Activity 1: Spreading the Word—What Should People Know?

1. Begin by asking students, “Do you think everyone should learn more about mental illness? Why? How could you help students, parents, and the public learn what you have learned about mental illness?”

Because there are many appropriate answers to these questions, this is an opportunity to get answers from most students in the class. Students may suggest that they could teach the module for others, prepare posters, develop radio or television spots, design brochures or magazine ads, or organize “mental illness awareness” walks or other similar events.

2. Acknowledge that there are many ways to inform people about mental illness, but tell students that for this lesson, they will work in teams to develop a brochure. Conduct a brief class discussion in which you ask students to list some features that an effective brochure might include.

Students should indicate that the brochure should have a clear and important message, include information that supports the message, use facts accurately, be eye-catching, and be easy to read.

3. Display a transparency of Master 6.1, Rubric for Evaluating the Brochures, and explain that after they have created their own brochure (as a team), they will evaluate other teams’ brochures using the criteria in the rubric. Briefly go over the criteria with the class and indicate when the brochure evaluations will take place.

Content Standard A:
Science advances through legitimate skepticism. Asking questions and querying other scientists’ explanations is part of scientific inquiry.

It is important to review the evaluation criteria before students design their brochures. They may find it unfair if they do not see the rubric used to evaluate their brochures until it is too late for them to make any adjustments.

If students have not used a rubric to evaluate information before, explain how the rubric presents specific criteria and assigns points based on how effectively information is presented. At this point, students do not need to know all the specifics (they will get a copy of the rubric later in the lesson when they do their critiques), but students should have some familiarity with the criteria that they will use to evaluate brochures.

Set aside at least half of a class period for the brochure evaluations. You will need to make enough photocopies of each team’s brochure that each student has one brochure to evaluate.

4. Explain to students that they will need to decide on one important message for their brochures. Display a transparency made from Master 6.2, Deciding What’s Important, to help students distinguish important “big ideas” from interesting but less important details.

The diagram on Master 6.2 is a graphic way to help students think about what topic they should address in their brochure.

The outermost rectangle on Master 6.2 includes ideas that are “worth being familiar with,” though not the most important ones to remember months or years after instruction. The middle rectangle includes ideas that are “important to know and do.” The innermost rectangle represents “enduring understandings.” These are the fundamental, critical understandings that should endure in students’ understanding of a topic.

For this activity, emphasize to students that their brochures should focus on one big idea that they feel everyone should know and remember about mental illness. Encourage students to think about this diagram when they begin working with their team to decide on the message for their brochure.

5. Organize students into teams of two or three and tell them to decide on the one big idea for their brochure. Allow teams approximately 10 minutes to decide on the important message for their brochure.

This will likely be the most challenging part of the activity. Have students refer to the brief summaries that they have written as the wrap-up for each of the previous lessons. This information should give them ideas and remind them of what they have done in earlier lessons. You can help students by asking them to list the activities they completed in the previous lessons. Encourage students to consider what they think the important ideas were in those activities. For example, students may want to focus their brochure on

• mental illnesses and changes in the brain,
• risk factors for mental illnesses,
• effective treatments for mental illness, or
• the ways mental illnesses are like other diseases.

As teams work, circulate around the room and check to see that each team’s big message is something that students can address given the information they have learned in the previous lessons. If teams have trouble narrowing the focus of their brochures, help them by asking questions such as, “What one idea is the most important point you want to get across in your brochure?” Help students understand that the idea is not necessarily to tell everything that they have learned during the course of the module, but to make decisions about what is most important and how to select facts that support their decision.

Note to teachers: Because this lesson is the Evaluate part of the BSCS 5E Instructional Model, students should not turn this into a research project that requires them to find more facts about a particular mental illness or about mental illness in general. The purpose of this activity is for students to synthesize and communicate what they have learned in the previous lessons of the module. Having students do Internet searches or read material supplied as teacher background reading will not allow you to assess what they have learned from the previous lessons.

Content Standard A:
Communicate scientific procedures and explanations.

6. After the teams have decided on an appropriate message, give them paper for their brochures. Show the class a copy of Master 6.3, Sample Art, and tell them that these pictures will be available to illustrate their brochure, if they wish to use them.

Encourage students to illustrate their brochures with drawings. Teams can also use color to enhance the appearance of their brochures.

7. As the teams work, visit each team and assign a code number or letter for each brochure.

Circulate among the teams while they are working, answering questions or providing feedback. You may wish to have students complete part of the task as homework, with each team deciding who will be responsible for different parts of the brochure.

The code letter or number will allow you to know who worked on each brochure and what brochure each student is evaluating. Students, however, will not know whose brochure they are evaluating (see Step 9).

8. At the appropriate class session for the critique phase of the activity, give each student one copy of Master 6.1, Rubric for Evaluating the Brochures, and one copy of Master 6.4, Brochure Scoring Sheet.

Content Standard A:
Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations.


Assessment:
Although you could evaluate the brochures produced by the teams to assess students’ understanding, we encourage you to use each student’s completed critique on Master 6.4, Brochure Scoring Sheet, as a way to assess each student’s understanding of the material in this supplement. This also puts greater emphasis on learning fundamental ideas about mental illness than on designing attractive brochures.

Remind students that they discussed the categories on the rubric earlier. If helpful, go over one category specifically to help students learn how to use a rubric for evaluating a brochure. For example, you may wish to point out that if the students feel that the brochure they are evaluating contains several points of information that support its purpose and those points are accurate, they could score it a 5. If some important information is included but some is missing, they might score it as a 3 for that criterion. If the brochure doesn’t contain specific facts that support the big idea, students should give it a 1.

Also point out to students that they will need to provide specific reasons for their scores on Master 6.4, Brochure Scoring Sheet. Inform them that simply saying yes or no is not enough. If a fact is incorrect, students should identify what is incorrect and make the appropriate correction. If they feel that the brochure has not focused on a major idea or tries to cover too many ideas, they should identify what the problem is and decide what would have been a better idea for the brochure.

9. Give each student one brochure (not his or her team’s brochure) to evaluate.

You will need to make enough photocopies of each brochure so that each student (not each team) can have one to evaluate. Alternatively, if you have enough class sections, you can give each student a brochure from another class section to evaluate.

Having students provide specific reasons for their scoring is an opportunity for students to demonstrate what they have learned about mental illnesses during the previous lessons. It also allows students to practice their critical-thinking skills. In life, everyone is presented with information and has to make life decisions based on that information. To be an informed citizen and voter, learning how to analyze information about many topics for accuracy and relevance is essential.

Activity 2: What Do You Think about Mental Illness Now?

1. Distribute a copy of Master 6.5, What Do You Know?, to each student and allow 5 to 10 minutes for students to answer the questions.

In this activity, students answer the same questions as in Lesson 1. This enables students to determine whether their understanding about mental illness has changed after they learned factual information about this subject.

2. After students have answered the questions, give each student the copy of Master 1.2, What Do You Think?, that he or she completed in Lesson 1. Direct students to open (remove the staple and unfold) Master 1.2 and compare the answers they just wrote with those they wrote earlier.

Allow a few minutes for students to compare their responses. Each student should only look at his or her own responses. Ask students whether their answers are different today from when they answered the questions in Lesson 1 and, if so, how they are different.

Assessment:
Giving students time to compare their answers from Lesson 6 with those from Lesson 1 fulfills one goal of the Evaluate phase of the BSCS 5E Instructional Model: it provides an opportunity for students to assess their own progress by comparing their current understanding with their prior knowledge.

3. Conduct a brief class discussion. Ask students the following questions:

• If your answers were different today, why do you think they were different?
• Does learning about mental illness make a difference? Why?
• Do you think you would react differently now to someone who has a mental illness compared with your reaction before you completed the module?

At least some students’ responses should be different now that they have learned more about mental illnesses. Even if some students’ attitudes have not changed within the span of this module, the knowledge they have gained may influence their opinions later after more life experiences. Lead students to the idea that understanding more about mental illness affects their opinions about how people who have a mental illness should be treated.

Notice that the discussion questions above do not ask students to divulge their answers. Because of the potentially sensitive nature of the questions on Master 6.5, students may be uncomfortable sharing what they wrote. Use your judgment about discussing responses to specific questions. The discussion will need to be handled with sensitivity because students may bring up personal experiences or stories. You might wish to ask the school nurse or guidance counselor to help you facilitate this discussion. See A Special Note at the beginning of the module about how to find help (school nurse, counselor, or community services) for students who have issues related to mental illness. Also refer to How Can Controversial Topics Be Handled in the Classroom? or Additional Resources for Teachers.

Extension Activity (Optional)

If students are interested in helping educate others about mental illness as a service project, they can expand the scope of the brochure. Ask students to vote on the brochure that has the most important information for the community to know. Use that brochure as a starting point for the new and expanded brochure. Students can work together as a class to

• decide what additional information should be included,
• check the facts presented in the brochure for accuracy, and
• determine how the brochure could be more appealing.

Some students, for example, could search the Internet for additional sources of information, some students could focus on improving the written text, and others could work on improving the illustrations and design. Students could then distribute the revised brochure within the school or the community.