Marzano Lesson Plan: Vocabulary and Graphic Organizers

Summary: This lesson plan is designed to be used over an entire Civil war Unit using the Episodal Pattern Graphic Organizer, Marzano's Vocabulary Strategy and Classroom Practice in Summarizing.

Materials:

• Episodal Pattern Organizer (Marzano Pg. 77)
• Teacher vocabulary definitions and linguistic representations (Marzano Pg. 128)
• eMedia video "Causes of the Civil War"
• Various reference Materials

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to describe the political and economic factors that contribute to the Civil War. Students will be able to see that the Civil War was more complex than just the issue of slavery and abolition of slavery. Students will know important historical individuals from the Civil War. Students will discuss and be able to list major battles and events of the Civil War in a time line. Students will be able to recognize the effects of the Civil War and learn of reconstruction efforts. Students will be able to explain and use important Civil War vocabulary in an effective summary after the unit.

Marzano Strategies Covered

1. Classroom Practice in Vocabulary
2. Classroom Practice in Nonlinguistic Representations
3. Classroom Practice in Summarizing

Instructional Procedures

Activity 1 Vocabulary

Use Marzano's five-step process in teaching vocabulary to introduce and teach new terms throughout the unit. Begin with Pre-war vocabulary. Present students with a brief explanation of each word or phrase and a nonlinguistic representation. Draw a sketch of what the word or phrase means to you or what you picture in your mind. Then, as you teach the unit and refer to those terms, have students write their own brief explanation and draw their own nonlinguistic representations in their notes. Repeat this process throughout the unit, introducing words to be understood during the war, and after the war.

Activity 2 Episodal Pattern Graphic Organizer

Use Marzano's strategy, Classroom Practice in Nonlinguistic Representations, Graphic Organizers, to help students process and organize information throughout the Civil War Unit. The Episodal Pattern Organizer on pg. 77 of Marzano's book is used in this lesson plan, but other organizers could also work well. Use this organizer to pattern lessons, and have students fill in sections as appropriate.

Begin discussing the Causes of the Civil War. Break them down into three sections, economic, political, and slavery and have students use additional arrows to add these three main causes. Then watch the eMedia video, "Causes of the Civil War." Have students list other causes as they fit into each main category. You will then need to spend additional time in class focusing on specific causes.

There are many battles and events that a teacher could discuss during the Civil War. The Episodal Pattern Organizer provides space for 4-5, it might need to be expanded to include 10 main events. Choose about 10 main events that you feel need to be covered in depth. Have students add these events in the order that they occur on their time line as you discuss them.

Give students a list of important historical individuals to research. Have them use various informational sources (encyclopedia, Internet, atlas, almanac, etc.) to research these individuals and their connection to the Civil War. As these are researched, they may add them to their Episodal Pattern organizer

Discuss the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Have students list these under the categories of people, government and land as part of the graphic organizer. As each effect is discussed, they can list it under their main category.

Activity 3 Summary

Students will use their graphic organizers, learned vocabulary and acquired knowledge from the unit to construct a final summary of important information regarding the Civil War. Students should use their graphic organizer as an organizational tool in writing their summary. 1-2 paragraphs should focus on the causes, 1-2 on main battles and events, 1-2 on important historical figures, and 1-2 on the effects of the Civil War. Summaries should include appropriate use of vocabulary and show sufficient understanding.

Evaluation:

The final summary was used as the final test and evaluation of this unit. Students were asked to hand in graphic organizers, vocabulary, notes, and final summary for evaluation at the end of the unit.

Teacher Reflection:

Using Marzano's strategies, especially the Episodal Pattern Organizer, helped me to organize my Civil War unit before actually teaching it. It provided me an organized way to present information, and provided students a way to organize their information in an easy to follow visual. This also provided them with a guide as they wrote their summaries. I really liked the vocabulary strategy, and I am already using it in other content areas. Students are understanding and using the vocabulary in their discussions and summaries. The summaries I received at the end of the unit were insightful, mostly organized, and provided me with information about their learning, that I might not have gotten otherwise. Overall, I feel that these strategies were very effective in my classroom, and assisted in my teaching.