This document discusses a lesson plan for teaching 6th-8th grade students about events leading up to the American Civil War. It includes learning goals, content and language objectives, target vocabulary words, strategies for teaching vocabulary like 4 Corners and Mad Three Minutes, formative assessments using a traffic light system, a sample summative assessment as a fill-in-the-blank quiz, and conclusions about using various assessments to help English language learners succeed.

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Academic Vocabulary
Assessments
Stephanie Benoit
SEI/ 500
Instructor: Mary Jane Hill

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Introduction
We require Non- English speakers to not only
learn English, but to learn enough of it hat they
might be able to function in academic settings
and do all of this work in their new language.
As teachers it is important that we help English
language learners to succeed by providing
them with the tools to not only learn content
lessons but to learn a new language. We can
do this by using strategies during our lessons
that will allow students to learn new words and
grasp new concepts.

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Lesson Background
This lesson is an American
History lesson. It can be used in
sixth through eighth grade
classrooms. The lesson is about
the events leading up to the
American Civil War. Students
will learn about the significant
events, legislation and
individuals on either side of the
debate that erupted into war.
Learning Goal:
 Students will list the events in
chronological order that led to
the Civil War.
Content Objectives:
 Students will use primary and
secondary sources to evaluate
which events most heavily
contributed to the American
civil war.
 Students will demonstrate
knowledge of history of the
years leading up to the
American Civil War.

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Lesson Background
 To use vocabulary to write
simple and compound
sentences.
 To read sentences and use
context clues to fill in missing
words
 ELACC6-8RH7: Integrate
visual information (e.g., in
charts, graphs, photographs,
videos, or maps) with other
information in print and
digital texts.
 ELACC6-8RH8: Distinguish
among fact, opinion, and
reasoned judgment in a
text.
Language Objectives
Georgia Common Core
Standards

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Target Vocabulary
Confederacy Union
Emancipation Slavery
Abolitionist State’s Rights
Agricultural Industrial
Secede Territories
Civil War Compromise

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Reviewing academic
Vocabulary
 4 corners vocabulary – create a chart with 4 sections on
each section students engage the word to make
connections. They will write the word, define it. Write a
sentence about it and draw a picture of what it means.
 Mad Three Minutes – Students study words for three
minutes and then write down as many as they can from
memory
 Vocabulary bingo – Students use bingo chart to match
definitions with words given

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Formative Assessment/
Determining if students
understandFormative assessments can be both formal or informal. They
can be in the form of quizzes and written assignments, or
just via a classroom discussion.
For this lesson, the formative assessments will be classroom
discussions, with a lot of open ended questions, as well as
the traffic light/ self assessment strategy.
The teacher will ask questions and the student will respond
with green, yellow or red. Green meaning they fully
understand and can explain the idea back to the teacher.
It allows for review of content and for the teacher to
evaluate how effective the lesson is.

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Summative Assessment
Fill In The Blank
1. Southern states wanted to ______ from the _____ to form
the ______.
2. ________ wanted to help end ________ through
emancipation
3. The northern economy was _________ and the southern
economy was ____________.
4. Southern states leaving the Union was the cause of the
_______________.

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Conclusion
To review, Assessments can take many forms. They can be
games or tests. In order to prepare an ELL student for
summative assessments in their content classes, we have to
find a number of ways to help them make connections with
the English vocabulary they are given. Understanding the
way that students learn ( whether visual, auditory,
kinesthetic or a mixture of all three) will help educators to
meet students’ needs and help them to reach their
academic goals.

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References
Echevarría, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. J. (2013). Making
content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP
model (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Georgia Common Core Performance Standards. (n.d.).
Georgia Department of Education. Retrieved January 26,
2015, from https://www.georgiastandards.org/Common-
Core/Documents/CCGPS_9-10_SS-Science-Tech-
Literacy_Standards.pdf