Grades 9-12: Primary Source Exemplar - Nutrition and Human Rights
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https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/5254-primary-source-exemplar-nutrition-and-human-rights/view
College and Career Readiness Standards
READING
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
WRITING
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
Description of Unit
This Grade 9-12 unit titled “Nutrition and Human Rights” by Joanna Schimizzi cited on OER Commons is designed for inclusion in a biology curriculum. It is designed to build scientific knowledge and vocabulary as well as to help students develop the content literacy skills needed for College and Career Readiness.The unit draws heavily from increasingly complex primary source documents that students read closely and analyze in order to grasp key concepts around nutrition, ecology and human rights. The summative assessment provides students with an authentic learning task which requires them to analyze and synthesize information across informational texts, data sets and their writing journals in order to write evidence-based proposals.
Cautions
Connecticut teachers should be aware that the unit plan lists only the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards; the ELA/Literacy Standards in Science and Technical Subjects are more specific to the unit goals and could easily be substituted. The unit assumes that students are already familiar with reading closely for details and analyzing main themes in grade-level texts. The instructional time needed to complete this unit is unclear; teachers will need to create their own pacing plan. While specific assessment guidelines are included, there are no CCSS-aligned scoring rubrics to provide sufficient guidance for interpreting the degree to which a student can independently demonstrate the major targeted grade-level standards.
Rationale for Selection
This unit plan is an exemplary model of how to provide text-centered learning in a science classroom that is sequenced, scaffolded, and supported to advance students toward independent reading of complex texts at the College and Career Readiness level. Instruction includes a progression of learning where concepts and skills advance and deepen over time. It provides opportunities for students to build knowledge about a topic through analysis of strategically sequenced, discipline-specific texts. The unit routinely expects that students draw evidence from texts to produce clear and coherent writing. Varied modes of assessment include a range of formative and summative measures.