Empower Students with Informational Text: How Students Can Impact Their School and Change the World
Aligned to standards RI.5.2: Determine two or more main ideas of a text, W.5.2: Write explanatory texts, RI.5.1: Quote accurately from a text
One surefire way to engage students is with engaging projects that help them “think big.” And, in an election year full of yuuuuge ambitions and interesting characters, there’s one that definitely gets our vote: Kid President!
We’re featuring a rigorous mini-project plan that empowers students to impact change in their school. The project plan includes differentiated student templates, is aligned to state standards, and helps sharpen students’ skills for analyzing informational text and summary writing.
The complete project plan is available here for download in Word or PDF format.
Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find included in the project plan:
- Students watch videos about three ways schools can become more environmentally responsible
- Students identify the main ideas and key details from each video and record these notes in a graphic organizer (printable included).
- Then, working in groups of three, students will choose one of the environmentally responsible practices and focus on it by reading an article, identifying the main ideas and key details, and recording these notes in a similar graphic organizer.
- Finally, students create a proposal to present to the class and school officials, informing their audience how they can adopt the environmentally responsible practice.
The detailed project packet/plan on goalbookapp.com includes:
- Engaging Hook — Hook students into the lesson with a video from Kid President and his message on how they can change the world.
- Applied Skills —Use reading strategies to identify main ideas and key details in informational texts and write summaries.
- Student Product—By the end of the week, students will write a proposal that encourages school officials to adopt environmentally responsible practice.
The complete project plan is available here for download in Word or PDF format.
