What is Happiness?

Subject Area(s):

• K-12: General
• K-12: Science
• K-12: Health
• K-12: Language Arts

Grade Level(s):

• 5th-6th Grade
• 7th-8th Grade

Description:

This lesson was designed for six grade students to become experts on Responding to Literature from reading Natalie Babbitt�s Tuck Everlasting. Students will answer questions from the bookshelf theme: We the People Bookshelf on the Pursuit of Happiness. Information will be gathered from multiple electronic and non-electronic sources and cited properly. The students will be actively engaged in a variety of stimulating activities developing social interaction skills, knowledge of computer systems and other pieces of technology, research, reading, critical thinking, and writing skills. Students will explore the "Life Cycle" and its importance of balance by creating a brochure, a newsletter or oral presentation, on the computer, using the builder website templates, about the spring water as a product. Students will also participate in a compare and contrast contest between the book and the movie.

Goals & Objectives:

Instructional Goals:

• Students will be able to successfully answer the information that they read about from the book.
• Students will gain a better understanding of how important happiness is in life.
• Students will gain a better understanding on comparing and contracting books to movies.
• Students will orally and visually share what they have learned the cycle of life.

Learning Objectives:

• Six grade students will perform a successful search of the Web resources and create documents based on the “Life Cycle.”With the information gained from the Web resources, students will be able to complete worksheets based on information literate from the reading.
• Students will work successfully to complete their assignments.
• Students will acquire enough information to orally and visually report their findings.
• Students will learn how to compare and contrast.

Motivational Goals:

• Generate interest in the research process.
• Build students’ confidence in their ability to learn and use information skills.
• Maintain students’ interest in the research process.
• Reinforce students’ confidence in their ability to learn and use information skills.
• Promote students’ satisfaction in their research accomplishments.
• Encourage students’ on-going confidence in their ability to learn and use information skills.

Materials:

See Supporting Files for complete lesson plan

buILder - http://www.informationliteracy.org/builder/view/1567/18805

Procedures:

See Supporting Files for complete lesson plan

Assessment:

See Supporting Files for complete lesson plan

Supporting Files:

• What_is_Happiness.doc
  Attached is my complete lesson plan

Standards:

National Information Literacy Standards (K-12)

Accesses information efficiently and effectively.

• Recognizes the need for information.

Evaluates information critically and competently.

• Determines accuracy, relevance and comprehensiveness.
• Selects information appropriate to the problem or question at hand.

Appreciates literature and other creative expressions of information.

• Develops creative products in a variety of formats.

Participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

• Shares knowledge and information with others.
• Respects others' ideas and backgrounds and acknowledges their contributions.

Information Skills and Subskills (K-16)

Definition

• Identifies requirements of research task

Planning

• Creates a general framework for organizing information found
• Identifies potential formats for presenting results

Collection

• Selects most appropriate information sources
• Locates relevant information within selected sources
• Identifies and extracts relevant information from selected sources
• Stores information for potential future use

Organization

• Summarizes/synthesizes/classifies final information
• Organizes final information for presentation

Presentation

• Selects most appropriate format for communicating results
• Presents results

Evaluation

• Evaluates end product
• Subject: K-12: Language Arts

National Content Standards (K-12)

Writing

• Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process
• Gathers and uses information for research purposes

Reading

• Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process
• Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts

Listening and Speaking

• Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes