Title Content Area(s)

Death Traps? History and Social Sciences, English Language Arts, Information Technology

Sub Content Area(s)

Inquiry; Civics, Government, and Society; Reading; Writing; Education Technology

Grade Level(s) Overview

11, 12

Strand(s)/Domain(s):
Inquiry; Civics, Government, and Society; Analysis and Interpretation of Informational Text/Citing Evidence; Writing in Response to Literary or Informational Text; Informational Writing: Reports; Basic Operations and Concepts, Communication

Recommended Length/Duration:
7 Days

Learning Goals:
Essential Question: Are our roads safe? Students will be able to... - Ask focusing, probing, and significant research questions that will lead to independent research and incorporate concepts of personal, community, or global relevance - Identify tools and procedures needed for collecting, managing, and analyzing information, including a plan for citing sources - Determine the best ways to present data - Referring to and following a detailed plan for a complex inquiry - Locate relevant materials such as print, electronic, and human resources - Revise the research plan and locate additional materials and/or information, as needed - Cite sources - Organize and display information in a manner appropriate to the research statement - Revise the research plan and locate additional materials and/or information, as needed - Predict and/or recommend how conclusions can be applied to other civic, economic or social issues - Use research results to support or refute the original research statement - Propose solutions to problems based on findings, and ask additional

questions - Develop and give oral, written, or visual presentations for various audiences - Solicit and respond to feedback - Point out possibilities for continued or further research - Analyze impacts of peoples actions as members of a global community - Demonstrate positive interaction with group members - Identify problems, propose solutions, consider the effects of and implement a course of action in the local community, state, nation, or world - Explain and defend their own point of view on issues that affect themselves and society, using information gained from reputable sources - Select key ideas to set context appropriate to audience - Use specific details and references to text or specific citations to support interpretative claims - Organize ideas so that the reader can easily follow the writers line of thinking, using effective transitions, and drawing a conclusion by synthesizing information - Use an organizational text structure appropriate to focus/controlling idea - Use transition words or phrases appropriate to organizational text structure - Draw a conclusion by synthesizing information from report and relating it to broader ideas/concepts - State and maintain a focus/controlling idea/thesis

Description and Sequence Description/Sequence: Sessions 1-2 a. Show the students a picture of the wreckage of a serious traffic accident in which people died, along with the question, Are our roads safe? Ask for volunteers to share their opinions with the class. Ask the students how many of them have their drivers license, and took drivers education classes. Ask them what they learned in their drivers education classes about safe driving. b. Show them the quote by Samuel Johnson, People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. Ask the students if they agree with the statement and why. Ask them how the statement might be related to the topic of safe driving. Ask them if there are any other factors beside safe driving that effect the safety of Vermont roads. c. Ask them if there is anything they can do as a class to make Vermont roads safer, and have them use a graphic organizer such as Inspiration to brainstorm as a class what they can do. When finished, remind them to

revise the list by deleting redundant or unhelpful ideas (their remaining ideas might include reminding drivers of safe driving practices, reminding drivers of the leading causes of accidents, reminding drivers of accident statistics, reminding/educating people of the need to maintain their automobiles, educating drivers on the most unsafe intersections and roads in Vermont (based on accident records), etc.). Encourage the students to create an informational video for their peers and the wider community to help make Vermont roads safer for everyone. Ask them to brainstorm ideas for how they can present their finished video to reach as many as possible, and then to decide on the way or ways they will choose. d. Ask the students to break up into small groups (of perhaps 4 to 5 people each, depending on the number of students and the number of ideas they brainstormed), and have each group conduct research on a different idea (allow them to choose which ones) and create pages on a class wiki (that you have created for the project prior to the lesson) to record their findings. Remind them to properly cite their sources. Inform the students that, following their completion of the project, each of them will write a detailed report assessing their own and their group members contributions toward the completion of the project, so they should each do their best to contribute. Sessions 3-4 e. Inform each group that they should next evaluate and synthesize their research findings to create a script or outline for a video presentation covering the idea they researched. Tell them to ask additional questions based on their findings and to conduct additional research if needed. Tell the class that they will later combine the videos from the groups to make a final class video. Also, ask each group to designate a person within their group to act as a coordinator to oversee the writing of their script and the creation of their video. Tell them that the coordinator will meet with the coordinators from each of the other groups to better ensure that the group videos flow together to form a unified whole when they are combined. f. When the group scripts/outlines are complete, ask each group to create a VoiceThread and upload their script/outline to it so the other groups can give their feedback. Ask the groups to revise their scripts/outlines based on the feedback they receive, as needed. g. Ask the coordinators to review the finished scripts/outlines for smooth transitions at the beginning and end of each and to determine the order of the group videos in the finished video. Ask them to add an introduction to the first script/outline and a conclusion or ending at the end of the last script/outline. Ask them to present their work to the class for their

approval or feedback. Ask them to revise it as needed, based on the feedback/input from the other students. Sessions 5-7 h. Ask the groups to create their videos using video cameras and/or programs on their computers, and to upload them to their VoiceThreads for feedback from the other groups. Ask them to edit/revise their videos as needed. i. Ask the students to combine their videos to make their final video presentation, and to publish/broadcast it in the ways they decided at the beginning of the project. j. Ask the students to assess, in a detailed report, the contribution they and each of their group members made toward the completion of the project.

Formative Assessment:
- Discussions with students - Research findings recorded in the wiki - Group scripts/outlines and videos - Observations of students progress

Summative Assessment:
- Final group videos and final class video - Student assessments of self and group members