SUBJECT: Language Arts, Social Sudies

GRADE: Third

TECHNOLOGY: Internet, Desktop Publishing

BY: Leigh Gayton

Designing Advertisements for the Third Grade

International Dining Festival

Subject/Grade Level:

This will be a cross-curricular activity, involving work in Social Studies, Reading/Language Arts, and Technology, for a class of third grade students. This assignment will be one of many included in a unit about Europe and European cultures.

Lesson Note:

Both Ms.Young’s and my class will be participating in this unit. Ms.Young’s students will be preparing the menus for the restaurants which my students will be attempting to advertise. My student groups will be working closely with those in Ms.Young’s class. A culminating activity for our unit will be an International Dining Festival in which members of our grade team will have an opportunity to try foods from the different “restaurants”. View the related lesson.

Objectives:

1. Student groups will design at least 10 questions regarding information they wish to include on their flyer about their assigned country.

2. Students will research their questions and find answers.

3. Using the information gathered from research and their own creativity, student groups will:

A. Prepare a first draft by hand of the flyer advertising menus for restaurants created in Ms.Young’s class. Flyers will be for an audience of third graders,

B. Prepare final flyer on the computer.

4. Students will work as members of a team.

Materials:

1. Samples of travel, hotel and restaurant brochures and advertisements (AAA, travel agent samples, etc.)

2. Resources for research either on reserve in the library or in the classroom, should include encyclopedias, nonfiction books on the subject matter, magazines, newspapers, travel guide books, etc.

3. Access to and ample time on the computer (Internet access for research and Word Processing Software for design of flyers) and a printer

4. Markers, glue, rulers, tape, and accessories to decorate flyers

5. Plenty of standard size paper in a variety of colors to use for printing final flyers

6. Copies of all evaluation forms

Lesson Description:

Before beginning this assignment, I will gather the appropriate materials for my classroom and the library. I will meet with the media specialist and librarian so they will be aware of what is to be expected of my students. This lesson will be introduced approximately 2 weeks into the unit on Europe. In class, students here on out will be addressed as representatives of their assigned country whose job it is to create an advertisement that will make the guests of our International Dining Festival want to go to their country’s restaurant first on the day of the event.

First I will introduce the assignment and the representatives will receive a copy of the evaluation criteria which will be used to evaluate their work and we will go over all expectations and questions. After introducing the assignment to the students, I will put students into groups of 3 or 4 and assign one country to each group. Each team will receive the menu for the restaurant they will need to advertise. The countries we have chosen to include are Spain, France, Italy, England, Switzerland, and Germany. After assigning the groups, students will meet together and look over the travel, hotel and restaurant brochures and flyers I have gathered. This will give them an opportunity to see examples, begin brainstorming on ideas for their own work and figure out what they want and need to include in the advertisements. We will also discuss special features some of the samples we examined contained and start the creative juices flowing.

Students will prepare a list of questions to which they wish to seek answers and decide who will research what questions. They should use the evaluation criteria as a guide of what to look for but include some questions of their own. Before beginning research, each team must submit their list of questions to me. Students will be given ample time, approximately 3 days, to conduct research during our daily Writer’s Workshop and designated library time. Each day, we will have Representative Meetings in which teams will meet to check on progress and plan what needs to be done using the evaluation criteria and their team’s original questions as a guide.

Once the representatives feel they are prepared enough to begin designing the advertisement and have obtained the appropriate information, the designing and creating phase begins. Representative groups will prepare a plan for the flyer being sure to include all required information and anything extra before they may get on the computer and begin working. We will have a minilesson reminding students the importance of considering your audience when writing. Students will be given sufficient time to work on the computer working through drafts and making changes. This should take 3 days, but I will be flexible based on the students and their work. Once each group has created a final advertisement, each team will receive 7 copies of the flyer, all 8.5x 11 inches. They may use additional decorations and add any finishing touches that they feel are necessary. Groups will meet again with the final products and decide where they want to put the flyers around school. I will find out any guidelines and school policies that we must follow before planning the placement of the flyers. We will discuss the rules and possible strategies to consider. After the groups decide where to hang the flyers and I approve it, two members from each team may go out and put them up- only in the areas decided upon before. This should happen at least 3 days before the International Dining Festival so that other students in our team can have the opportunity to see the flyers.

On the day of the International Dining Festival, upon entering, guests will fill out a ballot voting for which restaurant they wish to visit first and explaining briefly why. Teachers in the other classes can prepare this in class ahead as a small writing or journal assignment. This will help all of us in figuring out which flyers seemed to be the most effective and why. One of the last parts of the assignment and one of the exciting is attending the International Dining Festival. Once it is over, we will gather back as a class and discuss the ballots the guests turned in, what worked, what didn’t and what they would change about their flyers. It is at this time that students will fill out an evaluation of every member of their group, including themselves.

Evaluation:

Students will be evaluated by groups and individually. Each team will receive a score for the assignment and each representative will receive and individual score as well. This allows for group and individual accountability.

Objective 1: Part I of Evaluation Criteria: looks at quality and quantity of questions designed

Objective 2: Part III, #9 on Evaluation Criteria: takes into consideration the type and accuacy of information included on flyer. I will also observe interaction in Representative Meetings to ensure that students are remaining on task and keep focused to answering the questions at hand.

Objective 3A: Part II of Evaluation Criteria: looks to see if students have an appropriate plan for their flyer

Objective 3B: Part III and IV of Evaluation Criteria: the gist of the assignment, the final

product; will look at what was included, was it accurate, effective and creative

Objective 4: I will look at the student evaluations of members of their team (50%) and refer to my own observations (50%) gathered through out the process which I have recorded daily in a folder for future reference. This will constitute the individual score for each student.