Why Teens? How Them?

Unit: Dane County Teen Homelessness Unit Essential Questions: How and why does teen homelessness occur? What can we do to help Madison area homeless teens? What makes music political, and how can it help spread awareness? Matthew Belz 50 Minutes April 8th, 2012 7th Grade Social Studies

Materials: o Projector o Pen & paper for overhead o Cornell Note Sheets o CNN Student News o Short Response Worksheet Prep: o Organize Make Room For Youth guest speaker to come into class o Invite school social worker o Create and print short response worksheet o Write the new lesson guiding questions under the unit essential questions on the side chalk white board MMSD Curriculum Standards: o Behavior Sciences Identify common problems, needs and behaviors of people from similar and different environments and cultures. (S) NCSS Standards: o Power, Authority, and Governance enable learners to describe the ways nations and organizations respond to forces of unity and diversity affecting order and security Elementary Education Standards o Standard 2: Understands the Social Context of Schooling Being a government employee as a teacher, one specific function of teaching is to teach students about democracy and citizenship. Students in this lesson will be learning about other citizens lives, specifically people their own age who are homeless. There is a small population of students in Cherokee Middle School who are homeless or are in transition at this time, so this lesson is relevant to their lives and the classroom community. o Standard 6: Teachers use the knowledge and abilities necessary for collaboration with individuals, groups and agencies within the school and community By having a local non-profit organization come in and give a guest lecture about the issue I am drawing upon, and collaborating with, a group within the local community. o Standard 11: Uses Technology Students will be watching CNN Student News, an online news program we watch each day. Lessons Guiding Questions: o What is Make Room for Youth? o What are some risk factors associated with teens becoming homelessness? o What are some common reasons teens may become homeless? Lesson Context: o The previous day we had read about a local non-profit organization that aims to help local teens who are homeless. We also watched a video produced by the organization in preparation for our unit on teen homelessness in Dane County. For this lesson I got ahold of the non-profit and organized for one of their outreach personnel to come in and be a guest speaker for the class. The

students the day before had also written out three questions they had for the guest speaker on their short response worksheet. Lesson Opening: o I will begin the lesson by having one of the students hand out each students work folders. The students will then be asked to pull out their homework. I will then put on CNN Student News. This is a program which we watch each day in an attempt to bring national and world news into the classroom. During the video students will take at least three separate notes about things they noticed or learned during the program. This is also something we do each day. During the video I will stamp students homework if they completed it. After the video I will ask students what were some things that they took notes on. This should be a short discussion. Procedural Steps: o After CNN Student News I will then have one of the students read off of the chalk board our guiding questions for todays lesson. I will then tell the students that we have a special guest today. I will tell them that our guest speaker will have time for us to ask him/her questions. I will ask the students that if those are our guiding questions, would those be specific questions we may want to ask our guest speaker? I will then give the students 2-3 minutes to write down at least two questions other than our guiding questions that they would like to ask the guest speaker on their Cornell notes from CNN Student News. Then I will introduce the guest speaker. Lesson Closure: o After the conclusion of the guest speaker I will wrap up the lesson by handing out a short response worksheet to the students. I will read through all three of the questions that the students are expected to answer, and describe that I would like 2-5 complete sentences for each response, reminding them what is entailed in a complete sentence. The students will have the remainder of the hour to complete the worksheet. Filling out the worksheet will be homework if they do not finish in class, and is will be used to help the students debrief and synthesize what they observed during the guest speaker, and set us up for our future classes. The three questions are: What are some risk factors associated with teen homelessness? What are some common reasons for teen homelessness? What are some different things you as an individual could do to help Make Room For Youth as an organization? Timing: o CNN Student News, with discussion, will take roughly 10 minutes o Going over guiding questions and brainstorming new question for the guest speaker should take roughly 2-5 minutes o The guest lecture should take around 30 minutes o The remainder of the class period will be time for the students to work on the short response worksheet. Assessment Strategies: o Students will be assessed during CNN Student News by making sure each student wrote down three things they noticed or learned on their note sheets. o Students will be formally assessed on their short response worksheets, as they will be handing them in the following day.