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