valuing standard, I thought this lesson received a 1, because for the majority of the lesson, students were focused on identifying and explaining the concept, as opposed to focused on what they thought about the concept. The only point during the lesson when students were asked how they felt about the concept was during the hook. Overall, I felt that the students responded very well to this lesson, and that it was successful in teaching them the concept of communism. When I graded their mixed examples sheet and the sheet, I found that the majority of the students correctly identified the proper example of communism, and that their answers were thorough and accurate. Additionally, I received positive feedback from my cooperating teacher. In between the first and second time I taught the lesson, we were able to review the lesson and make changes (such as time management during the lesson and giving directions), which were very helpful and made the second take of the lesson run more smoothly.

8 Name Date Data Retrieval Chart Examples of Concept China The People s Republic of China became a one state party in 1949, under Chairman Mao Zedong. This party was heavily focused on economic growth, so it had a command economy that was centered around the collective ownership of all land and businesses. Under Chairman Mao, China did not only reform economically, but also culturally. From , every Chinese citizen was required to carry a pocket- sized copy of The Little Red Book with him or her at all times. The book contained a collection of quotations from Chairman Mao s various speeches and publications. Chinese citizens were required to read and study the book both in school and the workplace. If a citizen was caught without the book, he or she was beaten or imprisoned by the Chinese police force. North Korea In 1948, North Korea officially separated from South Korea and emerged as its own single party state. The North Korean economy is a command economy with extremely tight restrictions on international trade. All land and businesses are controlled by the government, and distributed evenly between all citizens. A major focus of the North Korean ruling party is government control over the media. What type of economy exists in this society? What happens when people go against the government? What do the people have control over? What does the government have control over?

9 The government controls all the information in newspapers, on television, on the radio, and on the internet. According to the constitution, the North Korean people have the right to freedom of speech and press, however these freedoms are only tolerated by the North Korean government if the expressions are supportive of the government. The severe restrictions on the media means that the media presents a limited amount of valid information, and most of the information ends up being propaganda for the ruling party. Any North Koreans who do not adhere to the rules are punished and put in prison by the government s police force. Cuba: In 1959, a group of revolutionaries lead by Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government. Up until this point in history, The United States had played an extremely significant role in Cuban society especially in the economy, where it controlled several important industries. However, when Castro took power, he decreased the role of The United States in Cuba, and increased the power of the Cuban government considerably. Castro quickly nationalized all Cuban industries and gave the state control of the media. He also instituted agrarian reforms in which large pieces of land that were privately owned were possessed by the government and redistributed evenly to the working class, giving them collective ownership over the land. Furthermore, Castro placed the government in charge of setting prices and rationing goods to the Cuban people. These reforms caused The United States to place trade restrictions on Cuba, and eventually lead to a United States embargo against Cuba. Anyone who disagreed with the Cuban Government was believed to be aligned with The United States, and

10 punished or exiled. Vietnam: In 1976, North and South Vietnam united under Ho Chi Mihn to form the single country called Vietnam. The new Vietnam was ruled by a single party. Immediately, this single party government extinguished any opposing political parties. Anyone who outwardly disagreed with the government or was perceived to have loyalty to The United States was punished and imprisoned by the government. The new government also took over complete control of Vietnam s economy. The economy had been agricultural for most of the country s history, centered around the cultivation of the large wet rice paddies found across the country. However, since many of these resources were destroyed during the Vietnam War with The United States, the new government instituted the collectivization of farms and factories throughout the country. All land and factories were owned and operated collectively by the people of society. 1. Please list five ways in which these examples differ

11 5. 2. Please list five ways in which these examples are the same Please list the critical attributes of the concept as listed on the board Your definition of the concept:

12 5. Class definition of the concept: The Concept Is:!

13 Name Date Mixed Examples Please read the following examples and determine whether or not they are an example of the concept. Example 1: Town A has a political system that allows more than one party to participate in the government. Results of elections in this town are distributed fairly evenly across these different parties. Large holdings of land are owned by individuals, who pay others to work and cultivate their land. Businesses are also owned by individuals or companies; consequently, each individual and company has control over their particular business, which results in a variance of prices and distribution of goods. Example? Yes No Example 2: Town B has a political system in which there is a single ruling party in the government. There is little opposition to this party, and nearly all members of society are members of it. However, members of this party fall into rigid classes. The richest people hold the most power, and the poorest people hold the least power. Example? Yes No Example 3: Town C has a political system that is dominated by a single ruling party. Opposition to the party is not tolerated, and any opposition is strictly stopped by the town s police force. This party has control over the all goods that are produced in the town, and it distributes these goods evenly throughout the work force. Television, newspapers, radio, and the internet are also owned by the government. The party determines which type of information is printed in all of these media sources. Example? Yes No Example 4: Town D has a single party political system. All members of society are members of the party. This society is extremely connected to the outside world. It engages in lots of international trade, and has free control over the internet. People who produce newspaper articles, radio programs, and television programs have the freedom to express themselves in whichever way they see fit. They may openly disagree with the ruling party and receive no punishment. Example? Yes No

14 Communism Name Date 1. Please list what you believe to be the 3 most important themes from today s lesson Please list 2 questions you have about communism Please list 1 lingering question you still have related to the concept of communism. 1.