Reflection Ancient Egypt Unit Lesson Plans

Primary Standard #7
Associated Standards #1, #3, #4, #5, #6, #8
The purpose of this assignment was to develop a comprehensive unit for Social Studies. My
initial idea was to do a unit on Ancient Egypt for 6 th Grade. Immediately I got busy gathering
information, articles, books, activities, and various things I thought would be interesting and
informative to the students. Everything I acquired was good, however, I didnt have a plan.
I quickly realized that for a unit to have shape and direction, there needs to be a purpose and a
goal. This is where I learned that developing the Understanding, Essential Questions, and then
the final Authentic Assessment, were the first things to accomplish. Following that, the pieces
that go inside of the plan can be constructed to meet these requirements and guidelines.
It was nice to have those objectives to work for and for me to focus on as I developed this unit.
The assignment of developing a complete unit plan for Social Studies has made me aware of
many different aspects of teaching that could often times be overlooked.
1. Time management Creating a lesson that is comprehensive and integrated, as well as
within the students attention span, is critical. A big lesson needs to be broken down into
manageable, daily lessons which will enable students to get the most benefit.
2. Integration Integrating different subjects into a unit/lesson helps tie the content to
other areas of study so that there is a building of information and concepts.
3. Fun should have a tie-in If a creative arts aspect is incorporated into a lesson, it is
critical that it has some connection and relevance to the content of the unit.
4. Authentic Assessment Do it first, work backwards, be detailed in your expectations.
5. Think big Plan small Its OK to have a big plan, but for it to be effective, that plan
needs to be broken down into small, manageable parts.
6. Tie it to the core Tie the content to the core. Almost anything you want to teach can be
tied to the core.

7. Oops If it doesnt work, move on and pretend everything is OK. Then, make changes
for next time.
8. Real life Students will do better if they can relate some aspect of the lesson to their
daily life.
9. Passion Find a part of the lesson that you are passionate about. Even if the rest isnt
compelling, there will be something you can be excited about.
10. Narrow it down The available resources are enormous. Keep it narrow and focused.
11. Ask Ask for help. Someone has already done something similar, or has confronted the
same issues or problems. Its OK to get help.
12. Share If you share, someone else will share. Collaboration is a lifesaver and can keep
you sane.

Comments and feedback on Ancient Egypt Unit Spring 2015

Grant, you certainly have a lot of material here and it was interesting to go through and see what
resources you used to develop your understanding of ancient Egypt. Heres how it breaks down
on the rubric: Goals: Your understanding and essential question focus on providing students with
opportunities to take what they learn and use it creatively, flexibly and in meaningful ways both
in the classroom and beyond. You intentionally tie the religion and culture of Egypt to our culture
here, and ask students to consider the ways in which religion shapes culture. These get to the
heart of your topic and encourage inquiry and open-mindedness in their answers. Based on these
questions/understandings we would expect to see students thinking about religion and the ways
in which Egyptian culture shaped our society every day of your unit. Finally, the tasks and
knowledge you identify as goals of the unit clearly support your understandings. You outline
basic vocabulary and topics from ancient Egypt that students will be able to compare/contrast
with our own society. Youve laid these out extremely clearly, and the natural progression of the
unit is set up well in this section. Youve done an excellent job on this section, as it is extremely
clear

and

streamlined.

Youve

scored

in

the

Mastery

range. Assessments:

Your

assessments/performance tasks provided some complex, open-ended questions that push students
to think critically. You use questions following your readings/research to great effect throughout
the unit. These make it clear that you are asking students to really synthesize the material and

think critically. One thing that I notice is that while you often ask students to consider
connections to religion most days, you dont always reflect on this in big group discussion. I
would do this so that you are able to assess their progress in this area as an entire group, address
misconceptions that arise daily, and allow them to share their ideas with each other. Also, your
authentic assessment could use a bit more detail and tie in to the essential questions. As you have
it written, it seems like a basic reporting of the facts. In conversation with you, my understanding
is that they will be tying things more directly to how Egypt connects with our modern culture.
Making this clear in the student prompt will make this clearer for students and more cohesive
from a lesson planning standpoint. On day 7 and 8, you dont articulate how you assess students
based on understanding of the big questions. These days still seem largely like fun activities
where they get to do some play without any overt connection to your large goals. They should
connect clearly and make them think critically about how either religion influences society or
how Egypt has influenced our culture. Overall, your assessments allow students to engage in
material creatively in the classroom, and with adjustments to the authentic assessment, you will
more clearly provide them with complex challenges that historians would face in the real world.
For the reasons Ive outlined above, at this point, youve scored in the proficient range in this
area. Id be happy to take revisions to the authentic assessment, however, which would raise you
into the mastery range. Learning Activities: Your learning activities have clear performance goals
on days 1-6 and are very specifically connected to your overarching understandings. You have
woven the themes of your unit throughout, and improved this considerably from the last draft I
saw. As I mentioned above, I would spend a bit more time in group discussion talking about the
essential questions, rather than just relegating them to the small group work where they might get
overlooked or forgotten by students. Since these are clearly the focus of the unit, focus on them
overtly every day. The learning activities in days 7 and 8 are fun, to be sure, but tying them more
overtly into the essential questions will better give students the opportunities to practice skills
needed to accomplish these goals. For the majority of this unit, you provide students with
opportunities/tools/knowledge/experiences to meet your performance goals. You have considered
student needs well throughout and made some solid accommodations throughout. One thing that
I dont see overt evidence of is students getting to revise their work, and while you do come back
to the question of the influence Egypt had on our culture, you could use this more specifically
throughout, asking them at the beginning and then to reflect on how far their understanding has

come over the course of the unit. Overall, youve done a very good job on this section. It is full
of interesting, engaging activities. You clearly put in a lot of work to make the diverse topics
support your big goals. Youve scored on the proficient/mastery line in this area for the reasons
Ive outlined above. Overall, Grant, youve done an amazing job on this project. Your hard work
and attention is evident throughout and I am very impressed how well you used the revision
process. If youd like to submit any changes, you may do so up until the last day of class.
Heather Batchelor, Apr 16 at 12:29pm

Grant, your changes to this unit make it much more cohesive and tied to the overarching goals.
Your clarification on the authentic assessment also make it more focused. Well done here.
Heather Batchelor, Apr 26 at 4:27pm