Symbols: Advertising font, headline, image, and color techniques. Hotel and travel symbols: family, accommodation, restaurant, room service, swimming pool, facilities for people with disabilities, and hotel class listings.   

Discourse: Encoding and decoding of information to create logical argumentation and exposition.

Strategies: This unit will use a variety of problem-solving strategies - analyzing data, recognizing patterns, making predictions, drawing conclusions, and developing background knowledge. Authentic (Anchored) Problem: What does society value when choosing a vacation destination? What do people take into consideration when comparing places? What images do travel companies depict in their brochures? Why are some images more appealing? How do advertisers use brochures to influence travelers?

Authentic Problem:  The unit will surround the anchored/authentic problem of developing a travel package for a specific client – a family of five, an elderly couple with disabilities, a high school band, three outdoor enthusiasts, and a single mother with two small children. Students, as members of a travel agency, will collaborate in groups to create a travel brochure, a flight plan, an itinerary, and budget. They will distribute roles and conduct research using a ten-step process. Students will create a PowerPoint presentation to present their findings to their classmates. Students will rate each group’s travel package based on relevancy to the prospective clients. Throughout the lesson, students will take part in knowledge and skill building activities that will focus on grammar, syntax, and research skills.

This unit focuses on the travel industry and decision-making. 

Disciplinary Structures: Social Science: geography, culture, languages, maps, historical sites, landmarks, tourism, and climate. Language Arts: audience, purpose, language, summarizing, expository texts, grammar, syntax, and editing. 

Disciplinary Processes:  Social Science: researching information, organizing data, using maps, interpreting visual data. Language Arts: creating a multimedia presentation, using written language, and participating in discussions.

Through out this unit, students will have opportunities to explore, search, organize, develop, create, and report. They will have opportunities to plan, design, encode, construct, review, revise, publish, and evaluate. Students will be connecting background knowledge, such as personal experience and values, to develop a travel package (a travel brochure, a flight plan, an itinerary, and budget) for a specific client.

Students will be part of a group of four to five students. Each group will divide jobs and tasks. Students will create a research plan and research questions. For some aspects of the project, students will work in partners to complete parts of the project or conduct research. Groups will summarize information by creating a multimedia presentation. Students will then peer-evaluate projects using a teacher created rubric. In each step of the process, students will take part in class discussions and group discussions, in order to create a problem-solving supportive environment.

Standards 2009-2010: Language Arts Reading/Vocabulary Development: 6.2 (E), 7.2 (E), 8.2(E) Use dictionary or thesaurus to identify meaning of parts of speech Writing/Expository and Procedural Texts: 6.17 (D), 7.17 (D), 8.17 (D) Produce a multimedia presentation involving text and graphics using available technology Oral and Written Conventions/Conventions: 6.19 (A), 7.19 (A), 8.19 (A) Use and understand the function of parts of speech in the context of writing Research/Research Plan. Students ask open-ended research questions and develop a plan for answering them: 6.22 (B), 7.22 (B), 8.22 (B) Generate a research plan for gathering relevant information about the major research question Listening and Speaking/Speaking. Students speak clearly and to the point, using the conventions of language: 6.27, 7.27 (B), 8.27 (B) Social Studies Social Studies Skills: 6.21 (B), 7.21 (B), 6.30 (B) Analyze information by sequencing, categorizing, identifying cause-and-effect relationships, comparing, contrasting, finding the main idea, summarizing, making generalizations and predictions, and drawing inferences and conclusions Social Studies Skills: 6.22 (D), 6.22 (D), 6.31 (D) Create written and visual material such as journal entries, reports, graphic organizers, outlines, and bibliographies Social Studies Skills: 6.23, 7.23, 8.32 (A) Use a problem-solving process to identify a problem, gather information, list and consider options, consider advantages and disadvantages, choose and implement a solution, and evaluate the effectiveness of the solution; and (B) Use a decision-making process to identify a situation that requires a decision, gather information, identify options, predict consequences, and take action to implement a decision.

B1a: “Parts of a Website” handout.

B1b: “Keywords” exercises.

B1c: Printed material

B1d: “Trip Wiser” Website.

B1e: Research process handout.

B2a: Airport vocabulary. 

B2b. “Parts of a Ticket” diagram.

B2c: “Airport Timetable” handout.

B2d: Video “A Day at the Airport”.

B3b: Samples from “CIA: The World Factbook”.

B4b: “Vacation Travel Budget” Worksheet.

B5b: “Hotel and Travel” signs handout.

B5c: Printed brochure samples.

B5d: “Parts of a Brochure” diagram.

B6a: “Audience and Purpose” worksheet.

The unit will be assessed using rubrics. The written descriptions in the travel agent research will be assessed using a rubric focusing in sentence structure. The ticket schedule, two-day itinerary, and budget will be assessed using a rubric focusing on capitalization of proper nouns, correct use of numbers, and spelling. The brochure will be assessed using a rubric focusing on design elements, brochure elements, and sentence structure. The multimedia presentation will be assessed using a peer-evaluation rubric focusing on audience and purpose.