Lesson Plan

Title: Tucson and the Southwest: Then and Now

Subject/Grade Level/ Date(s): Social Studies/ELA; 3rd grade; November

14th
Teachers: Mira Davis, Gabby Holma, and Mary Anderson
Time Requirements: 45-55 minutes

Materials List: Books on Tucson/The Southwest in the past (borrowed

from various libraries), graphic organizers, indiginous pottery shards,
whiteboard/markers
Type of Lesson: Whole group, cooperative pair work
Connection to State Social Studies/ELA Standards:
3.SP1.2 Compare life in specific historical time periods to life today.
3.RI.5 Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars,
hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic
efficiently.

Instructional Objective(s):
● Students will be able to identify various informational text features and
their importance in a variety of texts.
● Students will be able to compare and contrast life in the Southwest
before 1900 to life today.
Active Instructional Plan

Anticipatory Set:
Pass around pottery pieces and ask students what they think it is.
Gather their ideas on the board. Discuss about where and how the
pieces were found, and how the people who made the pottery used
the pottery. Share with students that the pottery was made by
 people who lived here in the Tucson area, who they might have
been, how they lived. (5 minutes)
Share pictures of Tucson then versus now, including Tohono
O’odham people and homes, early landmarks in Tucson, Old Main
under construction with A mountain in the background, and Tucson
now. (5 minutes)

Questions:
(During pottery discussion); What do you think these items are?
Where do you think they come from? How were they used by the
people who first lived in Tucson?
(While looking at old photographs of Tucson vs. now) What is
different?
(During Scavenger hunt) How could using the glossary, or index, or
table of contents help you find information?

Modeling:
Nonfiction text features: Projected slides that cover each text
feature.
Talk about all the text features, describe how you can use them,
and examples of what they look like in different informational books.
(5-10 minutes)

Guided Practice:
Scavenger Hunt activity to find text features in books (books about
life in the past in the Southwest area), partner/group work. Students
pick books and look for and take note of all the text features that
they can find on their own graphic organizer. Circulate through the
room working with all students, checking for understanding
throughout. (15-20 minutes)

Closure:
Then/now comparison graphic organizer (3 column Venn Diagram)
as a whole group to conclude the lesson. Share ideas about more
differences from the past to now that they found in the books. Ask
about more ideas of what has changed over time and what has
remained the same in terms of daily life, technology. Students lead
what goes on the whole group organizer. (5-10 minutes)
Assessment/Evaluation:
Formative, informal: whole group discussion about comparing life in
Tucson and the Southwest to life now; gauge understanding,
comprehension, higher-level thinking (connect what was read to
what is already known). Through circulating and talking with
students as they conduct their scavenger hunt, assess text feature
knowledge.
Modifications/Differentiation:
Provide students with Spanish version of presentation and all text
feature terms in Spanish, as well as a Spanish version of the
graphic organizer.

Pair students of varying ability to support students who need extra

help with the graphic organizer. Students at lower level will be
asked to find fewer text features. Students who finish the scavenger
hunt earlier may move ahead to work on their own Then/now
comparison chart on the back of their scavenger hunt.
Cross content integration:
Learning to navigate and efficiently use nonfiction texts is necessary for
all academic content areas:
● Academic journals
● Textbooks
● Encyclopedias

Used for:
● Research projects
● Historical events, scientific discovery,
● Understanding content-specific vocabulary
● Organizing original academic writing
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