Competencies: SOLs:
English 12.4, 12.7,
VA Aspects of Industry:
Planning, Reading Comprehension ,
Work Place Readiness: Computer Literacy, Work Ethic, Demonstrate a positive
attitude, demonstrate self-presentation skills
Introduce early in the year
the concept of writing a DECA manual for DECA competition.
Every year some of your finest Marketing students attempt to earn their
way to state and national DECA competition. While many outstanding students
may attempt to earn a spot through district level competitive events,
only one (or in a few cases, two) of those students can win. Each year,
however, many of those “non-winners” go on to compete and
win at state and national levels. How is that? A well done written event
or manual is a great way to earn a ticket to state and national competition.
(except from VA DECA Web site)
Activities:
READY Opening Activity
Have students individually write down as many definitions of and examples
of a manual. As a group, share your answers after a few minutes. Next,
have students in the class brainstorm out loud as many parts of a manual
they can think of.
Work towards creating a long creative list of options. Write down all
answers on the board. Next do a brief introduction of a manual for Marketing
course; DECA Written manuals.
Procedures:
Provide the students with a good classroom definition for manual. Next,
give them an example of the outline/table of contents of just one of
the DECA manuals.
Most manuals are broken into categories that you can follow logically.
For example,:
- Executive Summary , Introduction
, Research Methods Used in the Study
- Proposed Strategic Plan
, Findings and Conclusions of the Study
- Bibliography , Appendix
Highlight the fact each category
has two to four subcategories that could be broken down even further.
These might be a logical way to break manuals down for your students.
Give them small pieces, set goals, and make it fun.
Next, have students answer the following questions in their notebook.
Do you like to do research?
Do you like to type?
Do you like to organize info?
Are you creative?
If the students answer yes
to any of the questions they are ready to consider writing a DECA manual.
Next, have students go to
the VA DECA Website and research the Competition
Page on the benefits of writing DECA manuals. (15 mins)
Next, have students go to DECA Inc Web site under high school /Competition
page and research different manual options OR use the DECA guide
and make copies of each manual description for each team of students.
Last, have students pair
in groups of 3 and assign or allow them to select 1 of the DECA manuals
to research further.
Assessment:
Student groups have to create a 3-5 minute presentation based on the
information they found on just one of the DECA manuals. They student
groups should end the presentation with at least 3 possible project
options for that manual specific to their chapter.
They will be graded on meeting
the time requirements, research findings, 1 visual aid, summarizing
ability, and providing at least 3 specific project options.
Kirstine Sigloh
Albemarle High School
Charlottesville, VA
