Are You Ready to
Become a Parent?
Teacher Page
A WebQuest for 11-12 Grade Relationships
Designed by
Shannon Strecker
Introduction
This lesson was developed
as part of the VE451 Methods: Consumer and Family Studies class at
This lesson will help the
students creatively explore and discover the many aspects people should
consider before they decide to have a baby. It will also connect the students
with what they are learning and make their learning a real life experience
because they will be creating brochures to hand out to the community.
Learners
This lesson is anchored in
eleventh or twelfth grade relationship classes. It also involves the use of writing
and language arts (English). The lesson may also be used for a ninth or tenth
grade class and could be applied in a parenting class.
Before the lesson, it
would be important for the students to have an idea of characteristics and
skills required to make a good parent. Other than that, everything else can be
easily learned and discovered by doing this assignment.
Curriculum Standards
As a result of this lesson, students will
have achieved proficiency in Standard 4 of the Relationships Curriculum. This
standard states: The student will analyze factors involved in making a choice
to become a parent. The assignment will also cover the following sub-standards:
ü
4.01 -
Evaluate considerations for parenting.
ü
4.02 -
Evaluate considerations for readiness in parenting.
ü
4.03 - Examine
family panning compatible with personal values and parenting decisions.
ü
4.09 - Examine
child care decisions.
The students will also be: using critical
thinking skills, analyzing data, using creative thinking and production skills,
using cooperation skills, working together as a team, evaluating the data they
find, and using application skills to apply this subject to their own and
others’ lives.
Process
** These
stars indicate places of explanation for the teacher.
Step 1. I will break you up into groups of two people. **(You, the teacher, will break up
the students into groups. You can do this any way you like, as long as everyone
has a partner with whom to work).
Step 2. After you have been broken up into groups, each group will cover each
of the following topics in their brochure.
1. Individual
Characteristics and Skills – In
this section you and your group must develop questions that would be
appropriate to ask someone who wasn’t sure whether or not they should become a
parent. The questions must make the person think of their own values,
characteristics, and skills and whether or not those values, characteristics,
and skills would help them become a good parent. Examples of some questions to
ask are: Do you like kids? Do you enjoy traveling? Do you tend to be patient,
or do you get frustrated easily?
After coming up with 5 questions, list
each question on the brochure. Below each question, explain why you asked that
particular question and why the question would help determine whether or not
the person should become a parent. **An example of a question with an explanation
would be: Do you like to travel? – This question was asked because, if the
person/people like to travel, they may have to give that hobby up once the baby
is born. If they do not think they can stop traveling for a while, they may not
want to become parents because having a baby and spending time with it does not
allow for much time to travel.
Look at www.parentingproject.org to find
some characteristics of good parents to help you formulate your questions.
2. Financial
Responsibilities – In this section
you will address the new financial responsibilities parents have to consider as
a result of having a child. Address both short term (diapers, food, etc.) and
long term (activities, college, etc.) costs.
Look at www.parenting.com
under family finance to find short term costs. Also look at www.ivillage.com/money/life_stage/familykids.
List at least 10 short term costs parents will have to consider and the actual
amount of money it will cost them. For long term costs, simply list 4 long term
costs parents would have to think about in the future. ** Examples of long term costs may
be college expenses, sports or other activities the children will eventually
participate in, medical costs, family vacations, etc.
3. Career Goals – In this section you need to make the
person/people looking at the brochure assess their career goals and decide
whether or not their career goals will work with their goals of having a
family.
Look at http://geoparent.com/moms/athome/sahparenting2.htm
to see what types of feelings mothers and fathers have in regards to work and
family after they have a child. List and explain 4 feelings parents may have
about the choice of staying home with their children rather than going to work
and taking their children to daycare. What are 3 advantages and 3 disadvantages
of staying at home versus going to work and using day care? Why?
Also look at www.thelaboroflove.com/websearch/links/index.shtml
under childcare to see the different childcare options parents may have. List
these options and 5 reasons why parents may have to or want to use childcare.
4. Marriage Stability – In this section you need to make the person/people
looking at your brochure think about the stability of their current marriage
and how that relationship could affect the child to be born.
Look at www.parentsworld.com/kids.html
to see how children and parents feel about and react to a divorce situation.
Give information on 3 issues the children have to deal with as a result of a
divorce. Then give information on 3 issues the parents have to deal with as a
result of a divorce. Also, write an enticing question that would really cause a
couple to think about the stability of their marriage before they decided to
have a child.
Also look at www.becomingtheparent.com under
Looking for Answers (then go to Topics of Interest – then go to Parenting with
a Partner) to find issues and feelings that might arise between the couple
after the child has been born. Explain 2 of these issues or feelings and why,
if a marriage is not stable, they could cause problems.
Step 3. Put all this information in a brochure format. The brochure may be as
big as you want as long as all sections have enough information and pictures to
cover the particular section. The first page of the brochure should be the
cover. It should have a creative title and appealing look that will make
someone want to read the brochure. There will be four other sections of the
brochure and the headings of these sections should be: Individual
Characteristics and Skills, Financial Responsibilities, Career Goals, and
Marriage Stability. The information you find on each of these topics will go in
each respective section.
Be as creative as you want with this
brochure. You can use pictures, colored paper, markers, crayons, or whatever
else you want to make the brochure appealing. Remember, however, that your
committee will be putting this brochure out into the community, so it should be
free from clutter and look professional.
You will have 5 days to complete this
project. Try to complete one section of the brochure each day and leave the
last (5th) day for any final touchups or revisions. ** This
time requirement is subject to change. If you find the students are getting
through the material more quickly, you can have the brochure due at an earlier
date. If the material is taking students longer than 5 days, you can give them
extra time. The time allowed will also depend upon the length of your class
period.
** This assignment
should be relatively easy for a novice teacher to administer. The one thing I
would recommend doing would be to look at professional brochures to see how
they are put together. This way you will be able to assess the quality of the
brochures your students hand in.
Variations
The one thing you could do with this
assignment would be to make it into a service learning activity. You could have
the students vote on the brochure they thought was the best. The criteria for
voting would have to have an informational as well as an appearance component.
When the best brochure was chosen, the students (the whole class) could make
copies of the brochure and actually hand them out at a teen clinic or community
informational setting. While handing out the brochures, the students could talk
to those in the community about what they had found by doing this WebQuest. The
students could also hand out the brochures to ninth and tenth grade students in
the school and give and informational seminar on the topics in the brochure. The
important thing to remember when doing a service learning activity, however, is
to have a reflection piece. When the students were finished handing out the
brochures, it would be important to have a discussion or activity that would
allow the students to express what they had learned and how it applies to their
own lives.
Resources Needed
To implement this lesson, a teacher would
need:
v
Different
sizes of thick paper on which to make the brochures
v
Colored
markers, crayons, or pencils
v
Magazines from
which they can use pictures or letters
v
Stencils
v
Glue
Human resources needed: Just one teacher
would be sufficient, but parent volunteers or teacher aids would be helpful to
help the students with the making of their brochures. If you were to do the
service learning piece, you would need to contact directors at teen clinics,
community programs, or other teachers in the building to set up a time to
distribute and talk about the brochures.
Evaluation
Your evaluation of this
brochure will be based on these 4 areas of concentration: Content, Grammar and
Spelling, Attractiveness and Professionalism, and Group Work (graded on an
individual basis and based upon a sheet your partner will fill out about your
level of participation in the group).
|
|
Beginning |
Developing |
Accomplished |
Exemplary |
Score |
|
Content
|
30-34 pt Only a few of the sections of the brochure are completed. Little accuracy of information submitted. |
35-39 pt Not all sections of the brochure have the required information. Some accurate information. |
40-44 pt All required information in each of the four sections of the brochure are covered, but not in a thorough or detailed manner. Not all information may be accurate. |
50-45 pt All required information in each of the four sections of the brochure is accurate and thoroughly covered in detail. |
|
|
Grammar and Spelling
|
12-13 pt 8 or more spelling errors throughout the brochure. Writing is unclear and disorganized. |
14-15 pt 5-7 grammar or spelling errors throughout the brochure. A majority of the writing is unclear and disorganized. |
16-17 pt 3-4 grammar or spelling errors throughout the brochure. Only a few sections of writing are unclear and unorganized. |
18-20 pt Only 1-2 grammar
or spelling errors throughout the brochure. Writing is clear and organized and easy to follow. |
|
|
Attractiveness And Professionalism
|
18-20 pt Brochure does not have a professional look. Pictures/graphics do not add to the quality of the brochure. Too many colors and pictures. The brochure looks cluttered. |
21-23 pt Parts of the
brochure look professional. Pictures/graphics do not always add to the
quality of the brochure. The colors and pictures cause parts of the brochure
to look cluttered. |
24-26 pt Brochure has a
professional look. Pictures/graphics do not necessarily add to the quality of
the brochure. Colors enhance only certain sections of the brochure. |
27-30 pt Brochure has a professional look. Pictures/graphics add to the quality of the brochure. Colors are used to enhance the quality and attractiveness of the brochure. |
|
|
Group Work (This will be scored on an individual
basis)
|
0-13 pt Did not contribute to any part of group work. The other group member did most of the work. |
14-15 pt Contributed to some parts of group work. Was not present at most meetings and completed less than an equal share of work. |
16-17 pt Contributed to most parts of group work. Was present at most group meetings. Completed less than an equal share of work. |
18-20 pt Contributed to all
parts of group work. Was present at all group meetings and completed an equal
share of the work. |
|
** The most important part of this
brochure is the content. Be sure the students have sufficiently covered all the
information required in all the sections of the brochure!!
Conclusion
This lesson is important because, not only
will it cause the students to think about what they need to consider before
they decide to have a child, but it will also help them make the content
relevant to their lives by producing a brochure to give to the community.
Credits and Reference
Images: www.animationfactory.com
Thanks to Kathy Ferrel in the media center for providing a workshop on how to do a Web Quest.