Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level/Subject: 2nd, Social Central Focus: Identify and differentiate between primary
Studies and secondary sources, analyze photos using ELA strategy
asking who/what/when/where/why/how
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:
2.H.1 Understand how various sources provide information
about the past. Date submitted: Date
.3 Compare various interpretations of the same time period taught:
using evidence such as photographs and interviews.

Daily Lesson Objective: The student will be able to identify historical information, artifacts and
documents as primary or secondary sources and use them to investigate the past.

21st Century Skills: Academic Language Demand (Language Function and

Vocabulary):
Prior Knowledge: 1.H.1 Understand that history tells a story of how people and events changed
society over time.

Activity Description of Activities and Setting Time

Read quotes dedicated to the importance of history and
discuss the importance of history and accurate historical
information.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every
time we fall Confucius
We are not makers of history, we are made by history MLK
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to
repeat it George Santayana
Ask What do you think the authors wanted to tell us with
these quotes? Why do you think history is important? Where
do we get our historical information from? How do we know 5
1. Focus and Review
this information is accurate? minutes

Refresh asking who/what/where/when/why/how when looking

at or reading something new.
Ask students What is an important moment in history?
(famous speeches, historical days, figures, contributions)
Lets try to answer who/what/where/when/why/how questions
about that moment.
Who was involved? What was happening? Where did this
happen/start? When was this? Why did this happen? How did
it happen?

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2. Statement of Today you will learn to recognize sources as primary or
Objective secondary and discuss the varying values of sources.
for Student
Introduce primary sources as records from the past recorded
by people who were involved in the event, witnessed the
event, or knew persons involved in the event, also objects or
other visual evidence.
Introduce the idea that primary sources reflect one point of
view, often containing bias.
Look through examples and discuss why each source fits the
definition of primary. Books, magazines, newspapers contain
witnesses, diaries, journals, records are original authorship,
songs and poems are original authorship
https://www.slideshare.net/spinheiro79/primary-and-
secondary-sources-18545168 3-5
3. Teacher Input
minutes
Introduce secondary sources as made at a later time, after an
event has occurred. They can represent more points of view
and new information resulting in a more reliable account of
the event.
Look through examples and discuss why each source fits the
definition of secondary. Textbooks, biographies, history are
recounting events. Charts and graphs collect information.
https://www.slideshare.net/kmcclai2/primary-and-secondary-
source-game?qid=fcf56c59-4a65-4926-b719-
3d21edc94794&v=&b=&from_search=2

4. Guided Practice SW play a trivia game to identify a source as primary or 5

secondary. Show slides and have students raise one hand for minute
primary or two hands for secondary. trivia,
Discuss each source and what makes it a primary or 10
secondary source per the definitions reviewed. minute
https://www.slideshare.net/kmcclai2/primary-and-secondary- telephon
source-game?qid=3e25d5b4-efae-457a-88cb- e, 15
01c461eb8ce1&v=&b=&from_search=2 minute
Ask students Do you think this is a primary or secondary photo
source? What makes this a primary/secondary source? analyzin
g
SW play telephone with primary source information
In groups of 4-5 SW verbally pass primary source information
amongst each other privately to see how this information
changes from one person to the next and becomes
inaccurate.

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 Group 1: Persons Description 6 feet tall, wearing a red shirt
with white stripes and green running shoes, has long brown
hair
Group 2: Grocery list: Eggs, milk, bread, cookies, and orange
juice
Group 3: Locker combination 36 right, 24 left, 84 right, pull
down and unlock
Ask Did your primary source information turn out accurate?
Why or why not? What could you do to make sure the
information is accurate? What problems will there be when
information is passed and not accurate?

SW analyze photos from the past and discuss what they

think is going on in the photos using
who/what/where/when/why/how questions.
SW interpret a photograph by answering
who/what/where/when/why/how.
5. Independent 10
Practice minutes
Student will analyze 6 pictures of sources and circle the
primary sources.
Formative: During teacher input asking students how they know if it is
Primary - as records from the past recorded by people who were
involved in the event, witnessed the event, or knew persons involved in
the event, also objects or other visual evidence. Secondary made
after an event has occurred.
Note students that do not ask who/what/where/when/why/how when
6. Assessment analyzing photos.
Methods of
all Summative: Show students 6 photos Babylonian Cuneiform Tablet,
objectives/skills: Newspaper, Biography book, Personal Journal, Firsthand account of
speeches and behavior at a gathering, Pie chart on travelling methods
SW circle the 4 primary sources- Tablet, newspaper, Journal, Firsthand
account

SW analyze a photo and answer who/what/where/when/why/how

questions.
Have students discuss in groups how to recognize primary
and secondary sources, the importance of accurate
information, and the difficulties of analyzing photos without
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7. Closure any information to go along with the photo.
minutes

Discuss as a class why a person would include bias in a

source.

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 Primary source exit ticket: 100% 11 students (2 students added
8. Assessment biography), 75% 5 students (missed newspaper), 50% 1 student (missed
Results of newspaper and journal), 1 student circled all
all Photo analyzing exit ticket: 13 students answered all
objectives/skills: who/what/where/when/why/how, 5 students did not answer why/how and
2 of these students did not answer where.
Targeted Students Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations: Students Modifications/Accommodations: Early finishers
who struggle with focus are split in different group together to handle and discuss the value of
groups sources, students needing better vision of
smartboard can be moved to carpet
Materials/Technology: Smartboard or projection device, Quotes, Photos for students to analyze,
Primary/Secondary trivia link https://www.slideshare.net/kmcclai2/primary-and-secondary-
source-game?qid=b98a08f6-c5a1-4b28-86a3-c2b39c710d10&v=&b=&from_search=2, 3 primary
source lists for telephone activity, exit ticket

Reflection on lesson: Names, dates, important people and what they did, state capitals, history
booksThese are the types of things most of us remember from social studies, a lot of
memorization. The 2nd grade students were learning how to take in information and apply what
they learned from other studies such as positive character traits of people and problem solving
strategies. Primary and secondary source recognition went well, the students were amused that
primary sources included items like childrens diaries or drawings and Taylor Swift song lyrics,
this helped them understand the definition clearly. The idea behind the telephone game was to
show students how information can easily become inaccurate, it became more of a
demonstration then an experience due to my implementation of the activity, I gave too much
teacher input before starting and next time I would just run the activity and let the end results
aid our class discussion. When I made this lesson I put too much into one day. Primary/Secondary
source recognition and photo analyzing should have been split between two separate lessons, in
the end the photo analyzing portion did not cover the standard properly, and the exit ticket
showed no signs if the students understood how to analyze photos on their own without clear
prompts. I should have used lesson segmenting for this standard, the 15 minutes spent
analyzing photos wasnt a waste but it could have gone towards reinforcing primary/secondary
sources.

Improvements for further SS lessons include:

Bringing in sources to pass around. As I sit here at my desk reflecting, I see dozens of primary
and secondary sources around my study, allowing them to handle sources and look at examples
of the definitions would have improved this lesson and had a better impact on the students. I
resorted to the way I was taught SS, and not the way I was taught to teach SS.

Being more aware of the ELA crossover in the lesson when it came to the quotes at the start. I
had students read the quotes aloud to the class and did not put the quotes on the overhead
projector for them to see, which caused the impact of the quotes to be much less and took focus

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towards correcting vocabulary and definitions (condemned could have been changed). I should
have projected the quotes, allowed students to read and discuss them in peer groups, and then
share what they thought about the quotes with a class discussion.

Changes to the telephone activity. This activity was decent but it could have been great. I should
have split the students up into groups and given them primary sources to handle and analyze,
pass information along about the source to peers, and then discussed how/why the information
changed from person to person.

When it comes to my exit ticket I would make a complete change. Students looked at pictures of
sources and circled the primary, analyzed a photo and took what turned out to be a mini-test,
what a disaster in my opinion. The source recognition portion was decent and checked
understanding quickly but I am unsatisfied that I left it to pictures. Next time I would bring the
sources in for students to look at and handle if needed, and then answer primary or secondary
for each. The mini-test analyzing a photo belongs in the trash. This should have been another
lesson entirely with an exit ticket more along the lines of, analyze a photo and write out what
information you discovered, not leading prompts of who/what/why/where/when/how. I was trying
to bring together an ELA standard I previously taught the students and put them in a position to
use that knowledge.

I was able to work out a lot of troubles I had on lesson planning SS with my cooperating teacher
for my future, she showed me some great websites to look at and the lesson she would have
done. We were happy with the primary/secondary source portion of the lesson with some
adjustments that Ive already gone over, and later she demonstrated the lesson on analyzing
photos which was very helpful. My main setback was putting too much into one 50-minute lesson
period, in the future I need to focus on lesson units and how to scaffold to the completion of an
entire standard.