Language & French

Drama is intrinsically linked to various literacy skills, so it is assumed that all Language and/or French expectations required for a particular grade can be met through activities in this unit, including:

  • Writing in Role
  • Persuasion, justifying opinions
  • Exploring diverse perspectives
  • Active listening (Informal & Formal contexts)
  • Speaking (Informal & Formal contexts)
  • Preparing writing or speaking for various audiences and purposes
  • Creating a variety of types of media

Possible lesson extensions:

  • Invite students to create a news article based on the interviews about their local celebrations in Lesson 1.
  • In Lesson 2, explore biographies of leaders to learn about text features and patterns used to write biographies. Extend this into a parallel lesson about biography writing - students could write biographies about prominent members of their fictional communities to further engage in world-building or they could write about prominent members of their local community, leaders with shared identity markers (e.g., examples of Black Excellence), etc.
  • Write news reports at key moments throughout the drama reflecting the communities' thoughts and various perspectives within the communities (e.g., letters to the editor, news stories, etc.)
  • Include success criteria related to public speaking for presentations to the Town Hall or at town meetings.
  • Use terminology related to the specific context of the process drama to teach parts of speech, word work, and other skills related to the science of reading.
  • Use the Kirkland Lake article or other artifacts as part of Language/French lessons to teach reading strategies, listening strategies, word choice, point of view, etc.
Visual Arts
  • In Lesson 1, students create a flag. Have them examine flags and their symbols as types of media. What values do they communicate? How has the Canadian flag changed over time and why?
  • In Lesson 1, students may create election posters as part of their process of electing a local government. You could examine election posters for design elements.
  • As a visual arts response to the process drama, create visual arts representations about their personal reflections, or to be added to a newspaper article or social media about what is happening. Invite students to create protest posters and investigate the elements of protest posters, if applicable.
Science (& Health)

During Mantle of the Expert activities, join a group in role to push their thinking or introduce possible avenues for inquiry:

  • The impacts of highways and landfills on habitats, the water cycle, etc.
  • Ways to mitigate the impacts of highways and landfills (e.g., land bridges)
  • The physical and chemical changes involved in the processes of a landfill
  • Road technology (e.g., roads that use solar panels or kinetic energy to generate electricity) - connections to Conservation of Energy strand in science
  • Alternatives to landfills and their impacts on the environment (look at other countries' solutions)
  • Health impacts of changes to the environment (and their impacts on specific organ systems)
Scaffolding Research
  • Research games
  • Explicit teaching on how to search for information
  • District School Board Virtual Library/ e-resources
  • Vetted Sources:
  • Provide 3 different sources
    • Students should be able to name their source, know how to annotate, and how to gather and sort
  • Invite Guest Speaker/ Experts into the classroom
  • Primary vs. Secondary Sources
  • Critical Thinking Consortium
  • Teacher-librarian partners
  • Notes structures like Cornell Note-taking system (or Cornell notes) - many variations available, examples on Google
  • CIVIX's Ctrl+F program about identifying misinformation and digital literacy (available in English and French)
Math & Financial Literacy

Most of the math integration is possible in Lesson 1:

  • Geometrocity-style project (Geometry + Metrocity - a city made of math): Students build a 3D version of their community, ensuring that they have all of the community buildings needed. Opportunities to include thinking about budgeting in the construction of their city.
  • Graphing: Look at municipal tax budgets for your community or a smaller town near you. Track spending changes over time, create visual representations of the percentage spent on major areas in the budget.
  • Property Taxes: Invite students to calculate theoretical property taxes for their community to determine what their community budget might be. Compare their budgeting to their city's budget.

During the Mantle of the Expert activities, some groups may explore the impact of the communities' decisions on local businesses:

  • Explore the financial benefits or consequences of disruptive changes
  • Determine if the benefits offered by the Provincial government are sufficient to support their business through construction
  • Interview local business owners about street closures, business locations, their thoughts about the issues being discussed
Social Studies
  • Use the inquiry process of the Social Studies curriculum in Ontario for Mantle of the Expert activities and as parallel activities to activities in this unit to deepen student engagement with the research questions.
  • City planning: If you do a Geometrocity-style project, you could also invite students to think about infrastructure in terms of bike lines, roads, public spaces, green spaces, mixed-use neighbourhoods, and consider how their 'ideal' community relates to their lived experiences in their city. Invite an urban planner to talk with the class about a current or recent infrastructure project that might interest them. How will the communities respond if the population increases because of the highway? How will that change their use of space and how much will it cost them to prepare for it? Is the Provincial government's offer sufficient for managing these changes? Will you need to build new neighbourhoods, schools, etc.?
  • Invite students to consider the climate in their region.
  • Mapping: Extend the mapping activity when introducing students to their communities to have students practice the use of map features.
  • In Lesson 1, students elect local government; exploring the election of municipal officials could support inquiry into Canadian Governance such as levels of government. Investigate the levels of government and their responsibilities. Revisit this learning in lesson 2 and 3: Why is the Ministry of Transportation involved with planning for a landfill? Which levels of government are responsible?
  • Write in role to government officials and explore with the students the ways that they can engage with levels of government between elections.
  • Investigate the role of Indigenous governance, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, treaty obligations, and the right to free, prior and informed consent. Use tools like native-land.ca to investigate which nations would need to be consulted by the government for an infrastructure project like this.
  • Invite an elected official to speak with your class about issues they are working on currently
  • CIVIX - particularly the Student Vote or Rep Day program materials may be helpful
  • Investigate concepts like Environmental Racism with students in conjunction with learning about Kirkland Lake; Investigate the ways that Western countries manage their waste and the consequences for communities around the world