LEARN NC

CareerStart lessons: Grade eight

1.4 Understanding first jobs

By Andrea Fedon, Gail Frank, and Cindy Neininger

Provided by CareerStart

Essential question: How can critical thinking skills help you draw conclusions about various careers based on evidence, reasoning, and relevant information?

Learning outcomes

Students will use guided reciprocal questions to understand the information obtained through interviews.

Teacher planning

Materials needed

Time required for lesson

Two class periods, with time outside of class for students to conduct interviews

Activities

Day one

  1. Ask the students if they’ve ever heard someone say something like, “You’d better learn how to ask ‘Do you want fries with that?’.” Ask the students what was meant by that. Was it a compliment? Most students will understand that this was said as a put-down, meaning that the listener could only look forward to getting a job involving menial tasks.
  2. Inform the students that many celebrities worked at McDonald’s before becoming famous, including Shania Twain, Pink, Jay Leno, and Sharon Stone. Even David Bezos, creator of Amazon.com, worked at McDonald’s. He has said, “One of the greatest gifts I got from that job is I can crack eggs with one hand.” Other celebrities had to work their way to the top as well: Gene Simmons of KISS delivered newspapers, Jennifer Aniston waited tables, Brad Pitt delivered refrigerators, and Madonna worked at Dunkin’ Donuts.
  3. Tell students that they will conduct interviews to learn more about what people’s first jobs are like. Students will interview at least two people (family members or other adults) about their first jobs.
  4. Have the students prepare five questions before the interview. You may choose to have the class brainstorm these questions or you may select the questions yourself. Possible questions include:
    • How old were you when you got your first job?
    • What was it?
    • What made you decide to get the job?
    • What did you learn from it?
  5. Have students fill in the five large circles on the bubble graphic organizer with the five interview questions. Students will fill in respondents’ answers to the questions in the small circles and squares that branch off of the large circles. In order to keep the chart organized, tell students to write all of the interview answers from one participant into the small squares and use the small circles for all of the answers from the other candidate.

    6. Day two

  6. After completing the interviews with various people, students will be ready to hold a group discussion about what they have learned about entering the workforce.
  7. Using the guided reciprocal question stems provided, have each student write five higher-order open-ended questions to generate a focused discussion with other students.
  8. After giving the students a few moments to prepare content-specific questions (using the stems as guides), have them get into small groups. In their groups, have students answer each other’s questions about their interview responses in a focused group discussion. Note: Students do not necessarily have to be able to answer the questions they create. This activity is designed to encourage students to think about ideas relevant to the workplace.

North Carolina curriculum alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 8

  • Goal 4: The learner will continue to refine critical thinking skills and create criteria to evaluate print and non-print materials.
    • Objective 4.02: Analyze and develop (with limited assistance) and apply appropriate criteria to evaluate the quality of the communication by:
      • using knowledge of language structure and literary or media techniques.
      • drawing conclusions based on evidence, reasons, or relevant information.
      • considering the implications, consequences, or impact of those conclusions.