Assessment Section: Knowing what I know
Mentor Evaluation: Script  
    During a unit on American political parties, I introduced the students in my ninth grade civics (called Economic, Legal and Political Systems in North Carolina) class to the terms "liberal" and "conservative." Here is my mentor teacher's script of that lesson.  
 
  Full Script Observation: Stacy Vlasits, Duke MAT Friday, October 25, 2002 Jordan High School Standard Civics
Mr. Vlasits stood in the hall at the start of class which is consistent with the school policy. The bell rang at 9:47 and Mr. Vlasits instructed students, "OK, find your seats." Mr. Vlasits helped Eduardo with a question. The room was completely silent during the announcements. One student was wearing a hat. All students had their notebooks out and the kids were all copying the warm ups. The warm up was "Debra Moore rose up the ranks of the Democratic Party to become precinct captain." As the
announcements ended, Mr. Vlasits talked to Demarielle and then moved to the desk to look for something. Weley asked a question and Mr. Vlasits responded "one sec" and got something for Demarielle. Mr. Vlasits began the warm up and Welsey interrupted and stated that he needed a pencil. Mr. Vlasits asked the other students if they had a pencil for Wesley. At 9:54 Mr. Vlasits went over the warm up. Joran answered the question. Mr. Vlasits extended the discussion by asking "What is a precinct captain?" As some students started to answer, Mr. Vlasits reminded students to raise their hands and use their own words. Joran answered the question and Wesley obtained a pencil from a classmate. Next, Mr. Vlasits reminded students that their warm ups are due Monday. Next, he told students to turn to the vocabulary section of their notebooks and to copy the words down. The words were written on the board. He then said, "the words are grassroots and accountable. Before you start on grassroots, grassroots is a political movement by the people. What does it mean in the book when it says by the people? What the book means is.. .like you and me and when the people come together around an idea, that's grassroots." Mr. Vlasits then defined accountable and gave an example using Mrs. Norman and her grading. He asked "Are you accountable to anyone?" Cecil answered, "No." Mr. Vlasits dealt with Wesley and asked him to sit down and then answered, "To me, right?"
Next, Mr. Vlasits stated, "Alright, we have some current events. Raymond is on top. Go to the front of the classroom." Raymond went to the front of the room and read his article summary. Mr. Vlasits said, "Good, because it is talking about..." He clarified some of the ideas in the article. Next, he asked if anyone had any questions for Raymond. Stephanie asked a question. Raymond tried to answer it, but got confused. Mr. Vlasits clarified the point and then asked, "Does everyone understand?" Cecil responded, "No." Mr. Vlasits asked, "What don't you understand?" Cecil responded, "I said, yes." Mr. Vlasits asked if it was "pretty clear." Next, he asked "Aldo, what do you have for us?" As Aldo read the article, he had trouble pronouncing a word. Mr. Vlasits clarified the word "rallies." As he read, Aldo had trouble pronouncing another word. "revels.. .rebels...?" Mr. Vlasits replied "It's your article." Aldo finished the article. At 10:00, Mr. Vlasits helped the students discuss the article. He clarified that Dole is a Republican and pointed out that sometimes people will vote for someone from another party. Mr. Vlasits called on Krystal to read her article summary. At 10:03, Krystal read her article about Bush and the War with Iraq. As she read, Cecil opened a candy and Mr. Vlasits took a note from Kenna. Mr. Vlasits then called on Kendrick who asked a question and Krystal responded. Joran asked a question about Al Gore. Kenna answered. Mr. Vlasits clarified Krystal's answer and posed the question "Why might a guy who doesn't have a job in government still make speeches...?" The class offered some answers. Mr. Vlasits responded, "right, and he's still a powerful guy and the media covers him." He then asked another question, "What was the other important part of the article? It also says if we do attack..." He asked if there were any other questions, thanked Krystal and told her, "Nice work." He then called on Olga to present. Olga replied that she did not have an article, so he called on Eva. Eva replied that she had the same article as one already presented and didn't know what to say. Mr. Vlasits encouraged her to still present what she had written. Eva read her article. Mr. Vlasits asked for questions. Joran asked Eva what she thought about what Bush was doing. Krystal asked about the states involved. Eva tried to answer the questions. Mr. Vlasits threw the question to Amanda to guess an answer. She made some guesses. He told her, "Those are good guesses.. .Aldo?" Aldo said that in the article it said Bush was coming to Charlotte. Mr. Vlasits clarified this. Cecil asked a question. Mr. Vlasits told Eva she could sit down and mentioned that "Sometimes in a close election the President will come to a state to support the party's candidate. Bush coming to North Carolina indicates a close race." Krvstal asked, what would barmen if North Carolinians didn't like Bush.
Mr. Vlasits agreed that that is always a risk. Joran asked ifAl Gore would come and support "the other guy" since Bush came to support Dole. Mr. Vlasits indicated it was possible, but not likely.
At 10:10, Mr. Vlasits indicated it was time to "switch gears and talk about liberals and conservatives. I have a questionnaire which talks about the views of Liberals and Conservatives. I want you to indicate if you agree or disagree with the statements made. If you agree, circle the one and if you disagree, circle the five." As Mr. Vlasits passed out the questionnaire, Kendrick asked "Can we start?" Mr. Vlasits responded, "yes, you can start right away and you can write on it." Cecil asked if he could write his name on the sheet. Mr. Vlasits replied that they should put their names on it, but that it would not be graded. Mikhail asked what to do with his makeup homework. Mr. Vlasits asked him to put it in the make up bin. Once the sheets were all passed out, Mr. Vlasits asked the class to "work as quickly as you can so we can talk about it." Mr. Vlasits circulated the room as the students worked. He asked Eloise to take off her hat. At 10:13, he talked quietly to Wesley about the questions. Then, he addressed the whole class. "A lot of people have asked questions about number 15 which is about affirmative action. At one time in American history, people would not hire African Americans because they were racist. Affirmative action is an attempt to fix that." Mr. Vlasits circulated the room some more and answered individual questions. He then addressed the entire class and instructed them to add up the numbers and put their total at the bottom of the page. They should do this for both sides. The students continued to work quietly. 100% of the students were working. He continued to circulate and helped Cecil tally his answers. The then answered a content question for Troy. Wesley asked for help with his calculations and Mr. Vlasits helped him. Eduardo needed help as well at 10:18.
Next, Mr. Vlasits asked the students to take the number on the back of the sheet and subtract the number on the front. He called out Ariel's name because she was off task. He then wrote some calculation examples on the board. Eva asked what to do if both are the same. He answered, "then, zero." Next, he helped Kendrick. At 10:21, Troy and Siddiq were looking out the window.
Mr. Vlasits addressed the class with instructions. "If you're done, you can come up to the board here and mark your name under ..." Many students headed for the board. The board had a continuum of scores on it with one end marked liberal, and the other end marked conservative. Mikhail asked "should we do it now?" Mr. Vlasits replied, "Actually, that's enough people for right now." He then answered a question for Raymond. The students wrote their names on the board in the appropriate places while Mr. Vlasits circulated. He explained the calculations to Chris. Corie had a question. The students at the board got louder. Mr. Vlasits addressed them by saying, "keep it down, keep it down." He helped Eduardo with his calculations while kids continued to work at the board. At 10:25, he helped Aldo. Deldra had her hand up. The next group went up to the board on their own once the board group thinned out. Mr. Vlasits answered Deldra's question, then helped Welsley at the board and then helped Krystal, "You'll go underneath Cecil." The noise got louder again. Mr. Vlasits addressed the noise, "alright, alright, those of you at your desks, keep your voices down. Joran, folks, not now." Mr. Vlasists moved to the board as most students took their seats. "Alright, it looks like most people are falling on the side..." The class responded, "Liberal!" Mr. Vlasits answered "right, most of the students had higher scores on the .. .take out your sheet and write on the front "conservative" because if you agree with the ideas on the front, you agree with conservative ideas, and if on the back.." Wesley is off task. Mr. Vlasits says, "Wesley, please don't..." Mr. Vlasits now marks the Democratic party and the Republican party on the board. He explained that most of the ideas on the front are ones that the Republican party agrees with and that the ideas on the back are mainly ideas people from the Democratic Party agree with. "So, if we had a person here from the Republican party, would they agree with..." The group answers, "No!" Mr. Vlasits then posed the question, "What if neither party represented your point of view?" The students thought about that for a moment, but didn't respond. Mr. Vlasits pointed out, "So one of the problems with the party system is that if neither the Democrats or Republicans represent your point of view, you many not be represented. There are parties that are farther left such as.." Cecil answered, "The Green Party!" Mr. Vlasits affirmed "That's right! And there's another that goes over here, the Libertarians. They don't believe that there should be taxes or welfare." He marked the Green Party and Libertarians on the board in the appropriate place. He explained a bit more about possible third party views.
Next, Mr Vlasits said, "I want to see if you can identify liberal and conservative views in other people. I want you to get into the groups, the same groups you were in for the Bill of Rights activity. I want group one here.. .Pack up your things and take them." At 10:32, the students moved into their groups. They had some conversations as they moved. Mr. Vlasits moved to the first group and passed out papers. He tried to talk over the noise, "Once you have the names of all of the members of your group, I'd like you.. .Once you're quiet, I'll give you..." He then directly addressed the noise, "Quiet Please." Once it was quiet, he gave instructions for the worksheet. "This sheet, as you can see, has the statements of six politicians on it. Using the sheet you just filled out, identify each politician's statement as either liberal or conservative. If the statement matches a conservative, write a C in the blank, if the statement matches a liberal, write liberal in the blank." He then addressed a group that is seated away from each other. "This group needs to get closer together. At 10:35, the group in the back is not working. Ariel says, "Mr. Vlasits, you didn't give us a paper." Mr. Vlasits explained they only get one paper per group and that one student should read the examples out loud and they should make sure everyone's name is on the paper. At 10:36 Mr. Vlasits helped Troy's group and then Siddiq's group. All of the students were basically working. Mr. Vlasits wrote a pass for Demarielle to go to the bathroom and explained , when he asked what a "lavatory" was, that it's the old word for restroom. Chris's group then asked a question and Mr. Vlasits answered it. Next, Mr. Vlasits moved to the one group that had not started. He helped them start. Mikhail asked, "What do we do when we are done?" Mr. Vlasits asked the class, Is everyone finished?" The class responded, "No." Mr. Vlasits addressed the finished group. "Now, you guys can talk about youi positions." To the class he explained "If you finish, you can just exchange sheets and think about your positions..." Next, Mr. Vlasits helped Eva's group and encouraged them to check over their answers. He then circulated to Welsey's group, Troy's group, Joran's group, Demarielle's group ("You got it, you're right!"), and then Eva's group. At Eva's group, he clarified the difference between a drug pusher and a drug user.
At 10:44, he stated, "Everybody, if you're finished with your sheet, you should bring your sheet up, whatever state it's in." The students randomly bring their sheets up and then remain standing and wandering. Mr. Vlasits addressed this, "Find your seat." He then stated, "There is homework for tomorrow and if you're not quiet, you won't know what it is. You need to write six sentences using the vocabulary words. It's on your syllabus, but for today. Instead, it's due Monday." Joran asked, "Can we get extra credit if we did it for today?" Mr. Vlasits answered no. Another student asked, "if we have the other extra credit, can we turn it in?" Mr. Vlasits answered, "You can put it in the make up bin." He then went back to explaining the homework. "You need to write one sentence per vocabulary word." Some students were still milling about. Most of them packed their belongings Mr. Vlasits stated, "Everyone should be in their seats. Eva, could you put your seat in the right order?" Most students sat down, but Eloise remained standing. Some students placed work in the make up bin. Joran's bag fell on the ground. Mr. Vlasits moved to the front of the room and addressed the class. "Was anyone surprised to find out they're as liberal as they were? Everyone, class is still going on." Joran, Eloise, and Ariel are all standing, At 10: 47, the bell rang.


 
     
     
     
     

 

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