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Today I reflect upon the man JFK, please join me...

Today, was was sad day in American history as a young American president died in Dallas.  But, I will not focus on the saddnes, but the man and his ideals.

Yes, many years after his death, we discovered Camelot was tarnish and the man had fawls.  But don't we all.

No matter how you felt or feel about President Kennedy, one can not argue his impact he made upon the United States.

Today, please take a minute to honor the ideals of JFK and visit this very engaging website:http://www.jfk50.org/.

Also, check out the create your own exhibit tab.   This looks SO much fun.... For my teacher friends, this would be GREAT for the classroom!

Movies Get the Brains Going....

When I first started teaching, I had an administrator who informed the staff that any video over 10 minutes can not be used in class.  The administrator was concerned about a teacher who turns the movie on and walks away.  Students have no interaction with the material and the movie has no context and quickly is only entertainment.

I agree.  For those of us who teach social studies, we have many, many opportunities to use movies in the class.  But we need to place the movie in context and keep the students engaged!

Here are 5 tips to achieve this!

#1.  Give the students something to do during the movie.  Every time I show a movie, students have a movie guide to complete.  Some times these movie guides include open ended questions, other times these are fill-in the blank questions.  This helps the stay focused on the key points.

#2.  Stop the movie.  I never allow the movie to run more than 15 minutes with stopping and asking students a question or discussing the significance of a scene. Key here is engagement.  Keep them focused with questions.

#3.  Eyes on the movie.  Sometimes when I show movies, students will ask me if they can lay in the floor, or bring their pillows into the class.  No way.  Remember, the movie is part of an assignment.  If a student thinks they lay down on the job, they might not be so willing to stay focused. 

#4:  Timing is everything!  Usually movies require more than one class period to show it in the entirety.  So, if I can help it, I stop the movie with five or ten minutes remaining in the class.  At this time I review the important points from the movie or gather students insights or opinions.

#5: What happens in the end?  Once the movie is completed I have students complete a concluding assessment.  Most of my movie guides include discussion questions and as a class we share our thoughts about these questions.  Other times, I have students draw a picture from what they believe is the most important scene from the movie.  Then they write a paragraph explaining their scene.

Here are a few movie guides I have used in my class.  Please feel free to check them out!

1) All Quite on the Western Front:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-Quiet-On-The-Western-Front-Movie-Notes-1979-1598048.

2)  Unbroken: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/SECONDARY-Movie-Guide-UNBROKEN-1867758.

3) Thirteen Days: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/SecondaryThirteen-Days-Movie-Guide-and-Activity-1838519.

4) 42: The Jackie Robinson Story:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Movie-Guide-42-The-Jackie-Robinson-Story-1673058.

The Power of Skyping!

Yesterday, we Skyped in the author of the book Shade It Black. My current event class read it together and discussed the many important topics covered in this book.  The Skype was a culminating activity which all the students were looking forward to.

Shade It Black is an account of a Jessica Goodell, a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq in the Mortuary Affairs Unit.  Yes, her job was to retrieve the remains of fallen armed service members in Iraq.

But, the story was more than just her time in Iraq.  Ms. Goodell shared a unique woman's perspective of life in the Marines and her struggles of dealing with the war once she returned.  She gave a candidate account of dealing with her "dark time", and her road to a regain her life after Iraq.

Shade It Black is a compelling and engaging story which my students eagerly read.

Not only did the book allow us to discuss current issues in the Middle East, but the other issues such as the price of war, empathy, and the importance of perseverance.  The Skype brought Ms. Goodell's story to life for my students as they saw how she was able to moved on.  She is not holding on to the past. As one student stated, "that it was amazing that an ordinary person can overcome such bad things."

I hope my students can take this lesson and apply it to their life!

Twisted Sister and the Declaration of Independence

What does the 80s rock band, Twisted Sister and the Declaration of Independence have in common? More than you might imagine...

So I wanted to get my 8th grade civic students to be more engaged in studying the meaning of the Declaration of Independence...

Then, I remembered Twisted Sister, the 80s band and their song "We're Not Gonna Take It".  It has rebellion and reasons for rebellion written all over it.

So, after the students reviewed the grievances Mr. Jefferson listed in the Declaration of Independence, I had the students read the lyrics from "We're Not Gonna Take It".  Then, they highlighted lyrics from the song that were similar to the Declaration of Independence, and they I cited direct connections to the Declaration of Independence. 

We then shared answers, and debriefed from our activity.

Then, I showed the student the rock video of the song...
This part of the lesson made all sorts of connections for the students!

Finally, I love this assignments since it incorporated the music section of Multiple Intelligence.  And, these music learners will remember this lesson too!

If you are looking for easy and cool lessons for your classroom, please check out the Social Studies Super Store. I have video guides, text dependent questions, and student resources and worksheets.  Also, take a second and like my Facebook page.

Multiple Intellgence and Authentic Assessment

This past week or so, I've been thinking about Multiple Intelligence (MI) and it occurred to me that so many of the actives dealing with MI fall under the authentic assessment.

Authentic assessment refers to assessment tasks that resemble reading and writing in the real world and in school (Hiebert, Valencia & Afflerbach, 1994; Wiggins, 1993). Its goal is to make a connection to actual situations to apply their knowledge.  Also, when students are given an authentic assessment, they are more engaged as they deal with a real world problem.  Examples of these activities might be creating a book, a journal, or even a campaign poster.

AN EXAMPLE:
One example of this included video productions.  Video production belongs to the Body Kinesthetic intelligence of the Multiple Intelligence.

This week, my students completed a video demonstrating their knowledge about women's' suffrage.  For this authentic assessment, the students are creating a video for Steven Spielberg.  Here are two examples of the students' work.  I hope it is clear they learned something, at the same time, had some fun too. :)

ASSESSMENT: 
How do I grade this assignment?  I created this handy grading rubric.  If interesting in learning more about this rubric, you can review it at the Social Studies Super Store.

Linguistic Learner Examples-Multiple Intellgience

Another learning style from the Multiple Intelligence pie is the Linguistic learner.

According to Howard Gardner the Linguistic learner uses words effectively.  They often think in words,  and they enjoy reading, playing word games, and writing poems or stories. 

One lesson I use in my class allows students to create short poems based upon key terms, historical people, or key concepts from the lesson.  These assignments allows students to sharpens their writing as they carefully choose the words to fit the poems.  At the same time student review and reiterate the key concepts as they complete the poems.

Additionaly, I have students include a small color drawing for each poem.  This adds to the flavor of the poems, and includes another mode of learning; visual.

In this assignment, a student has completed three different kinds of poems from my World History class.  This section focused upon explorers and empire building.  In these examples my students used the following key terms and historical people:

• The first poem centered upon the Sepoys (Cinquain poem).
• The second poem dealt with the Dutch merchants and traders (an acrostic poem).
• The third poem was about the Portuguese explore Afonso de Albuquerque (Historical person poem)

 

If you want more information on this poetry lessons, please visit my Social Studies Super Store.