Informational Essay
Essential/Focus Questions
How do I engage with ideas through interaction with texts and people to participate responsibly as a global citizen?
How can I inform myself about issues that impact the daily lives of global citizens?
What is at stake if citizens in the 21st century do not recognize their part in social issues?
Key Concepts
digital media and research
multi-media
digital products (podcast, etc)
collaborative research
primary research
secondary research
How do I engage with ideas through interaction with texts and people to participate responsibly as a global citizen?
How can I inform myself about issues that impact the daily lives of global citizens?
What is at stake if citizens in the 21st century do not recognize their part in social issues?
Key Concepts
digital media and research
multi-media
digital products (podcast, etc)
collaborative research
primary research
secondary research
Assessment Tasks
Formative Assessment Task:
What are the causes and effects of your chosen social issue? After researching your chosen social issue, review your reading log and state your theory/informed view and support it with evidence from your research.
Create a bibliography of your sources.
Summative Assessment Task:
When does a daily problem become a social issue? After critically reading a variety of print, visual and audio texts on social problems, do individual multi-media research to examine a single social issue of personal interest. Create a multi-media product that analyzes the causes and effects of this social issue. What short and long range implications can you draw? What solutions can you offer? Support your discussion with evidence from secondary research.
Formative Assessment Task:
What are the causes and effects of your chosen social issue? After researching your chosen social issue, review your reading log and state your theory/informed view and support it with evidence from your research.
Create a bibliography of your sources.
Summative Assessment Task:
When does a daily problem become a social issue? After critically reading a variety of print, visual and audio texts on social problems, do individual multi-media research to examine a single social issue of personal interest. Create a multi-media product that analyzes the causes and effects of this social issue. What short and long range implications can you draw? What solutions can you offer? Support your discussion with evidence from secondary research.
Intellectual Processes
- self-generating a timely topic connected to social issues
- developing and narrowing an inquiry
- researching to identify authorities and facts (secondary research) about an inquiry
- researching to generate new information (primary research) about an inquiry
- identifying influences and implications
Resources
Ted Talks
Google Scholar
David S. Landes: “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some are so Poor”
Books:
Social Problems and the Quality of Life by Jeannette Lauer
Websites
- Hans Rosling: New Insights on Poverty
- Jonathan Klein: Photos that Changed the World
- Joel Burns: It Gets Better
- Class Matters - Social Class in the United States of America -www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211987961064719.html#project%3DPERSONALITY08%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive
- US Census Bureau: factfinder.census.gov
Google Scholar
David S. Landes: “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some are so Poor”
Books:
Social Problems and the Quality of Life by Jeannette Lauer
Websites
- You might want to visit some of the following websites for a list of social issues and other helpful links.
- http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/2740
- http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/2547
- http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/2081
- http://edtc5335.pbworks.com/w/page/18586448/FrontPage
- http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/2942
- http://digitalis.nwp.org/sites/default/files/files/94/Digital%20Age%20Best%20Practices.pdf
- http://www.socialactioncollective.blogspot.com/
- Beyond Bullet Points:Using Microsoft PowerPoint to create presentations that inform, motivate and inspire by Cliff Atkinson www.beyondbulletpoints.com
- Visual Teams:Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation, & High Performance by David Sibbet
- The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks
- Gamestorming:A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo
- Idea Mapping: How to Access your Hidden Brain Power, Learn Faster, Remember More, and Achieve Success in Business by Jamie Nast