Hook Lesson - "I'm Packing My Suitcase and I'm Going to Take..."

Coming up with a hook lesson or an introduction to a lesson that grabs the students, I think, is always the most fun to write.  The trouble is sometimes it’s hard coming up with a really good idea.  A hook lesson should grab your student’s attention, but also introduce a lesson or unit and even provide an informal assessment back to the teacher about where the student’s understanding about the lesson lies before the lesson/unit even begins.    Putting all of those components together makes the hook lesson tricky to write.  You want to get their attention, but not give them too much information about the lesson and “dump the whole load”, all while trying to figure out what they know and don’t know about the topic. 

Our unit is on 4^th grade history.  We have finally narrowed our unit on North Carolina history down to the study of North Carolina structures, symbols and place names.  Specifically, North Carolina Essential State Standard: 4.H.2 Understand how notable structures, symbols and place names are significant to North Carolina.  Our unit plan includes lessons on our state’s geography, learning how to read a map and determine distances on a map, a lesson on our state’s three regions, and corresponding lessons on each of the three regions and important places within each of the three regions.  The final assessment, authentic task we have planned is an online student made scrap book that highlights places from each of the three regions of North Carolina, as if they had taken a trip to these places in our state. 

For the introductory lesson, I thought I would bring a suitcase into the classroom, and explain to the students that we’re going on a trip to discover places in our state.  I’ll remind the students that we live in a varied state, with lots of different types of people with different accents and backgrounds, different things to see and do, different places to explore and even different places to eat.  I’ll explain that since we’ll be visiting North Carolina all year, we'll experience even very different types of weather.  I will ask them, if we plan to do it ALL, what kinds of things will we need to pack in our suitcase to make sure we 1) see it all and won't get lost and 2) have the right clothes, supplies and gear.  I would ask the students for ideas for things we’ll need to pack and their reason for why we’ll need the item.  I could start the students off by saying that we’ll need hiking boots to explore the mountains.  I would want to remind them that I really want to experience everything the state has to offer from music to food, sports and culture to landmarks and history.  I might also ask the students to think back about their travels and what they might have brought with them.  The list could be endless, but also telling, as to what the students might know about places in their state.  They could say we’ll need sunglasses and sunblock for the beaches, guide books on the Civil War, a Tar Heel T-shirt, or Wolfpack t-shirt if we plan on attending a basketball game in Chapel Hill or Raleigh.  We might need a guide to the best barbecue in the state, mosquito repellent for the bugs in the mountains, or ant spray for the fire ants.  We might need guidebooks on insects to identify the scary bugs, or information about plants in our state, especially the poisonous plants. 

I imagine they’ll say we’ll need money, and to that I’d respond,  "since it’s a virtual trip, our virtual cash supply is endless, but that doesn’t mean we won’t need to know how much things will cost.  We might actually get a chance to get to go to some of these places!" So information about how much places we'll want to see might cost would be helpful.

A list of all of the things and the corresponding reason why we’ll need these things could be written on a white board.   I’d want to get the students excited about learning about places in their state, and to have them start to think about what they already know about their state. 

 

I’m hoping the students will say that we’ll need a map of our state or a GPS or something along that line.  If not I’ll add that we’ll need a map, and then produce a map already packed in my suitcase since I’d tell them I anticipated we’d need a map of North Carolina, so we wouldn’t get lost.  I’d open up the map, and also display a highway map of North Carolina on a whiteboard.  I’d ask the students what we’ll need to be able to get to all of the places in North Carolina.  Will a car get us everywhere we want to go?  What about the waterways, such as the rivers, lakes, streams, and even the ocean inlets?  Could we go by airplane, helicopter or gyrocopter?  If we go by train, we’ll it take us everywhere we want to go?  Could we bike?  Take a bus?

As an assessment tool for this lesson and for helping plan the rest of the lessons in this unit, I would have the students in small groups study a map of North Carolina.  Then I would have the students take a piece of paper and fold it in half.  On one half of the paper they are to write five places in North Carolina that they already know something about, and one thing that know about that place.  (It does not have to be a place that they have visited.)  On the other side of their paper they are to write 10 places they don’t know anything about, have never heard of, or just want to find out more about the place.  Remind the students that the places can include everything from cities to lakes, rivers, streams, universities and colleges, monuments, statues, hospitals, shopping centers, farms, golf courses, speedways, race tracks, factories, businesses, buildings, architectural wonders and buildings, light houses, museums, railroads, restaurants, parkways, forts, ferries and Ferris wheels.  They can use the map or other maps of North Carolina highlighting points of interest or approved internet sites, texts on North Carolina and brochures and magazines on places in our state. 

I’m hoping this lesson will spark interest in studying places in North Carolina for the students, familiarize them with our state by having them pour over the maps and get a sense of what they might know and not know about places in our state.