Lesson+Plan

From Mrs. Pierce:

On Friday, December 9, we need a lesson designed to teach one of the two major underpinnings of our Republic, **Classical Republicanism**. We will refer back to this idea again and again. When students complete this lesson they should be able to describe the three aspects of classical republicanism that were particularly influential for the founding generation of Americans, answer the "What Do You Think?" page 15 questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the "Reviewing and Using the Lesson" page 18, question 2. If they can describe the key aspects of CR and answer these questions at the conclusion of our lesson (or perhaps the next day:), they will have met parts of several of the HSCE's (see list of Civics HSCE's)


 * Textbook pages: Lesson 2, pages 11 through 14. (It would be a very good idea for you to look at Lesson 1, and ALL of Lesson 2 prior to preparing. The remainder of Lesson 2 is about Natural Rights philosophy. Please note the conflicts between the two ideas.) It would also be useful for you to go through the rest of the Lessons in Unit 1 and see how these ideas are "applied."** Since you will be working with at least one group of students second trimester to prepare them for the simulated congressional hearing, the more you are familiar with this text and the ideas in it, the more helpful you will be to the students.


 * __Lesson Plan__**

__Essential Question:__ Why did the founding fathers choose to integrate aspects of both classical republicanism and natural rights?

__Enduring Understandings:__ 1) SWBAT identify what civic virtues are 2) SWABT identify what classical republicanism is and the 3 aspects of it that influenced the founders

__Hook:__ Common Good Activity
 * Create Mason "Community" Law: No video games in the community and video game sales are henceforth illegal.
 * The Common Good: Definition, What are you giving up?

__Lecture (15 min)__
 * What is classical? What is republic?
 * What is classical republicanism?
 * 3 aspects: Small, Uniform Communities, Citizenship and Civic Virtue, and Moral Education
 * Scenarios
 * Note Taking Guide

__Activity__
 * Topic Based Group: Provided current cases and decipher which and how the 3 aspects apply. Groups will present on 1 topic.
 * Constitution Day celebration/Pledge of Allegiance
 * Anti-Bullying Legislation
 * Education: Public Schools without vouchers
 * Health Care
 * Mason Volunteer Firefighters/Policemen
 * Local Community Regulations: Sidewalking shoveling, paying to build sidewalks near their houses

__Closing Statement__ 1) Discuss: Who decides the common good? 2) Provoke their thoughts by bringing their opinions to the forefront

__Ticket Out the Door__ 1) Describe an example of civic virtue in our community. 2) Identify the most confusing part of the lesson.

**Reflections on Lesson**

The hook at the beginning of a lesson was an example to introduce the idea of common good. The example was that the Mason City Council issued an ordinance banning the buying, selling, and playing of video games in the city of Mason. It was to get students thinking about the idea of common good with something more personal. The hook lasted 5 minutes. This led into lecture on classical republicanism and its 3 aspects. The lecture lasted the remainder of the class period, about 55 minutes. The students had a guide note-taking sheet to fill out during lecture. There was an activity that was planned for after lecture that involved current issue scenarios and deciding which aspects of classical republicanism applied. The lecture was supposed to be about 15-20 minutes, with the group activity taking up the remainder of the class period. Due to the fact that time ran out, she said that they will do the activity first thing Monday morning. There was no official “closure”, but she did discuss what they would be doing on Monday and gave out the homework assignment.

Our lesson goal was to see a progression of student activity in the classroom and if would change in interaction with a change in activity. There was no changed witnessed because there was no change in activity. There was student interaction, including partner share and also question/response. We did not witness the interaction we were hoping for with the lesson, so we cannot say that our goal was met. We did not witness enough (our activity) to say that the students learned the material better or understood it better with this lesson. Our thinking about teaching this topic has not changed. We would still have preferred a more interactive, group activity versus straight lecture. We would want to investigate this hypothesis further (and again). We hope to complete this investigation next semester to see if our original goal can in fact be met.

We are not confident that the concepts were learned by the students today. It was hard to tell if they were fully grasping the concepts or if they were just not expressing it. They could provide examples when asked, but did not seem to connect it to the classical republicanism aspects they way they were supposed to. The whole point of the change in the lesson was to have students better understand the 3 aspects and connect it to examples, particularly ones that connect to their lives. We do not feel confident that this goal was met. They still seem unable to connect or explain why an example is related to the 3 aspects. Perhaps the activity on Monday will help their understanding in this area, but unfortunately we will not be able to witness it. However, that would be very interesting to see. We are very disappointed that we could not witness the activity because it was our main idea/contribution to the lesson change, and now we will not be able to see if it is successful or not and get student feedback. While our mentor’s feedback is fantastic and greatly needed and appreciated, we strongly believe in getting student feedback and were looking forward to getting that different perspective. Our ticket out the door was 2 questions directed specifically towards the students’ opinions on what they learned and what they were confused about. Perhaps our mentor will email us after the activity and let us know how it went as well as their feedback.