Networking for Peace

Unit Summary

Working along the Essential Question “How do you get along with others?”, the theme for this unit is achieving peace on earth. Through different activities, students will learn to value it and find ways on how to achieve it in practical means. Specifically, they will have an audio-visual activity on the song “Let There be Peace” and answer comprehension questions on it. They will send e-mails to their e-pals and to their teacher regarding their sincerity on achieving world peace. They will also read articles to know more on how people across the world work together. A comprehension check will follow. Then, students will be grouped to search the Internet for ways on how nations around the world exert effort to work along with each other and work hand in hand for peace. The result of their search will be presented in a newsletter. They will write a consolidated prayer for world peace and present it in a poster. Lastly, students will write a journal entry on what they learned from the activities.

Through these learning activities, students improve their oral and written communication skills, learn to locate and evaluate resources from the web, and use their previous experiences to strengthen understanding of world peace.

Curriculum-Framing Questions

• Essential Question
  How do you get along with others?
• Unit Questions
  How can I help others understand me?
  How can I understand you?
• Content Questions
  How do you improve your communication skills?
  How do you use your previous experiences to strengthen understanding of some issues?
  How do you locate resources?
  How you do evaluate information from sources read?
  How are articles in a newsletter written?

Instructional Procedures
Things to do before unit implementation (DOC):

• Send a letter to the principal telling about the unit implementation.
• Arrange a schedule with the computer teacher for reservation.
• Check if the computer lab equipments, software required and Internet connection, printer and LCD projector are available and are in working condition.
• Make a survey of students who have computers at home or students who can afford to rent computers outside the school.
• Make a survey of students who already know the software needed in the implementation of the unit plan.
• Set up a teacher-created Microsoft PowerPoint* presentation on “Let There be Peace on Earth” and news article from “Working Across the Border”.
  

Day 1

1. Students will be divided into groups. Each group will make a list of songs that have themes of peace and brotherhood. The group with the most number of songs will be declared as winner.
2. Teacher will ask students to think of possible key words used in the song “Let There be Peace”. Students then will listen to and read the lyrics of the song. They will match and add key words to their list as they listen to the song (PPT).
3. They will answer comprehension (PPT) questions about the song.
4. Students will be grouped by 5. Each group will write a consolidated e-mail to their e-pal and to the teacher. In the letter, they will discuss what they can do to bring peace on earth.
5. Students will have a choral singing of the song.

Days 2-5

1. Students will recall what they learned from the activity yesterday.
2. Students will read articles (DOC) clarifying how people across the world work together and answer questions (DOC) about these articles. These articles serve as springboard for their information search activity on the Internet.
3. The students will be divided into 12 groups. (The number of groups will depend on the number of students in the class.) They will search the Internet for the efforts of other nations in quest for peace.  Each group can also refer to printed materials like the newspaper.  The results will be presented in a newsletter. Their own ideas on how peace can be attained will be written in the editorial. The teacher will provide students with guidelines (DOC) on how they should develop their newsletter.
4. Each group will present their newsletter to class.
5. A rubric (DOC) will be used in evaluating the newsletter of each group.
6. Teacher also checks the newsletter and let students revise them after checking. The groups then reproduce copies of their newsletters (PDF) and distribute them to all classes in the fourth year. They can also choose to upload this as an online newsletter.

Day 6

1. Students will recall what they learned from the activities yesterday.
2. Each group will compose a prayer for world peace. Each group will present this to class using a PowerPoint presentation. Teacher will present the rubric for evaluating the prayer (DOC) of each group. Teacher will check each group’s prayer (PPT) prior to printing their presentations for posting around the campus.
3. As an assignment, students will write a journal on what they learned about the unit. The teacher distributes copy of the journal template (PDF) to students.

Day 7

1. Students will showcase their posters.
2. Some students will share their journals to the class.
3. Teacher will summarize key points.

Things to do after unit implementation

1. Clean up Favorites on computer and computer files.
2. Save student work on CD.
3. Return equipment.

Prerequisite Skills
Students should

• have an e-mail account and know how to send e-mails.
• know how to research in the Internet.
• know how to make a newsletter and a poster using Microsoft Publisher* and Microsoft PowerPoint*.

Differentiated Instruction
Resource Student

• Students will submit an album of pictures/articles promoting world peace.

Gifted Student

• Students will watch movies, television shows or series and write a review on it.

Student Assessment
Ongoing assessment will be done throughout the unit. The teacher will utilize oral recitation for the sharing of insights and students’ journals and e-mail write ups on achieving peace. Student’s technology-based outputs will be evaluated using the rubrics on newsletters (DOC) and prayers (in presentation format) (DOC).

Key Word Search

• Peace
• Insights
• Nations
• Learning
• English
• Language arts
• Communication

Credits
Ruchelle A. Baysan of Congressional National High School, Dasmariñas, Cavite, Philippines, participated in the Intel® Teach Program Training for Master Trainers last May 2005. She developed this unit plan idea during the training and implemented it in her English class for fourth year students last school year 2005-2006 in the fourth quarter. After implementation and together with her pedagogical support provider and the national team from UP NISMED, the plan was enhanced for future implementation. This is the enhanced version of Ms. Baysan’s unit plan.