ELED 3223 (SS) Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level/Subject: Central Focus:

th
5 grade Articles of Confederation
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:

5.C&G.1.3 Analyze historical documents that shaped

the foundation
Date submitted: Date
of the United States government. taught:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1
Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a
point of view with reasons and information.

Daily Lesson Objective:

Performance- The students will be able to analyze the Articles of Confederation and be
able to write a persuasive essay supporting or opposing the rules of Congress. They will
be required to use 3 reasons from the Articles to support their opinion.

Conditions- The students will be completing the essay independently.

Criteria Students in groups will work together to analyze and create their own Articles
of Confederation then, independently use this information to construct a persuasive
essay supporting or opposing the original Articles of Confederation. Students will be
expected to earn 17 out of 23 points from a rubric.

21st Century Skills: Academic Language Demand (Language Function and

Vocabulary):

Confederation: an organization that consists of a number of

parties or groups united in an alliance or league.

Prior Knowledge:
Events in the Revolutionary War, knowledge of government

Activity Description of Activities and Setting Ti

me
 The teacher will start by reviewing what they have been learning
over the past week (The Revolutionary War)
T: Can anyone begin by telling me what the subject is that theyve
been learning about this past week?
S: answer Revolutionary War.
Teacher will continue guided discussion with the following prompted
questions:
What happened during the revolutionary war?
Who was fighting and why?
What did the colonists want from England? (freedom)
o What were the colonists afraid of happening in
their government? (it would become to strong
like the government in England)
What happened to the colonies and Congress after the
war? (students will either have an answer from their
previous lesson or this will push us into the Articles of
1. Focus Confederation and the Constitution.) 8
and Review min
Lets watch this video to get a little bit of background of what is
going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5toPLtJmMJw

T: So we just saw that at the end of the Revolutionary War, the

colonists realized that they were not united as a country. The
Declaration of Independence stated them as being the
UNITED states of America, but people werent acting like it.
States would go and make their own rules, their own money, they
werent friendly to other states. So, the Second Continental
Congress began coming up with the Articles of Confederation. Like
we mentioned before the United States Congress was worried about
creating too strong a government in fear that it might turn out to be
like Englands government which they had just gained independence
from.

After the video we will move into the teacher input.

2. Today Im going to be teaching you about the Articles of
Statement Confederation. At the end of the lesson you will be able to analyze
of Objective the pros and cons of the document and be able to write a persuasive
for essay in the eyes of a colonist about why you support or do not
 support the Articles of Confederation.
Student
3. Teacher Now that we have some background knowledge about whats been 25-
Input going on and about some of the struggles the colonies and the 30
Congress were having Why was it so important that they min
create rules?
S: to keep order, so everyone follows the same expectations
T: What would it look like (in the classroom, in the car, in
society, at home) if there were no rules?
Students will answer
T: As a country, a state, and a community it is important to
have rules that govern our actions. If we didnt have rules
then there would be chaos everywhere and people would be
doing whatever they wanted and not caring about people
around them. The Articles of Confederation were the first set
of rules for the United States and it took a few tries to get
them all sorted out.

T: You all are going to get a chance to look at the Articles of

Confederation yourselves. As you are analyzing the
document, I want you to think about some of the pros and
cons of what the rules are. Here are some guiding questions
for your research; How do these rules affect the colonists,
how would you change them, are the rules hard to follow?
Here is a graphic organizer for you to sort out the
information you find. On canvas, there are a list of websites
for you to use in your research. Read thoroughly and look
over all the Articles in the document. You will need the
information and knowledge you gain from this for a later
activity.

Websites:
http://alphahistory.com/americanrevolution/articles-of-confederation-
1781/
http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1003&context=elem_soc
http://www.negaresa.org/ccgps/history/articlespp.pdf
http://mrnussbaum.com/history-2-2/aoc/
https://bensguide.gpo.gov/articles-of-confederation-1777-1789
4. Guided T: Now that you have had a chance to see the original Articles of 15
Practice Confederation for America. You can understand what was important min
(large to Congress and what they saw as a need to unite their country. As a
banner group of 3 (that will be randomly chosen) you all will make your own
paper) Articles of Confederation. You need to as a group decide on at least
5 rules that you want to apply to your country. When everyone is
finished, you need to pick ONE rule that you made, and tell us why
this is so important to your country.
 (OR DO A WHOLE CLASS DEBATE ON THE ARTICLES OF
CONFEDERATION
Bring up Article One. If you agree go to this side, if you disagree go
to the other side. Tell me why you support or oppose it.) This is an
alternate activity.
5. T: You all have had lots of time to analyze the Articles of 10-
Independent Confederation and find out more about the rules the Congress put in 15
Practice place for the colonists and the states. Through your analysis and min
your creation of your own Confederations that you just made, these
should give you a pretty strong base on why rules are important and
which rules you think are most important. Some rules are to keep us
safe, some rules are so that everyone gets a fair chance, and some
rules are to make sure people do the right things. Your job now is to
think back as if you were a colonist. Youve been told that all these
rules are now being set in place. Youve just fought in a tough war,
you are free from England, but your country has no unity. How are
things going to get better in your country?

You are going to write a one page persuasive essay to the Congress
(teacher) why you support or oppose the Articles of Confederation.
You need to provide support in your writing by including at least 2
Articles that you support/oppose and why. Remember to keep the
mindset of a colonist and how this will affect your life and family. You
can provide suggested changes to the Articles but it is not required.

The articles of Confederation will be on the board or students can

use their Chromebooks to access all 13 Articles.
 http://alphahistory.com/americanrevolution/articles-of-confederation-
1781/

http://bellosocialstudies.weebly.com/uploads/3/8/1/6/38169951/

articles_of_confederation_strengths_and_weaknesses.pdf (page 24)

6.
Assessment Students will be evaluated through:
Methods of
all
objectives/s
Informal Check
kills:

Checks for understanding through probing questions

Teacher observation

Class participation in small groups

Formal Check

Students will be graded for completion of the graphic organizer, and

 participation in the group activity

Students will be required to earn 17 out of 23 points from a rubric

on a persuasive essay

7. Closure Teacher will begin by asking these questions: 5

Why did colonists need the Articles of Confederation? (needed a new min
government and rules)
What did they help establish in the states? (government, allies, USA)

(If every one could get into a group of 3) Teacher will conduct a
demonstration at the front of the classroom in regards to time. If
there is ample time then the class as a group can participate.
 T: Weve learned so far that the Articles of Confederation were a
weak source of rules for a strong government in the United States. It
was going to take more than what they had to create the
government that we have today.

So, we can see that have a strong base for our government is
important and the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation led
the Second Continental Congress to think about this and construct
the document we still use today, The Constitution of the United
States. Great work today uncovering the Articles of Confederation
The students did a great job working hard on their graphic organizer for
the articles of Confederation. They had lots of questions about where to
start and what things meant. My formative observation was that students
were on task and were able to summarize the articles of Confederation in
their own words. The students struggled with the summative assessment.
8. After learning about the articles of Confederation the students were
Assessment supposed to create a persuasive essay supporting or refuting the articles
Results of of Confederation from the point of view of a colonist. The students
all struggled with the idea of persuasion and how to formulate and essay or
objectives/s letter with the correct components. Even with the graphic organizer for
kills: the persuasive essay the students struggled to take the graphic organizer
and put it into letter format. It could have been my instructions that were
unclear or that they had a lack of background knowledge and persuasive
writing. Either way many of the students were not able to complete the
letter portion. Most students only finished a portion of the graphic
organizer and even then, it was vague and incomplete.
Targeted Students Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations: Modifications/Accommodations:

Students with modifications or Small groups and accommodations will be

accommodations will be provided with made for students who are struggling to find
the materials and resources they need the information. A small group will be
to be successful. At this time, in the conducted to go over the actual articles of
classroom there are no students with confederation. Going through each article as a
extra accommodations needed. group we will discuss what each of them
means and how that affects the people.
Materials/Technology:
Smart TV, doc cam, Canvas website of internet links, graphic organizer for teacher input
(1 for each student), document organizer for teacher input (1 for each student), banner
paper for guided practice (1 piece per group of 3), pencils, book (1 per group of 3)
References:
http://alphahistory.com/americanrevolution/articles-of-confederation-1781/
http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/docs/curriculum/socialstudies/scos/unpacking/5th.pdf
http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=elem_soc
http://www.negaresa.org/ccgps/history/articlespp.pdf
http://mrnussbaum.com/history-2-2/aoc/
https://bensguide.gpo.gov/articles-of-confederation-1777-1789
http://bellosocialstudies.weebly.com/uploads/3/8/1/6/38169951/articles_of_confederation_strengt
hs_and_weaknesses.pdf

Reflection on lesson:

I think overall my lesson went well but there were definitely some glitches. The students
were engaged and participating. They also were asking a lot of questions and trying to
get their work done. In the first part of my lesson students were researching about the
articles of confederation, they seemed to struggle with where to start. I had to clarify
quite a few parts of their research and tell them exactly where to look and find the
information they needed, even though I had provided all the links necessary to find what
they needed. I found that time is an issue when you need to get through an entire lesson
plan of this length. We had to stop the research portion of the lesson early because we
needed to move on to the next activity. In the lesson plan, we did not do the guided
practice or the closure potion of the lesson plan. I wanted to make sure that students got
the meat of the lesson and information and were able to apply it. While guided practice
is important, there just wasnt enough time to do it. Once we got to the writing portion
(independent practice), students really struggled with taking information from a graphic
organizer and putting it into a letter format. The purpose of the activity was to create a
persuasive letter and the students struggled with that idea. Im not sure if its the way I
explained it or if they had never had to do something like that before. I thought that
surely the students had written a letter before but it still seemed like a disconnect. Even
with the graphic organizer I was getting incomplete letters without their persuasive
reasons. I ended up drawing on the board an example letter.

I think that some of the challenges I had resulted from a lack of time and others from
lack of experience. I felt rushed and a little pressure to get things done and I bet the
students did too. Many of them had completed the organizer for the Articles of
Confederation summary but I would have loved the chance to go over them with the
students to make sure they understood correctly and that we were all on the same page.
Had this been my class I wouldve taken at least another day to do the lesson thoroughly.
We would have done day one on the research portion and going over the Articles of
Confederation and the pros and cons. Then on day two we would have worked on a
persuasive letter, making it an integrated lesson with language arts. I was pleased to see
the students working together or on their own and I saw many completed Articles of
Confederation organizers. Even though the students didnt get to the last portion of the
organizer themselves, I provided the information for them to copy down. Most of the
students were even able to complete the persuasive essay organizer but didnt have a
chance to copy it to a letter format. I was pleased that students were handing in work
that had most it complete and that the students were really working hard to complete
the task. I dont think I had any students not participating, some were a little distracted
but overall, they did a great job. Another thing that happened in class was that the
principal stopped by. Im not sure if he was looking for the teacher or wanted to observe
but I didnt feel any anxiety or pressure that he was in the room. I was confident in what
I was doing and the students were behaved and working. I just kept on going with my
lesson and I think that made me more confident in the end that I knew even in the
presence of the principal as a new teacher I can still complete my objective with the
students and not be distracted or worried about whos in the room or about making
mistakes.

I liked teaching this lesson because it made me learn more about the topic. I think that
as time goes on Ill learn a lot more about social studies and be able to get more
invested in the topics and make lessons that can connect students to the events and
people as well as make them fun and educational. Im looking forward to what I learn
through my social studies instruction.