Submitted by Dan Dunagan

Objectives:

Content:
Students will...

• CON 1.  Display an understanding of how, as a group, neither Puerto Ricans nor European-Americans are uniform in their opinions regarding the death penalty.
• CON 2.  Demonstrate an understanding of Puerto Rican citizenship.
• CON 3.  Identify four arguments in favor of the death penalty.
• CON 4.  Identify four arguments against the death penalty. 
  

Cultural:
Students will...

• CUL 1.  Demonstrate an understanding that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.
• CUL 2.  Understand that Puerto Rican opinions about the death penalty are as divergent as the overall U.S. population’s opinions on the death penalty.
  

Language: Content Obligatory
Students will...

• Lang CO 1.  Use present tense verbs to understand and express opinions with chunks such as yo creo que, estoy a favor, hay que, and no debe de haber. 
• Land CO 2.  Use the conditional verb tense to express possibilities with verbs such as exonerar, recomendar, extraditar, castigar, and sentenciar.
• Lang CO 3.  Use nouns (la pena capital, el castigo, la víctima, la justicia, la venganza, etc.) and adjectives (culpable, inocente, vicioso, involucrado, civilizado, prohibido, etc.) related to capital punishment in order to explain points of view about the death penalty. 
• Lang CO 4.  Demonstrate understanding of idioms such as es la debilidad de esta democracia, el fin justifica los medios, es tan fácil como cosechar lo que se sembró, and ciclo vicioso.
• Lang CO 5.  Use nouns to express intra-ethnic group differentiation with concepts like grupo étnico, uniformidad de opinión, consenso general, voces divergentes, unanimidad, oposición, libertad de palabra, etc.
  

Language: Content Compatible
Students will...

• Lang CC 1.  Use verbs in the subjunctive mood to express uncertainty with conjugated verbs such as vaya, tengan, and sea.
• Lang CC 2.  Use vocabulary to explain methods of execution such as la silla eléctrica, la guillotina, and la inyección letal.
• Lang CC 3.  Use "inverted" verb constructions to describe personal opinions with words like gustar, disgustar, sorprender, molestar, and ofender.
• Lang CC 4.  Use descriptions to compare and contrast U.S. and Puerto Rican citizenship with nouns and noun-adjective combinations like el pasaporte, la visa, la ciudadanía estadounidense, las elecciones presidenciales, los puertorriqueños, impuestos federales, reclutados, and el ejército estadounidense.
• Lang CC 5. Use nouns and adjectives to predict the main point of a reading assignment with terms like pena de muerte, castigo, civilizado, prohibido, justicia, merece, Estados Unidos, and Puerto Rico.
• Lang CC 6. Use phrases to identify webchatters and explain agreement/disagreement with a point a view with terms such as según, conforme a, estoy de acuerdo, estoy en desacuerdo, el/ella tiene razón, etc.
  

Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will...

• LS 1. Work cooperatively in groups
• LS 2. Infer meaning from L2 texts
• LS 3. Compare and contrast
• LS 4. Generalize trends from a small population sample
• LS 5. Understand that this population sample may not be representative
  

Time Frame:

One 47-minute period

Materials Needed:

• Appendix 4-1 - Reading on Puerto Rican citizenship
• Appendix 4-2 - Venn Diagram sheet
• Appendix 4-3 - Web resource on the death penalty (http://www.zonai.com)
• Appendix 4-4 - Modified T chart
  

Description of Assessment (Performance Project):

Purpose:
To understand that individual ethnic groups are rarely uniform in their opinions on the death penalty.

Preview Phase:

Targeted Standards & Objectives	Description of Activities
Standards 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 3.1 Objectives Lang CC 3	Review activity from the previous day.  Briefly compare U.S. death penalty policy with the policy of other countries.  This is done informally by direct questioning from the teacher.  This should last for two minutes.  Students review the inverted form verbs by briefly discussing what they like and dislike about the death penalty (and about European views on the U.S. law allowing the death penalty).   There is no grouping done for this activity.  The students complete this discussion in the permanent seating groups in which they find themselves.   This will take two minutes.
Standards 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4.2 Objectives CON 2 CUL 1 LS 1-3 Lang CO 3-5	The instructor states that Minnesota is one of twelve states that does not permit the death penalty.  As a class, we quickly write the remaining states that prohibit the death penalty.  The instructor also mentions that there are two other “state-like” bodies that do not allow the death penalty:  the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico.  During the previous explanation about the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico, the instructor hands out a one paragraph reading on Puerto Rican citizenship.(Attachment 1) As a class, create a Venn diagram on the board comparing U.S. citizenship and Puerto Rican citizenship.  (Attachment 2) The work on Attachments 1 & 2 will take approximately ten minutes. I write the following terms on the board:  pena de muerte, castigo, civilizado, prohibido, justicia, merece, Estados Unidos, and Puerto Rico. I then ask them to take out a sheet of paper.  I direct them to use all of these words in one or two sentences in order to predict the main point of what they will be reading.  After they finish, they share their ideas with the members of their groups.  I wander the room to listen to a few of the ideas. I tell the students that we will be reading opinions about the death penalty from the point of view of various Puerto Rican webchatters. This prediction activity will last for two to three minutes.

Focused Learning Phase:

Targeted Standards & Objectives

Description of Activities

Standards 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4.2 Objectives CON 1 CON 3 CON 4 LS 2, LS3 Lang CO 1 Lang CO 3 Lang CO 4

Hand out the Text The students underline all examples of the vocabulary list found in the text (pena de muerte, castigo, civilizado, prohibido, justicia, merece, Estados Unidos, and “Puerto Rico). The instructor reads aloud the first paragraph of the text.  This paragraph is concise and does not need very much additional explanation.  The instructor should explain, however, that this paragraph sets the groundwork for what the rest of the webchatters will be writing.  Students will draw a box around each person’s comments and numbers them in order of entry.  Graphic Organizer – T-chart – Students will read the text individually (Attachment 2).  As they read, students will use a modified T chart to aid in comprehension.  One column for arguments for the death penalty, one column for arguments against the death penalty.  (A third column may be added for “grey area” arguments.).  A fourth column will be described in the Expansion Phase.  (Reading plan generated from Hall-Haley & Austin, pages 170-180.) The entire Focused Learning Phase should last twenty minutes.

Expansion Phase:

Targeted Standards & Objectives

Description of Activities

Standards 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4.2 Objectives CUL 2 LS 1, LS 3-5 Lang CO 2-4 Lang CC 6 Lang CO 5

Personalize – Each student takes his/her list of arguments for and against.  In the fourth column of the modified T chart, the students then write if each argument taken from the reading has merit and they explain why (The student identifies the web entry and the author of each argument.).  During this activity, the students use terms such as según, conforme a, estoy de acuerdo, estoy en desacuerdo, él/ella tiene razón, etc. (Will last five minutes) Summarize – in their groups, students share their thoughts on the merits of the text arguments in favor and against the death penalty.  Students also discuss the idea that no one group has a consensus on the merits of the death penalty.  (Will last four minutes) At the end of the period, the instructor explains that beginning on Day 5, they will be participating in a debate versus a classmate.  The topic will be the death penalty (obviously).  The instructor will place the students in pairs.  One student will be defending the death penalty.  The other student will be against the death penalty.  The instructor will also select which side each student will defend.  Thus, every student must know the arguments in favor and against the death penalty.  (Will last one to two minutes)

Assessment:

• Informal observation of student interaction and participation
• Collect and review the T-charts and the written work on the merit of the webchatters’ arguments – this would be evaluated using a content-only rubric (the following rubric based almost entirely on the Analytic rubric model from Fairfax County Schools).
  The points would be weighed x 3

	Trabajo superior	Trabajo completo	Trabajo parcial	Trabajo mínimo
Contenido	cumple con todos los requisitos, con ideas bien desarrolladas y organizadas	cumple con todos los requisitos de forma adecuada, con cierto desarrollo de las ideas	cumple con algunos requisitos de forma adecuada, pero sin desarrollo de las ideas	el contenido es inadecuado, pero legible
	4 puntos	3 puntos	2 puntos	1 punto

References and Resources:

The Analytic rubric model from Fairfax County Schools(http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/OHSICS/forlang/PALS/rubrics/sfs2_wrt_an.htm

Attachments:

NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)

Appendix 4-2: Venn Diagram sheet

Appendix 4-3: Web resource on the death penalty (www.zonai.com)

Appendix 4-4: La pena de muerte--opiniones de los Puertorriqueños (modified t-chart)

Appendix 4-1: Reading on Puerto Rican citizenship

A Lesson from the CoBaLTT Project
/cobaltt
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota