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Lesson 6: Spinning Your Wheels
 
Objectives:
 
Students will:
 
  • Read and to articles on topics related to the topic of transportation and land use
  • Support their responses with textual references 
  • Engage in one of the following discussion activities; panel discussion, shared inquiry discussion, value line, debate
  • Compose a persuasive essay on a topic related to the topic of transportation and land use
Core Learning Goals:
 
Reading -- The student will demonstrate the ability to respond to a text by employing personal experiences and critical analysis.
 

Expectation 1.1: The student will use effective strategies before, during, and after reading, viewing, and listening to self-selected and assigned materials.

Expectation 1.3: The student will explain and give evidence to support perceptions about print and non-print works.

Indicator 1.3.2: The student will interpret a work by using a critical approach (e.g., reader response, historical, cultural, biographical, structural) that is supported with textual references.
Writing -- The student will demonstrate the ability to compose in a variety of modes by developing content, employing specific forms, and selecting language appropriate for a particular audience and purpose.
 

Expectation 2.1: The student will write to compose oral, written, and visual presentations which inform, persuade, and express personal ideas.

Indicator 2.1.4: The student will compose persuasive texts that support, modify, or refute a position and include effective rhetorical strategies.

Indicator 2.2.1: The student will use a variety of prewriting strategies to generate and develop ideas.

Indicator 2.2.2: The student will select and organize ideas for specific audiences and purposes. 

Indicator 2.2.3: The student will revise texts for clarity, completeness, and effectiveness. 

Indicator 2.2.4: The student will rehearse oral texts for effective application of diction, intonation, and rhetorical strategies, such as introductions, sequence, illustrations, and conclusions.

Indicator 2.2.5 : The student will use suitable traditional and electronic resources to refine presentations and edit texts for effective and appropriate use of language and conventions, such as capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and pronunciation.
Materials/Resources:
 
  • "Building Better Communities: A Toolkit for Quality Growth," The Road Information Program
  • "Greetings from Smart Growth America," Smart Growth America, 
  • newspaper articles (see archive websites in "How to use this Guide")
Background:
  
Transportation and land use planners must consider a variety of issues, including cost-effectiveness, environmental impacts, equity (how their decisions impact different communities or groups of people), economic development, and community impacts. Moreover, they must consider these issues within a regional framework, because transportation needs and systems cross town, county, and State boundaries.

In recent years, two dominant philosophies have emerged:

Safe Pedestrian Crossing Graphic
 

 
1. The single-occupancy vehicle is the transportation mode of choice and the government should support this choice.

2. Land use patterns that create great distances between destinations force people to drive and are not supportive of people who cannot or do not wish to drive. Building more roads only reinforces the type of development that is designed primarily, if not exclusively, for cars. The government should also invest in alternatives to driving and ensure that land use patterns allow people to get to many of their destinations without having to drive. This philosophy supports communities that offer people transportation choices.

Each philosophy has its own "spin" or perspective on how transportation and land use impact public investment, the environment, equity, economic development, and communities.
 
Activity: Reading and Writing
 
Students will engage in a strategic reading of "Building Better Communities: A Toolkit for Quality Growth", "Greetings From Smart Growth America.", and related newspaper articles on transportation identified by students or teachers.
 

1.  

 Lead students on pre-reading activity to establish:
  • Prior knowledge
  • Vocabulary clarification
  • Context for reading these articles

2.  

 Stop students during reading of articles and lead them in during-reading activity to:
  • Check for understanding
  • Monitor comprehension
  • Integrate new concepts with existing knowledge

3.  

 Depending on your assessment of student reading, you can:
  • Return students to pre-reading or
  • Return students to active reading of the articles 

4.  

 When students have completed reading the articles, lead students in one or more   after reading activities that prompt students to:
  • Summarize the selection
  • State the idea
  • Interpret and evaluate the ideas in the texts
  • Apply ideas from the text
  • Use study strategies: i.e., take notes, locate and organize specific information, investigate additional resources

5.  

 To prepare students to take a position in a persuasive essay, students will engage in one of the following discussion activities: panel discussion, shared inquiry discussion, value line, debate.
 

6.  

 Following the discussion activity, students will begin pre-writing activities related to their persuasive essay. They will employ one or more organizers: outline (CS, Harvard, web) other visual organizers, discussion, etc.
 

7.  

 Students will begin a series of drafts of their persuasive essay.
 

8.  

 Students will engage in a series of editing activities: peer editing, reviewing, structural editing, etc.
 

9.  

 Students will use "traditional and electronic resources to refine presentations and edit texts for effective and appropriate use of language and conventions, such as capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and pronunciation."
 

10.  

 Students will publish their persuasive essays.
 

11.  

 Students will use a dissemination method to share the content, structure, position of their essays: portfolio reflection/discussion, discussion, panel discussion, gallery/museum walk, etc.
 

Photo of Ellicott City, one of Maryland's Priority Funding Areas

 
 
 

Contents | Spinning  Your Wheels | Building Better Communities: A Toolkit for Quality Growth | Smart Growth America
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