TITLE OF THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE:To Strike or Not?

1. LEARNING CONTEXT
Describe the purpose, objective, or focus of the learning experience, including:

• *The purpose of this Learning Experience is to help students understand how certain occupations going on strike can seriously affect peoples lives .

*Students need to know what the word "strike" means, reasons workers would want to go on strike, and how certain occupations going on strike could affect them.

• *Social Studies Standard 1: Important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions from New York State and the United States history to illustrate the connections and interactions of people and events across time and from a variety of perspectives.
• *Students will investigate key turning points in New York State and United States history and explain why these events or developments are significant.
• *English Language Arts Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.
• *Students will express opinions about events, books, issues, and experiences, supporting their opinions with some evidence.

2. PROCEDURE

As students enter the classroom they will be given an "admit slip." The students will then, individually respond in writing, to the statement on the "admit slip": "All groups of workers should have an unlimited right to strike." The students must indicate whether they agree or disagree with the statement and why. Anticipatory set- the teacher will have posted various news articles, taken from the internet, around the classroom. These articles will contain information on various occupations going on strike in recent years. The students will be given five minutes to review the articles placed about the room.

The teacher will then pass out a strike worksheet that the students will complete. The worksheet has listed various occupations and a scale ranging from "No right to strike" to "absolute right to strike." The teacher will then explain to the students that they are to place the letter of each occupation somewhere on the scale, indicating whether the occupations have a right to strike or not. Teachers should stress that the students must be able to logically defend their opinions and that there are not necessarily any right or wrong answers. This sheet will be completed individually by the students. The students will then be assigned small groups and they will discuss their placement of occupations in the small group discussion. This will be followed by a whole group discussion on each occupation, stressing some of the most controversial occupations, such as doctors, teachers etc. Students will discuss where and why occupations should be placed on the scale.

The teacher will then pass out a rubric for a short essay(attached) and explain to the students that they will be writing a short essay, for homework, on whether all occupations have an unlimited right to strike or not. In their essay, the students must include three occupations, one they placed from each end of the scale and one they placed in the middle. They must defend and use detailed examples of why they placed these occupations where they did. Essays will be due in class the next day. Before leaving class, at the end of the lesson, the students must fill out an "exit slip" evaluating the class discussion and telling whether they stuck by their original opinion about strikes or not.

3. INSTRUCTIONAL/ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATIONS

* Students will be working in small cooperative groups after individual work where they will be able to gain insight and ideas from other students. The whole group discussion should also help students when writing their short essay.

4. TIME REQUIRED

• *Planning-Thirty minutes to one hour. Time must be spent creating the strike worksheet and the short essay rubric.
• *Class period-40 Minutes. This learning experience should take about two days to implement.
• *Assessment of short essays- 30 minutes to one hour- with rubric.

5. RESOURCES

*student- paper for essay, pen/pencil

*teacher-admit slip, exit slip, strike worksheet, short essay rubric, internet articles

6. ASSESSMENT PLAN

• *The teacher will use large group discussion and observation to collect evidence of student progress toward meeting the learning standards. The teacher will use a short essay rubric to document student progress. The admit slips/exit slips will be the students way of reflecting on what they have learned.

8. REFLECTION

• *This lesson was developed to help students understand the importance of strikes throughout the history of the United States and connect it to present day. The students will also need to form an opinion and be able to support it with evidence.