Our target classroom is an 11th grade U.S. History classroom with 24 students.
- 5 students have sufficient background knowledge, learn facts and concepts quickly, and love to extend the lesson.
- 5 students have learning disabilities that make it difficult to get information from text, remember facts, and organize.
- 10 students have some background knowledge but are not terribly motivated. They learn facts but have difficulty putting them together for the bigger concept and want to complete the task at hand.
- 1 student is a recent immigrant to the U.S. from the Middle East. English is her second language and she is slow to process auditory information, but she is intensely interested in world events.
- 1 student is on the autism spectrum and does not work well in groups. He is very interested in history and has an amazing knowledge of current events. He often perseverates on one topic.
- 2 students are withdrawn and tend to participate very little in class. It is difficult to know exactly what they know or can understand because they very infrequently finish their work. They can complete worksheets after reading their text but their interests are unknown.