Background 
Information 
for Teachers

Before Lesson
• **based on the abilities of your classroom, the activities may need to 

be whole-class, teacher recorded.  If your students are able to work in 

groups independently, then you can begin the tasks and ask the groups 

to finish.  Bring the whole class back together to continue recording ideas 

on the Anchor Chart;

• you will be creating a “Learning Wall”, which grounds and connects each 

of the lessons.  The Black Canadian Women Contributor Poster can be 

displayed, and perhaps some of the student work, but the Learning Wall 

will primarily be a “Word Wall”.  To consolidate the learning experience, 

the students and you will add to the wall, at the end of each lesson, 

words that were introduced or are important to the lesson;

• post Learning Goals and Success Criteria for this lesson; 
• be prepared to share your own stories and experiences about important 

people/contributors to your life; and

• have the Anecdotal Observation Template (BLM #2) ready on a clipboard 

to use while students are working collaboratively. 

Step A:
Assessment
as Learning

Activating Schema:
Oral Discussion and Documentation of Thinking

Teacher Talk: We’re going to think about people in our lives - some people 

who have affected our lives, who are important to us.

Who are some of the people in your life?  To fill in our chart [**see above 

note] we’re going to think about different parts of our lives - at home, at 

school, in the community or city, and in our country, Canada.

Let’s think about our family - those we might live with or other relatives, e.g., 

mom, dad, sister, brother, grandma, auntie, etc.)

Facilitation Note: As students name people in their families, if different 

names are used, honour the title and list them on the chart (e.g., Grandma, 

Nana, or names in other languages).  You can take this opportunity to point 

out that “families” look different to different people (you may want to give 

some personal context here as well). 

Teacher Talk: Now let’s think about people at school: Who are some of 

the important people at school? (Teacher, principal, lunchroom supervisor, 

caretaker, secretary, EA, librarian, etc.)

Black Canadian Curriculum – Primary – ETFO – 2014