Performance Assessment Lesson Plans

Title: A Cry for Help from Africa

Level: This assessment is written for grades 7-9.

Author:

 Joan M. Longmire
Eastview Middle School
Bartlett, IL 60103

Inquiry Question: What are the causes and consequences of underdevelopment in Nigeria?

National Geography Standards: (in order of significance)

Students…

Standard 17 know how to apply geography to interpret the past.

Standard 18 know how to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.

Standard 9 know the characteristics, …, of human populations on Earth's surface.

Standard 4 know the … human characteristics of places.

 

Overview: The student takes the role of an intern in the office of a U.S. Senator. The task is to write background notes for a speech the Senator will give in Congress when introducing a bill to grant aid to the nation of Nigeria. The student reviews the history of Nigeria and determines an event or series of recurring events that has hurt the current development of Nigeria. The student reviews maps, charts and graphs and determines a current development problem that is shown by demographic data and and a current development problem that shown by other human characteristics of Nigeria. The student analyzes these economic development problems describing the causes and consequences of each one. The student then selects one problem to be solved before all others, explains why it is important to solve that one first and proposes a plausible solution to the problem.

 

Materials:

Student Directions Packet

    1. Instruction sheet
    2. Review of history
    3. Problems and can be helped
    4. Proposed solution

Student Resource Packet

    1. Map1: Literacy Rate
    2. Map 2: Percentage of Adults Infected with H.I.V.
    3. Map 3: Distribution of Principal Ethnic Groups, 1990
    4. Population Pyramid for Nigeria 2000
    5. Table 1: Nigeria: Demographic Data
    6. Table 2: Nigeria Fact Sheet
    7. Handout: History of Nigeria

Time: 80-120 minutes

Prior Learning:

Students will take this performance assessment at the end of a unit on Africa, South the Sahara, of 4-5 weeks in length. The content of the unit includes geography, history from the slave trade era to the present, culture of Africa and economic conditions. Emphasis is on the causes of present day conditions of underdevelopment and the consequences.

Key concepts in the Africa unit include the following:

  1. Ways to classify economic activity
  2. Reasons for the spatial patterns of economic activities
  3. How changes in technology, transportation, and communication affect the location of economic activities
  4. The demographic structure of a population
  5. The impact of culture on ways of life in different regions

Skills in the unit include the following:

  1. asking geographic questions
  2. gathering geographic data from text, charts, graphs and maps
  3. organizing data into charts, graphs and maps
  4. analyzing the data
  5. answering geographic questions

Teacher Administration Instructions

Prior to test administration review the data vocabulary used in the Student Resource Packet asking students to apply the terms to what they have learned about Africa's economic development. Additional terms to review include tribalism, coup, dictatorship and democracy.

The day before the assessment distribute a copy of the rubric and discuss it with the class. Have the student put his or her name on it and collect it.

Day 1

  1. Distribute the Student Direction sheet. Read over the introduction and the instructions for today's tasks. You may put the rubric for today's activity on the overhead.
  2. Provide all students with the Student Resource Packet and have them turn to the copy of the "History of Nigeria." Because of the high reading level of the history, the teacher may want to read the history aloud before the students begin work in the task. Distribute the Nigeria History Review handout and allow 1/2 hour to complete the task.
  3. Collect the History Review handout as students complete it. Encourage students to review the remainder of the items in the packet. On their own paper the student should list each table, graph and map and what development problems they find. Collect the student list and Student Resource Packets at the end of the period.

Day 2

  1. Return the Student Directions, Resources Packets, and each students lists of problems. Distribute the Selected Problems and Proposed Solution handout. Review the tasks for today.
  2. Read the Rubric and the proficient performance indicators to the class. Make sure the students understand the Rubric. You may want to make an overhead of the Rubric and show on the screen.
  3. Circulate

Student Instructions - see separate page

Scoring Rubric - see separate page

Sample Answers - see separate page

Bibliography

The CIA Factbook:
    http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/country.html

The State Department:
    http://www.state.gov/

The U.S. Census Bureau International Database for Population Pyramids:
    http://www.census.gov/ftp/pub/ipc/www/idbnew.html

The Population Reference Bureau:
    http://www.prb.org

Data for AIDS map:  "The World; AIDS in Africa:  The Silent Stalker," Donald G. McNeil, The New York Times, December 27, 1998.

Data for Literacy Rate map:  The World Almanac 1997.

Text:  Ahmad, Iftikhar, Herbert Brodsky, Marylee Susan Crofts, Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis:  World Cultures:  A Global Mosaic, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1996.

Go to Student Handout 1:  Instructions

Go to Student Handout 2:  Review of History

Go to Student Handout 3:  Problem Discussion Sheet

Go to Student Handout 4:  First Problem Solution Sheet

Map 1:  Literacy

Map 2:  HIV

Map 3:  Ethnic Groups in Nigeria

Population Pyramid

History of Nigeria

Table 1:  Demographic Data

Table 2:  Nigeria Fact Sheet

Rubric

Sample Answers for Proposed Solution

Sample Student Answers for Problems That Can Be Helped

Sample of Student Work for Nigeria History Review

 

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