Language+Arts

=== Olympic Language Arts Lesson ===

State Content Standards

vocabulary.
 * Acquisition of Vocabulary: **Use knowledge of Greek, Latin and Anglo-Saxon roots and affixes to understand

Summarize the information in texts, using key ideas, supporting details and referencing gaps or contradictions. Writing Processes: **Use available technology to compose text.
 * Reading Process: Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self-Monitoring Strategies: **
 * 

present information that supports a clear position with organized and relevant evidence about the topic or research question.
 * Research: **Use a variety of comImunication techniques, including oral, visual, written or multimedia reports, to

information and descriptive details.
 * Communication: Oral and Visual: **Deliver formal and informal descriptive presentations that convey relevant

**Technology**: Students will be using the Internet for research, completing a web quest, use Microsoft Word to type their script and video-taping and playing back to watch their performances. ​ ** Description of Lesson :**

Olympic Tech Day will be described to students along with the lesson they will be creating for Language Arts. This lesson will be started two weeks before the Olympic Tech Day. Students will be matched with a partner. Partners will use the internet to research details of daily life in their assigned city-state. Students will complete a web-quest to guide their research. After their research is completed students will use Microsoft Word to create/write their script. Students will conference with their teacher during the writing process for editing suggestions and assistance.

Students will gather costumes and props for their performance. Students will practice their scripts before Olympic Tech Day. The whole class will be taught a lesson to learn and practice critiquing performances using appropriate positive and negative criticism. Students will also be taught a lesson and the class will practice and discuss appropriate techniques to be used when performing for an audience.

On Olympic Tech Day: students will perform their script for a student audience - student performances will be video-taped for later evaluation. Students watching the performances will critique student performances using criteria previously taught.

After Olympic Tech Day: students will watch the video-tapes so that they can evaluate their own performances to see areas they can improve on in the future.

To extend the lesson – students will write a persuasive essay about their Greek City-State. In their essay students need to persuade their reader that their Greek City-State is the best.  Websites for student research:

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[] [] [] [] [] [] [] <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.2pt; line-height: 115%;"> Scholarly Research <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">:

Using the internet for students to do research is a method that is used in many schools; the internet has the advantage that students do not need to have access to a library full of books and encyclopedias in order to do research. Research can be done any time there is a computer available. Research done by the ISTE Career Center states that “the internet can be an important component of a program that significantly increases student learning”.

The use of video-tape in the classroom is an effective tool for instruction it allows students to see their performances and evaluate for themselves the positive and negative aspects of their performance. According to Technologies for Teacher Professional Development, “whether it is used to support students or teachers, recorded video offers advantages that include reuse and schools’ control of the schedule. In addition, teachers (or students) can control the rate of presentation (freeze-frame, play, rewind, etc.), enabling viewing to be interspersed with discussion or specific sequences to be repeated”.

Technologies for Teacher Professional Development - Video Recording and Playback, Section 7, (2005). <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[]

ISTE Career Center for Educational Technology Jobs, Resources and Listings, (2000). []

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Tried and True or New and Innovative: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I think this lesson is an example of a tried and true technology method. The Internet has been used for research since the early 1990’s. Refinements of the internet and the use of search engines have made internet searches easier and much more stream-lined. The use of video-recording in the classroom has also been used for some time. Teachers taping student performances and playing them back in the classroom is an effective way for students to evaluate their own performances.