Planning

SKILLS Progression

Lesson 2 93

1 DISCOVERING 8 MINUTES

INVESTIGATION State that students will continue with the Investigation step and identify their strengths, skills, and qualities. This will build the SEL Competencies of Self-Awareness, Relationships Skills, and Responsible Decision Making. Show Discovering Projectable 5.2.1. Ask pairs to examine the photos and answer the questions. Invite volunteers to share with the class.

ASK: What do you think civic action means? How do you think service-learning contributes to civic action?

Agree that civic action means being engaged in addressing the issues and needs of the school and community. Let students know they will be learning more about how everyone’s strengths, skills, and qualities can be used in service-learning.

2 CONNECTING 10 MINUTES

Explain to students that they will use an interactive process to help students identify their resources—their strengths, skills, and qualities—in order to choose a need of general interest and a service-learning project later in the unit.

ASK: What do you think is the connection between a need and a service-learning project?

Explain that “need” refers to an issue or concern that a person or group has that, if addressed, will improve the quality of life for those affected. Tell students that a service-learning project addresses that need.

SAY: After discovering the strengths, skills, and qualities of our class, we might find that many people think our school grounds look dull and brown. The need might be to beautify the school. The service-learning project might be to plant flowers and indigenous plants around the school grounds.

Tell students they will expand upon the skills they worked on in Unit 3 and apply the ART of Listening enhanced by additional interviewing skills to explore ways to ask questions, gather information, encourage others to tell more, and probe more deeply to find out the strengths, skills, and qualities of the students in the class. This information will guide the choice of the class need and service-learning project.

ACTIVITY 1

INSTRUCTION

LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE

5.2 Our Strengths, Skills, and Qualities MatterService-learning engages all students by putting everyone’s strengths, skills, and qualities to work to improve the lives of others. Assessing those strengths, skills, and qualities can be accomplished through effective listening and interviewing skills.

SEL COMPETENCIESRelationship Skills, Responsible Decision Making

SKILLS communication, working cooperatively, problem-solving

MATERIALS ✔ Discovering Projectable 5.2.1

✔ Connecting Projectable 5.2.2

✔ Student Journals

✔ Family Connection Take-Home worksheet

✔ Video of a television interview

CLASSROOM CONFIGURATION 1 pairs/whole class 2 whole class 3 pairs 4 individuals

OBJECTIVESStudents will

✔ use ART and interviewing skills to identify strengths, skills, and qualities that could contribute to a service-learning project

H COMMON CORE CONNECTIONThis lesson addresses the following Common Core Standards:

SPEAKING AND LISTENING: COMPREHENSION AND COLLABORATION

✔ SL.8.1

THIS YEAR, students continue to develop their interview skills and consider the relationship between service-learning and civic action.

LAST YEAR, students demonstrated how to use effective questioning and listening skills to find out about their classmates’ interests.

NEXT YEAR, students will practice learning from others.

Civic Action5.2.1 DISCOVERING ACTIVITY

When you hear the term civic action, what comes to mind? What strengths, skills, and

qualities would help someone take civic action?© lisafx. © skynesher. © Jani Bryson. © lisafx.© 2015 Lions Club International Foundation. All rights reserved.

Community ConnectionHave students create a talent and civic action poster for the school. Put butcher paper up on a public wall. Have students from the class invite students and staff to write one thing they are good at and one thing they have done to make the school (or the world) a better place. Leave the poster on the wall for the length of the unit.

Family ConnectionHave students invite one or more family members to have a talent charades game. Have students invite everyone to mime a talent or skill that a family member has. First have the family guess the skill or talent and then guess the person or persons who have that talent or skill. Send home the Family Connection Take-Home worksheet called Recognizing the Strengths, Skills, and Qualities of Others.

Applying Across the Curriculum

LANGUAGE ARTS Have pairs go “back to the future” and interview each other as they might find themselves 20 years from now. Have students ask each other questions about what they are doing, how they got there, and what strengths, skills, and qualities are important in their lives at this future time. Invite students to write a short article about their partner based on what they learned in the interview.

SOCIAL STUDIES Have students choose a school, community, or national leader they admire and research the person they chose. Then have students write a short essay describing the strengths, skills, and qualities they would find in an effective leader. Have students identify the qualities in the leader they chose that they would like to emulate and the actions they will take to build those leadership skills and qualities.

94 Unit 5

Introduce the ART of Listening steps and how they apply to interviewingExplain that in order to ask meaningful questions to retrieve valuable information from an interview subject it is important use the ART of Listening and effective interviewing skills. Show the Interviewing Skills that Build on ART projectable Connecting Projectable 5.2.2. Go over the skills with students.

Model strengthening interview skills through the Art of Listening Model how to get the most out of your interview by showing the students a video of a short interview from a popular TV personality. As the interview plays, stop it at points where the interviewer uses the ART of Listening.

A—When the interviewer is shown to be Attending to the speaker:

SAY: Notice how the interviewer here is leaning forward, nodding slightly, and maintaining good eye contact. This helps interviewees feel more comfortable, and they will likely open up more and discuss more about their lives.

R—When the interviewer Recognizes the speaker’s point of view:

SAY: Before any good interviewer asks more questions, he or she will want to be sure to understand what is being said. Listen here for when and how he or she does this and what specific techniques are used to demonstrate understanding, such as paraphrasing or repeating what the person interviewed said.

T—When the interviewer Takes time to ask and comment:

SAY: By taking time to comment, the interviewer is taking everything he or she has heard and is using it to come up with deeper questions that will get to much deeper issues. Without being too aggressive, the interviewer can ask better questions than he or she had even planned on, just by waiting and listening.

Now introduce some additional interviewing skills. Explain the importance of asking open-ended questions that encourage conversation rather than closed-ended questions with “Yes” or “No” answers. Emphasize gathering background information or thinking about what you know about the person, developing relevant questions that encourage the person to tell more, writing down key words, and reflecting back to the speaker what you are hearing.

ASK: How do you think the ART of Listening and interviewing skills help interviewers get better information from the interviewee? What other advance preparation and responses do you think would support an effective interview?

3 PRACTICING 20–25 MINUTES

Explain the personal profile activity Tell students they will work in pairs to conduct interviews using the questions on the Practicing page in their Student Journals. Explain that the purpose of their interviews is to find out their classmates’ strengths, skills, and qualities.

Students practice the personal profile activity Have students work in pairs. If possible, pair students with partners they don’t normally work with. Have partners interview each other using the questions on the Practicing page in their Student Journals. Ask students to take notes about their classmates’ strengths, skills, and qualities. When students complete the

ACTIVITY 2

CONNECTING ACTIVITY

5.2.2

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Interviewing Skills that Build on ART

© 2015 Lions Club International Foundation. All rights reserved.

OVERSET

BUILDING SKILLS BEYOND THE LESSON

Interview!PRACTICING To reinforce the ART of Listening skills and interviewing skills, have partners imagine they are interviewing a famous person. Have partners give each other feedback on how effective and skillful they were as an interviewer.

Research It!APPLYING To reinforce the importance of preparing for interviews in advance, have students research an activist they would like to interview (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi). Have students prepare three interview questions for their activist based on their research and write down what they think the person would answer.

REINFORCEMENT

Compare It!PRACTICING Have students compare using an audio recorder in an interview to taking written notes in an interview. (Be sure students obtain permission before recording anyone.) Have them each create a chart of pros and cons for each type of interview. Then invite students to have a debate about which method of recording information is better.

Observe It!APPLYING Have students watch a well-known interviewer (any newscaster or talk show host) interview a guest. Have students write down their observations of both the interviewer and the interviewee. Watch for the use of the ART of Listening and interviewing skills to impact the effectiveness of the interview. Have them write down anything they would have done differently.

ENRICHMENT

Lesson 2 95

Reflecting Resource: Student Journal p. 88

Applying Watch a news program, documentary, or talk show and pay attention to the type of interview questions and ART skills the interviewer uses. Record your observations in the spaces provided.

What interviewing skills did the interviewer use?

What ART skills did the interviewer use?

What was the impact on the person being interviewed? How would you rate the quality of the

interview? (For example: very good, okay, not effective) Explain.

Lesson 2 89

Reflecting Reflect on what you’ve learned about interviewing and the ART of Listening in this lesson.

SO WHAT?

WHAT?

NOW WHAT?

What does it mean to assess strengths, skills, and qualities of classmates?

What did you learn about your own strengths, skills, and qualities in this lesson?

How do you think knowing your classmates’ and your strengths, skills, and qualities might be helpful in identifying needs and possible service-learning projects?

88 Unit 5

Applying Resource: Student Journal p. 89

interviews, bring the class back together. Have students introduce their partner to the entire class using the responses to the interview questions. Give students this sentence frame to start with: “This is . One of his or her strengths is . One thing he or she is good at is .

As students make their introductions, record their answers on a sheet of butcher paper divided into three columns labeled “strengths,” “skills,” and “qualities.” Tell students that they will revisit their strengths, skills, and qualities in a future lesson.

Reflecting Students use their journals to reflect individually and as a class on what they learned in this lesson.

What? What does it mean to assess strengths, skills, and qualities of classmates? What effective interviewing skills are helpful in discovering them?

So what? What did you learn about good listening and interviewing skills in helping students give voice to them? What did you learn about your own strengths, skills, and qualities in this lesson?

Now what?

What are you looking forward to as the class plans the service-learning project? How do you think knowing your classmates’ and your strengths, skills, and qualities might be helpful in identifying needs and possible service-learning projects? What challenges do you think you and the class will face?

4 APPLYING 2 MINUTES

Ask students to watch a news program, documentary, or talk show and pay attention to the type of interview questions and ART skills the interviewer uses. Invite students to complete the Applying page in their Student Journals, either as written homework, as a follow-up activity to support the lesson, or as a verbal discussion in a future lesson after students have applied the skill.

ASSESSINGPRACTICING (INFORMAL FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT) Monitor students as they practice to assess their understanding of how they can use ART in the interview process. Review the Reflecting answers in their Student Journal to determine their understanding of questioning and listening skills.

APPLYING (FORMAL FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT) Review students’ responses to the Applying questions in their Student Journal to assess how well students apply what they learned outside of the classroom.