Lesson Plan

Unit: Social Issues in Literature
Lesson Title: Critical Information Literacy Activity
Essential Objective(s):

    Goal 1: Reading, Reviewing and Responding to Texts The student will demonstrate the ability to respond to a
    text by employing personal experiences and critical analysis.

        1.1.3 The student will use after-reading strategies appropriate to both the text and purpose for reading by
         summarizing, comparing, contrasting, synthesizing, drawing conclusions, and validating the purpose for
         reading.

Materials:

Computers
Internet Access
Handouts

Anticipatory Set/Context Setting:

This activity is part of a larger project asking students to complete a presentation where a group of students develops a position on the issue of cloning from a particular assigned viewpoint.  Ultimately, students will attempt to convince an audience to amend a congressional bill entitled Human Cloning Prohibition Act.

Teaching Strategies
    ___ Jigsaw
    ___ Group Project
    ___ Integration of Technology

Notebook®
    ___ Informal Writing
    ___ Group Activities
    ___ Cross-Curricular

Development/Procedures:

1.  Students will have been previously introduced to the Hello Dolly web quest.  Students will then be assigned task of finding appropriate artifacts to support their assigned position on the issue of cloning.

2.  Students will be assigned to groups of four, with each member taking on a lens:  content, bias, design, and usability.  Using provided focus questions, each student will analyze the assigned websites using their specific lens and complete the evaluation handout.  Each website was chosen for its specific content type.  Discussion of the websites can be found here.

3.  Students will then reconvene in groups to determine which website would be the best resource for use as an artifact.

4.  Teacher will reconvene class and lead discussion of website evaluation and student observations.

Transition:

Students will be redirected to the Hello Dolly web quest and instructed to apply critical evaluation skills to the artifacts they choose to support their research perspective.

Summary/Closure:

Students should continue to work on their Hello Dolly web quest.

Assessment
___ Informal Assessment
___ Discussion
___ Collect and Grade
___ Student Task Rubric

This activity modified from an activity created by Joyce Valenza, Springfield Township High School.