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Learning Experience/Unit

RNN - Revolutionary News Network by NYSATL


Subject

English Language Arts (2005), Social Studies, English Language Arts (NYS P-12 Common Core), Social Studies (NYS K-12 Framework Common Core), Literacy in History/Social Studies (NYS 5-12 Common Core)

Grade Levels

Intermediate, 5th Grade, 7th Grade


Learning Context/ Introduction

While RNN- Revolutionary News Network was submitted and peer reviewed as a Social Studies learning experience, it was created by a social studies and an English teacher working together.

Objective:
This seventh grade, interdisciplinary Social Studies/English classroom activity is meant to make historical events "come alive" for students while integrating reading, writing and research skills that are an integral part of the seventh grade Social Studies and English programs.

Working both individually and in cooperative learning groups in their English and Social Studies classes, students engage in research and writing tasks in order to produce a program on the American Revolution in the form of a news broadcast on RNN- Revolutionary News Network.

Duration

Planning:

  1. Two, forty-five minute, team-planning periods for designing cooperative groups for approximately seventy-five students.
  2. Two, forty-five minute, team-planning periods to establish calendar, schedule library visitation, and organize materials for photocopying and distribution.
Implementation:
  1. Two weeks for studying historical events/teaching English lessons.
  2. Four days in the library.
  3. Four days writing, preparing scripts, visuals and props.
  4. Two days videotaping in Social Studies/English classes.
  5. One day viewing and reviewing with classes.
Assessment:
Five, forty-five minute, planning periods for grading rough drafts/final products.

Instructional/Environment Modifications

Instructional Modifications

  • Students are encouraged to choose novels and tasks in accordance with their abilities and talents. The three novels have different reading levels. During different class periods, a special education teacher or aide assists all students who seek help.
  • Cooperative groups are carefully organized to include different abilities and talents.
Environmental Modifications
  • The social studies/English classrooms change from centers of direct instruction to workplaces for research, discussion and creation of visuals and scripts. Individual desks are combined in a variety of formations to facilitate workstations for various tasks.
  • Students move freely in groups between various designated spaces to complete tasks. Such tasks include prop making in the social studies classroom to quiet writing area in English.

Procedure

What the Students Do:
In Social Studies:

  • Students study the events leading to, during, and resulting from the American Revolution.
  • Students review the elements of a political cartoon.
In English:
  • Students read and discuss historical novels in English class. (See bibliography under Resources)
  • Students create and then dramatize a scene from a Revolutionary War novel.
  • Students analyze the elements of a good book review and then write one.
  • Students analyze types of news articles and headlines.
  • Students learn interviewing techniques.
  • Students create a commercial for a colonial product.
In Social Studies and English:
  • Students are divided into cooperative groups by their Social Studies/English teachers and choose a historic topic on which to focus their broadcast. Each member of the group has read one of three novels on the American Revolution.
  • Students are each responsible for producing a particular piece of the newscast. They work cooperatively to help each other with their particular task and to create a unified news segment.
  • Students utilize the resources of the school library and the computer lab for research and preparation of their assigned work. They gather and organize their information and visuals. (see bibliography under Resources)
  • Each student works to produce his or her individual task and then to tie their individual pieces together with leads and transitions to create an organized script.
  • Students create visuals and props for their presentations.
  • Students practice and improve their final products before taping their performance.
  • Students perform their final products.
  • Students review their final products and their rubrics, which were utilized for grading.
What the Teacher Does:
  • Teach the necessary historical information.
  • Review and reinforce recognizing important elements in political cartoons and writings, which clearly express a point of view.
  • Teach the necessary language arts skills for the production of an interview, book review, news article and commercial.
  • Divide students into balanced cooperative groups considering the specific novels read.
  • Assist the students in the task of researching in which they gather, analyze and organize information from a variety of sources. Provide the necessary historical resources for research.
  • Encourage students to think critically and creatively to produce their final product.
  • Check student progress by reading first drafts of written products and writing suggestions for improvements, as well as talking with the student.
  • Monitor individual student progress and cooperative group progress to be sure students are on schedule in producing the final product.
  • Videotape and show the final product.
  • Assess the final products utilizing rubrics designed for each task.
  • Review the rubric grades and discuss the experience with each student.

Why the Fifty Year Perspective on each Revolutionary War Event?

  • Students can include more in the interviews of people
  • Students can reflect upon the meaning of the person's life or on an event's causes and effects.
  • This time lapse allows for analysis and evaluation of an event, forcing students to demonstrate higher level thinking skills, such as an understanding of cause - effect relationships.
The following materials are distributed to students to guide them through the assigned work.
  • Click Here for RNN Handouts

    • Resources

    No extraordinary or unique materials are needed.

    • Teachers do have to prepare research materials of secondary and primary sources (See bibliography).
    • A video camera, video tape and a VCR are also needed.
    • Students will need props, costumes, and/or the materials to make these items.
  • English Bibliography
  • Social Studies Bibliography and Reference Material

    • Assessment Plan

    Click on the link below for the rubrics:

  • Book Review Rubric
  • Political Cartoon Rubric
  • Voice and Material Rubric

    • Student Work

    Types of Student Work:

  • Individual student articles on battles
  • Individual written interviews with historic figures or with those who have known these leaders, taking into account the fifty-year perspective.
  • Video tape of individual performances
  • Video of the total news show


    • Teacher Comments on Student Work:
  • The final product was a videotaped broadcast, which included a commercial, news article, interview, book review and political cartoon.

    • Authors

    Joanne Kroon and Susan Wnuk, Northport-East Northport Union Free School District

    Reflection

    Our Reflections on this Learning Experience:

    1. It requires that students think critically and creatively to utilize writing and speaking skills to analyze and interpret moments in the past.
    2. These activities are enjoyable, creative, real for students and teachers, and demand students' best efforts in scholarship and writing.
    3. This lesson makes historical events "come alive" for students as they read about people and events of the past and learn to walk in their shoes.
    4. It makes learning purposeful.
    5. It results in a "real" viewable final product.
    6. This can be used in every district. It was designed for and works most effectively in a heterogeneous, inclusionary classroom.
    7. We have found that both the brightest and weakest students learn more through highly structured working cooperative activities such as this one.
    8. The two of us work as part of a middle school team. It is easiest to create groups when both of us teach the same period because it gives us greater student choice. However, we have done it when we didn't have the same exact schedule, but we had to modify our product.
    9. RNN- Revolutionary News Network is not the only activity that integrates Social Studies and English in our classrooms. We do three major cooperative interdisciplinary activities per year and take three field trips with our team which integrates mathematics and science into their itinerary.


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