EDUC 2220- Educational Technology Lesson Plan Template

Empires in Africa
Aliou Sall
Grade 7/ Social Studies

Common Core Standards:

First Global Age

8. Empires in Africa (Ghana, Mali and Songhay) grew as commercial and cultural centers along trade routes.
Lesson Summary:
This lesson will explores the empires in Africa before colonization, this lesson will learn in detail about the
Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. We will learn about the trade route between this empires, how cultural develop
they are. And we will learn about how that empire rises to be great empires and how they have fallen. The
purpose of this lesson is to introduce the students to another view of Africa before colonization. Students will
learn gain a new perspective about Africa.
Estimated Duration:
We will be learning about three empires, so this lesson will be in divided into three classes of 50 minutes each,
and an extra 50 minutes session for presentation. So four class sessions of 50 minutes each. Totaling of 200
minutes.
Commentary:
Each lesson will be detailed and too the point, we will have small discussions and explores this empires. My
challenges for this lesson will be more pronunciation of the names and certain cities that we will be discussing
during these lessons. As my hook, I will utilize youtube video to peek student interest about the topic, this
video will be short and about the African Empires.

Instructional Procedures:

Day 1:
The first day will consist of introducing the class. The first 5 minutes, students will have to write anything
pre-write about everything they know about Africa. After collecting there work, the next 15 minutes of the first
day, we will watch a video named western African kingdoms, the last 20 minutes will be dedicated in
lecturing about the Empire of Ghana, with the help of reading from our world history book. I will read the
section out loud for 10 minutes, then will have a discussion about the reading by having round table talk where
students talk about the reading as group. For homework student will use their computers at home to find more
facts about the Empire Ghana.
Day 2:
The second day will be fast because we need to cover two empires. The first 15 minutes of the second day, we
will read about the Shangay empires. The make this fun, students will do peer reading in pairs. They will get to
read to each other, and then we will talk about the reading as a big group. The students will use the facts from
their homework about Ghana Empire and compare it with the Shangay Empire for the next 5 minutes. Right
after that we will move on to learning about the Empire of Mali for the next 15 minutes. This will be done as
before but with deferent pair for the reading part. After that we will some up the Empires, students will have a
chance to ask questions about what they learned about the Western African Empires, this will last for 5
minutes. The last ten minutes of class students will have a chance to brainstorm about their PowerPoint topic, I
will help students if needed. Computers will be available for this section. Powerpoint needs to be done before
students return to class. Presentation will be on the following day.
Day3:
This day is all about presentation, each student will have 3 minutes to present their power point on a topic of
their choosing, this will last for the first 30 minutes of class. The last 20 minutes of class will be dedicated to
quiz administration. Students will take quiz for this lesson. Quiz will help me learn about what the students
retained during this past two days.

Pre-Assessment:
For pre-assessment for this lesson, I will ask student to do a quick write about everything they know about
Africa and African. They will have five minutes to writes everything they know to this point. I will read this
pre-write and determine how well the students are familiar with the African continent and how far they
knowledge goes. The topic for the pre-write will be writing about everything you know about Africa?
Everything.
Scoring Guidelines:
Since this a pre-assessment a grade will not given to students, the point of this assignment is to help me
as a teacher to learn about what they know about the topic. Based on the pre-write I will conduct my
lesson in a manager that will help them learn as more as possible. I will omit things that the students
know and I will add things they need to learn. Therefore a grade will no be given for this assessment.
Post-Assessment:
For this lesson I will have two post-assessment, the first one, students will have to create a power point

presentation about one aspect of one of the Empires, they can focus about economy, culture, food, war etc.
Students will have to choose. They will have to present in front of their classmate the last day of the lesson.
The other post-assessment will be a multiple-choice quiz, this will help know what students retained and
learned in the lesson.
Scoring Guidelines:
Grading this part will be a little complicated, for the quiz it will be grade by me the instructor. Each
question is worth 2 points for 50 questions.
The presentation will be grade in two parts, 50% will be peer grade, meaning those come the classmate
after listening their classmate present. Students will be given a form to fill at each presentation, and
then I will tally those scores. The other 50% will be coming from me the teacher, my grade will based
on the quality of the power point, did all requirement were meet, and then presentation.

Differentiated Instructional Support

Little differentiation will be needed for this lesson. I will provide different reading level for my lower reading
students; I will base this depending on their reading level or SRI. This will help the lower reading students
understand better the reading part of the lesson. For the presentation will try to help as much as possible.

Extension
This website will be a great source to help student get some more information about this empires.
http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/students/curriculum/m7a/activity3.php
This website provide section with detailed information like economy, military etc. This site will be helpful if
students have choosing any of those topics.
http://www.timemaps.com/civilization/African-kingdoms

Homework Options and Home Connections

Students will have to find facts about the Empire of Ghana. And also will have to great their power point at
home because there will not have class time to finish this assignment.
Interdisciplinary Connections

English
Students in this lesson are using many reading styles, read-a-loud, and peer reading. Comprehension is very
important to understand the lesson; these tools will help them comprehend better.
Art
Student will be looking at art from those three great empires, it will help learn how to look at art and see
beyond the pictures. Our lesson is accompanied with great pictures and artifacts.

Materials and Resources:

For teachers

Projector, computer, smart board, history book, internet.

For students

Computer, paper, history book.

Key Vocabulary
Mansa musa, Sundiata, Mali, mansa, Turareg, Maghan

Additional Notes