Playing It Safe: Safety in Sports

Genre: Informational Text

Session 2: Following the Rules: Bicycle Safety
Session Summary
Students continue to explore sports safety by focusing on a specific sport: cycling. They
view and analyze two videos that extend the concept of safety to include rules and
regulations. Students summarize the content of the first video and express opinions on
its ability to communicate its message. After viewing the second video, students use key
details to determine the videos main idea.
CCSS Standards
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining
what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.2 Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is
supported by key details; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support
particular points in a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.4.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
(one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts,
building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Essential Questions
How can I determine the main idea of a text and how it is supported by key details?
How does sports equipment keep us safe?
How do rules keep us safe?
Task
Media Literacy: Key Ideas, Purpose and Persuasion Students watch two videos,
determine the main idea and purpose of each video, and analyze the use of persuasive
techniques. (RI.4.1, RI.4.2, RI.4.8, SL.4.1)
Teacher Preparation
Bike Helmet Engineer [1:47]
Bicycle Safety: Rules of the Road [4:08]
Instructional Procedure Chart

Section Time Instructional Sequence
Activate
Thinking: Prior
Knowledge and Partner
Activity
15 minutes
Begin by revisiting the previous days session and asking students to
review some of the ways that sports equipment keeps players safe.
Explain that today the class will focus on a specific sportcycling
and think about both the equipment that protects cyclists as well as
the rules and regulations that keep riders safe.

Have partners make a list of hazards and dangers that cyclists may
face (bad weather, traffic, rocks in the road). Then ask each pair to
choose one hazard and develop a short pantomimed skit of what
might happen if an unprepared cyclist encountered that hazard. Invite
several student pairs to present their skits to the rest of the class. Ask
other students try to guess the hazard in the skit.

Media
Literacy: Summarizing
and Analysis
20 minutes
Explain that the video Bike Helmet Engineer will describe the
importance of bike helmets for keeping cyclists safe. Have students
watch the video once through, asking them to think about the
question: Why do bike helmets and other pieces of safety equipment
need to be tested?

After students have watched the video, ask the following questions to
guide students toward understanding the purpose of the video.
Encourage students tosupport their responses and opinions with
details from the video.
Whose job is it to test bicycle helmets?
Why do helmets need to be tested in hot, cold, and wet
environments?
After watching the helmet-testing process, how do you feel
about wearing a helmet when you ride?
What is the purpose of this video? What message is it trying
to send to viewers?

Guide students to understand that one purpose of the video is to
persuade viewers to wear bike helmets. Tell students that they will
watch the video a second time. This time, ask them to look for
techniques the filmmakers use to persuade viewers that bike helmets
can keep them safe. Pause the video to discuss after minutes 1:02 and
1:11, and at the end of the video. Ask: Did the video convince you to
wear a bike helmet? Why or why not?

Ask: What techniques did the video use to convince you? Why do
you think the filmmakers chose each technique? Write students
answers on the board. As needed, guide students to understand that
the filmmakers use factual data, including statistics, and expert
opinions to appeal to logic. They use a graphic example such as the
Jell-O experiment to appeal to logic and emotions. Ask students
which of the strategies they found most convincing and why.

Media
Analysis: Determining
the Main Idea
20 minutes
Explain that sports equipment, such as bike helmets, can go a long
way to keep us safe but that each sport also has rules that protect the
participants and fans. In the video Bicycle Safety: Rules of the Road,
students will learn how the rules and regulations that cyclists follow
help them stay safe and avoid some of the hazards the group acted
out in the initial activity.

As students watch the video, encourage them tolist on notebook
paper each safety rule mentioned. After watching the video, have
partners use their lists to help them determine the main idea of the
video. Ask partners to share their main ideas. Write their responses
on the board and have the class work together to construct a
consensus main idea statement. (Possible main idea: Cyclists follow
rules of the road to stay safe.) Ask students how they identified the
main idea. (Possible answers: I listened closely to what the narrator
was saying. I read the words and interpreted the symbols on the
screen. I paid close attention to the summary at the end.) Explain that
all of these techniques can help viewers determine the main idea of a
video.

Write the essential question How do rules keep us safe? on the
board and ask students to support the main idea of the video by
listing examples of bicycle safety rules and evaluating how effective
they are at keeping cyclists safe. Encourage students to connect their
own experiences following bicycle safety rules with what they
learned from the video. Challenge them to formulate new rules or
safety guidelines that might make cycling even safer and more
enjoyable.

Lead a class discussion about rules in other sports. Ask questions
similar to the series of questions that the class discussed about safety
equipment.
Which sports require the most rules? Why?
How do rules keep players safe?

Wrap Up 5 minutes
Ask students to consider the techniques that were used in the second
video to persuade viewers to follow bike safety rules. Guide students
to understand that the video included lots of examples of correct and
incorrect behavior and used graphic symbols to demonstrate incorrect
behavior. Wrap up the session by asking students which of the two
videos was more persuasive. (Answers will vary, but students may
note that the second video wasnt as convincing because it didnt
appeal to emotion and didnt include information about negative
consequences.)

Tell students that they will apply what they have learned about sports
safety and persuasion by writing a letter to a member of their school
community recommending a new rule or piece of sports equipment to
help protect players.


- Bold text in the Instructional Sequence highlights explicit instruction to the Common Core
standards.