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Curriculum
Objectives
Materials and
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Investigations
and Other
Activities
Assessment
Reflections
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Activities
This unit can be as long or short as you desire. The
following is the timeline we used. Many activities can be deleted,
new ones could be added, and the the amount of time spent on each step may
vary from class to class and teacher to teacher.
Preliminary Activities:
The reading and discussing of King Arthur served as our springboard
into introducing the concept of "What Makes the Good
Life."
Timeline: 2 weeks
- Students will read "The Epic Hero: King Arthur" in World
Mythology by Donna Rosenberg and answer discussion
questions about the selection.
- Students will watch Excalibur.
- Students will identify and analyze components of "the good
life" based on the King Arthur reading selection and the movie
Excalibur. (handout)
- Students will complete
graphic organizers depicting how King Arthur envisioned "the
good life," what he did to make it a reality for himself, and what
obstacles he encountered and post them in the classroom.
Investigative Activities:
The following activities were guided activities that led the
students to begin thinking about "What Makes the Good Life."
Timeline: 4 weeks
- Students will complete graphic
organizers depicting how they envision "the good life,"
what they plan to do to make it a reality for themselves, and what obstacles
they anticipate encountering.
- Using their own graphic organizers, students will make "Camelot"
posters of their own visions of what makes "the good life";
the posters will include both words and pictures. (rubric)
- Students will examine
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Alderfer's Hierarchy of Motivational
Needs and determine how their posters meet the various needs according
to Maslow and/or Alderfer.
- Students will present their posters to their classmates. (guidelines)
- Students will complete the following online personality tests:
Kingdomality Personal
Preference Profile, Career
Interest Checklist, and
Merkler Style Preference Inventory (Kingdomality
and Career Checklist handout and Merkler
handout)
- Students will present the
results of their three online questionnaires to their classmates,
explaining the following: their Medieval occupation and the accompanying
personality characteristics, the positive and negative traits of that
personality; the Career Interests from the short checklist and
5 careers from that list; the Career Interest results of the Merkler
Inventory and 10 careers from that list; how the results of the three
do or do not agree with each other; and how the results of the three
assessments do or do not match with the students' self-assessment of
personality, style, and career plans.
- Students will discover what's
important to them and plan how to achieve their
goals.
- Students will establish personal
priorities.
- Students will view the film Erin Brockovich as a modern-day
application of someone trying to achieve the "good
life."
- Students will determine Erin Brockovich's priorities and discuss
their responses to choices she made, applying these priorities and choices
to their own lives. (handout)
- Students will investigate
a career that corresponds to the results of their online questionnaires..
They will learn about characteristics and skills, physical demands,
work setting, wages/salary, outlook, preparation/training/education,
job opportunities, and other related jobs.
Culminating Activity ("on their own"
investigations):
Having done the preliminary activities with King Arthur and a
variety of guided activities to get them thinking about and investigating
"What Makes the Good Life," students are now ready to begin
their open-ended investigations on their own.
Timeline: 4 weeks
- Students will work in groups of 2 or 3, using their posters and
online test results, to
create "a good life" description, which represents how
they want to live. (guidelines)
- Student groups will determine the cost of living of the "good
life" description they create and apply each student's earlier
career findings to that "good life," assessing whether their
career choice can support their "good life." (websites
for finances)
- Students will propose steps to achieving that "good
life," such as, budgeting, saving, investing, moonlighting,
prioritizing, and other financial options.
- Students will present their findings and proposals to achieving
"the good life" through multimedia presentations (visual,
tactile, and auditory components). (The
Good Life Grading, PowerPoint
Instructions, The
Good Life PowerPoint Rubric Student Overview, PowerPoint
Teacher Rubric)
- Students will evaluate
the participation of their group members.
Follow-Up Activities:
To make this unit even more applicable to them, students may do some
or all of the following activities to get them headed in the direction of
their "good lives."
Timeline: 1-2 weeks
- Students will create a resume and write a cover letter for their
chosen career. Ideally, they would find a specific job
opportunity and actually send their resumes and cover letters to them.
(use Writer's Inc. and School to Work books, or other
appropriate materials)
- Students will read "Another Check Mark on the List,"
by John Goddard, which is found in Chicken Soup for the Soul
as a model of someone who has set goals for himself. The students
will use this to create their own "life lists" of goals.
This, along with a questionnaire
about their goals and reflections on themselves, will be kept by the
teacher and mailed to them in ten years.
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