Brilliant Star Reading Project

Objectives

Core Elements Objectives

Spiritual: Students will be able to identify the importance of a deep connection to themselves, others, nature, or to a higher power.
Spiritual: Students will be able to identify the deep connection to themselves, others, nature, or to a higher power and express a sense of gratitude.
Spiritual: Students will be able to acknowledge the explicit spirituality in the descriptions of themselves, other human beings, nature and the earth, and the unknowns of their lives.

Moral Character Development

Moral Character: Students will be able to recognize a clear image of themselves and how to identify behavior that does not follow moral rules.
Moral Character: Students will be able to describe difficulties that arise in keeping one’s promises and the results of doing so or not doing so.
Moral Character: Students will be able to describe what it means to be responsible and tell the truth. They will discuss what choices should be made when asked to tell the truth about a situation.
Moral Character: Given a story or situation in which a choice must be made between acceptable or appropriate behavior and unacceptable or inappropriate behavior, the students will be able to discern the moral dilemma, make a choice, and provide a rationale for that choice.

Personal Style

Personal Style: Students will be able to describe how they are unique and how they are similar to others.
Personal Style: Students will be able to describe important similarities and differences among people.
Personal Style: Students will be able to identify advantages and disadvantages of important personal temperaments and traits.
Personal Style: Students will be able to identify and discuss physical differences among people.
Personal Style: Students will be able to identify and compare differences in people and their thinking/opinions.
Personal Style: Students will be able to discuss how one’s viewpoint or perspective (e.g., optimism, pessimism, etc.) is one aspect of one’s personal style.

Process Objectives (Internal)

Physical

Physical: Students will be able to describe how animals or machines make similar physical movements to people.
Physical: Students will able to describe the importance of physical fitness and how exercise and nutrition contribute to it.
Physical: Student will describe flexibility, as in moving from one place to another, and identify the importance of physical movement.
Physical: Students will be able to perceive exercising as a way to maintain the wellness of their bodies.
Physical: Students will be able to recognize unique aspects of physical types and abilities and their impact on different types of roles and activities.
Physical: Students will be able to analyze appropriate food choices to keep their bodies healthy.
Physical: Students will be able to describe the joys and benefits of physical exercise whether as an individual activity or playing team sports
Physical: Students will be able to discuss the relationships between animals of a species and between the animals and nature.
Physical: Students will be able to identify animal adaptations in regard to nature during the seasons of the year.

Awareness/Perceiving

Perceiving: Students will be able to name and describe their senses and how they can be used to understand/explore new things.
Perceiving: Students will be aware of their surroundings and the effects they can have on a person’s feelings and reactions.
Perceiving: Students will be able to recognize that perceptions can impact thinking and beliefs, and how preconceived perceptions can be changed.
Perceiving: Students will be able to discuss and accept differences in others’ thinking and opinions.
Perceiving: Students will be able to put into perspective bad things that happen and discuss how they get through difficult situations including the identification of alternative reactions and actions to make the situation better.

Cognitive/Thinking * (Information Processing) (Cognitive Development)

Cognitive/Thinking:
- Association: Students will be able to identify and describe a relationship between like and unlike objects and ideas.
  - Seriation: Students will be able to order a set of related elements or events according to a given rule.
  - Identity: Students will be able to describe or show how two different elements are identical in some important attribute.
  - Equivalence: Students will be able to identify elements that can be used interchangeably because they are equal in value, meaning or effect.
  - Analogy: Students will be able to create a relationship between unlike elements (two or a pair of two) which have at least one common characteristic or property that is not necessarily obvious or logical.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Conservation: Students will be able to recognize when an element or concept remains unchanged after being manipulated, reorganized, modified, or used in a different form or context.
  - Reversibility: Students will be able to organize given elements into sets according to a specified rule or common attributes.
  - Negation: Students will be able to deny the existence or validity of a specific thing or concept that is apparently real or correct.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Analysis: Students will be able to systematically separate a complex whole into its simple parts in order to fully comprehend their interrelationships and the functions or purpose of the whole
  - Classification: Students will be able to organize given elements into sets according to a specified rule or common attributes.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Implication: Students will be able to determine an unspecified relationship between two things, one expressed and the other suggested.
  - Inductive Inference: Students will be able to derive a generalization or rule from a given set of examples based on logical thinking.
  - Extrapolation: Students will be able to determine the rule that governs the organization of given elements in order to estimate or predict additional ones.
  - Deductive Inference: Students will be able to derive a particular observation or conclusion from a generalization based on logical thinking.
  - Interpolation: Students will be able to insert an element or series of elements into a given sequence or series according to the rule that governs them.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Correlation: Students will be able to identify a relationship between two or more things related to each other (not necessarily causally).
  - Causation: Students will be able to discover or create a relationship between interdependent sequential events showing how one event influences or determines a second event.
  - Mediation: Students will be able to use a third element to create a meaningful relationship between two or more given elements.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Synthesis: Students will be able to integrate parts into a functioning whole and to comprehend the dynamic interrelationships among the parts and the function or purpose of the whole.
- Conjunction: Students will be able to join or relate two independent elements which are related according to form or function to achieve a given purpose.
- Disjunction: Students will be able to undo the joining of two individual elements or to recognize their separateness for a given purpose.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Closure: Students will be able to consciously recognize the completion of or arrival at a specific stage or step in the accomplishment of an expressed objective.
Cognitive/Thinking:
- Decision Making: Students will be able to select the most efficient and effective alternative course of action from a variety of known possibilities.
- Problem Solving: Students will be able to use the appropriate cognitive skills to identify and resolve situations where no known solution is readily obvious.
- Metacognition: Students will be able to:
  - state what they know of a particular phenomena or situation.
  - state what they need to know relative to a particular need or goal.
  - devise an action plan to acquire or develop the necessary knowledge at the appropriate level of knowing.
  - regulate the implementation of the action plan to successfully complete the learning task.

Affect/Emotional

Affect/Emotion: Students will be able to recognize the bodily sensations and connect those with specific labels of emotions.
Affect/Emotion: Students will be able to recognize the feelings and subsequent emotions that might occur as a result of a specific event.
Affect/Emotion: The student will be able to discuss the meaning of attitude and how it relates to ones life.
Affect/Emotion: Students will be able to discuss the importance of positive self-esteem.
Affect/Emotion: Students will be able to discuss proper ways of showing emotions and reacting to situations.
Affect/Emotion: Students will be able to identify attitudes and feelings based on facial expressions and body language. Students will also discuss ways to change attitudes by changing facial expressions and body language.
Affect/Emotions: Student will be able to express feelings of care and compassion for family members and friends.
Affect/Emotion: Students will be able to discuss proper ways of showing emotions and reacting to situations
Affect/Emotional: Students will be able to identify coping mechanisms they use to get through difficult situations.

Conation/Volition

Conation/Volition: Students will be able to express a desire to be or have something that would take more than a year to accomplish.
Conation/Volition: Students will be able to set a goal for something they desire to obtain.
Conation/Volition: Students will be able to define attitude and how it relates to one's life; will be able to describe specific attitudes (e.g., courage, gratitude, caring) and give examples of people who displayed that attitude.
Conation/Volition: Students will be able to discern how perseverance and determination help one to achieve goals in a specific situation.
Conation/Volition: Students will provide examples of the use of volition and determination to overcome obstacles and challenges.
Conation/Volition: Students will describe how character and inner strength can contribute to overcoming difficult circumstances and situations.

Social Skills, Social Roles, and SocioCultural Objectives (External)

Family

Family: Students will be able recognize the dynamics of a family and the relationship between the members of a family.
Family: Students will be able to describe important family relationships and the emotions families share.
Family: Students will be able to discuss the dynamics of a family and the relationship among the members of a family.
Family: Students will be able to discuss the similarities and differences in families and the special relationship between a parent and child.
Family: Students will be able to discuss their feelings about their siblings and the importance of family members.
Family: Students will be able to identify roles of the members in a family and how each member works together to form one unit.
Family: Students will able to discuss the similarities and differences in families and how relatives relate to one another.

Friends

Friends: Students will be able to distinguish traits that make a good friend and how friends should be treated.
Friends: Students will be able to discuss proper ways of showing emotions and reacting to situations in social situations, especially as it relates to becoming part of a group.
Friends: Students will be able to describe similar friendship traits or actions between people and animals.
Friends: Students will be able to describe what friends do together and how they can help each other.
Friends: Students will be able to distinguish traits that make a good friend and how friends should be treated.
Friends: Students will be able to describe similar friendship traits or actions between people and animals.
Friends: Students will be able to identify and discuss situations of giving and receiving, and appropriate reactions/manners when giving and receiving.

Finances

Finances: Students will be able to discuss the importance of money in our society.

Finances: Students will be able to identify money and the value of each as well as the importance of money in today’s society.

Finances: Students will be able to state reasons why obtaining the necessary finances is essential to sustain a desirable lifestyle and how saving can help one achieve that lifestyle.

Work/Career

Work/Career: Students will be able to discern the need for developing an interest in a particular career and the attitude necessary for sustaining that career.
Work/Career: Students will be able to express the importance of work ethics in a job situation exemplifying honesty and integrity.
Work/Career: Students will be able to express the importance of work ethics and using personal talents.

Social/Cultural

SocioCultural: Students will describe specific examples of how people have risked their own safety so that others may be free.

SocioCultural: Students will be able to identify physical, gender, social, ethnic and cultural factors that contribute to people being alike and different.
SocioCultural: Students will be able to identify the conflicts of man (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self) and ways to settle the conflicts.

SocioCultural: Students will be able to describe the importance of taking care of the environment and the earth. Students will discuss ways they can help take care of the environment (beginning as small as the school).

* Definitions in this section (excepting decision making, problem solving, and metacognition) taken from Wegener, D. (2005). The learning ladder: Escalating student achievement with deep alignment and process skills. Phoenix, AZ: Learning 24/7; Organization of skills developed by W. Huitt, August 2006.