4th Grade Unit - Qualities of Leadership

Dear Parents,

Our fourth grade TAG students are beginning the higher-order/critical thinking unit, “Qualities of Leadership.”  Throughout this unit, students will act as historians, using many primary sources to evaluate how famous Americans have demonstrated positive and effective leadership.  Ultimately, students will analyze themselves and their leadership abilities, and find ways to grow and challenge themselves to become better leaders! 

In this unit, effective positive leadership will be defined by Lee Iacocca’s “9 C’s.”  They are:  Curiosity, Creativity, Communication, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, Competence and Common Sense.  Students will study the words and actions of historical figures to decide if and how they demonstrated these characteristics.  Students will also identify times in their own lives when they have also demonstrated them as well.  Historical figures that the students will investigate include Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange, Jackie Robinson, Albert Einstein, Lee Iacocca and the Human Genome Project. 

Each day, students will determine and analyze higher-order/critical thinking skills used.  These will include:  asking complex questions, using criteria to make comparisons and decisions, using criteria to evaluate decisions, predicting consequences, using metaphors, examining issues from various perspectives, and drawing conclusions. 

Students will also be working diligently to identify the skills of a historian used and creating products that a real historian would produce.  We are looking forward to analyzing the past in order to shape the leaders of the future!  As always, follow our journey at http://mbestag.weebly.com.