Just moved into my cave. #dreamhouse

We are getting attacked here in Vicksburg and eating weird food and dodging bullets. #helpme!

Looks like Vicksburg is going down! #YOLO #grant

This is getting ugly. #whatdidijusteat? #whereisleewhenyouneedhim

I love how much fun the students had writing these! This lesson was an excellent opportunity to use this idea as students heard so many crazy facts about Vicksburg! It was definitely a fun and easy way to get at what students understood about the Vicksburg campaign!

The original impetus for these lessons came from THIS website. Don’t you just love PBS? More over, I really love Ken Burns for making the single most amazing documentary of all time about the Civil War. I literally hugged the librarian when she happened to receive a free DVD of this historical gold and passed it on to me.

I start off the lesson by showing THIS clip from The Civil War, and I try really hard not to cry during class as we watch it–gets me every time. I impress upon students the importance of letter writing as a means of communication during this historical period, ask them to put themselves in the shoes of the soldier or his wife. After we discuss the video clip, I ask students to create a Civil War identity:

They have A LOT of fun making these cards! When finished, I collect the cards and redistribute them. Again, they have a lot of fun seeing whose identity they receive! From there, I ask them to write a letter to the person on the card:

After the letters are written, we’ll have “mail call” and “send” them to the original card writer, allowing them to respond to the letter. Throughout our Civil War Unit, I will ask students to exchange cards and write letters analyzing situations of the war. Can you tell I’m excited to teach this unit?!

Purpose Statement: Students will understand how westward expansion transformed the nation.

1. We played “King of the West” (could be “Queen of the West” and could be King/Queen of any topic being reviewed).
   • I prepared multiple choice review questions on a PowerPoint. The options were listed as 1,2, 3, and 4.
   • All students stood and answered the questions by showing 1, 2, 3, or 4 on their hands.
   • Students must sit when they get the question wrong, and the class is eventually left with a “King” or “Queen” who got all the questions right.
   • Once students were out, I asked them to answer the questions so that they were still reviewing for the upcoming essay.
2. We made “graffiti walls.”
   • I prepared five big banners and wrote one word of the phrase “How the West Was Won” on each poster.
   • I divided students into five groups and asked them to work with their team (and their textbook) to draw and write about any of the important people, events, conflicts, ideas, places, etc. of our Westward Expansion unit.
   • I had considered making one big banner, but I thought this method would allow more students to easily participate.
3. Each group shared one big idea from their poster before posters were displayed in the hall.
4. Students wrote their final Chapter 11 essay (using Edmodo! yay!).

I loved the amount of engagement I saw from ALL students. I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to review information with kids (not the old sit-and-get method), and this lesson really put the power into the students’ hands. I’m definitely expecting well-written essays.

1. I played a video clip about Sacajawea. There is never enough information about girls in history books!
2. To answer the video questions, students moved around the room to A, B, C, or D signs. I liked that this got kids moving and required all kids to answer all the questions. If they didn’t know, they could move with the pack and not be embarrassed.
3. The video ended with a bear attack, so I asked students what they would have done during the bear attack. I told them to tell a neighbor as they moved to get individual white boards and markers. I thought it was great that transition time became imagination time!
4. I played one more video clip about the Louisiana Purchase–I love this one!
5. Students then answered a series of review questions using their individual white boards (I posted the questions on a PowerPoint so that I didn’t have to repeat them if a student wasn’t listening). Again, I love how this requires all students to answer all questions.
6. As students returned their borrowed materials, I asked them to tell a classmate three things they learned about the Louisiana Purchase. This also allowed me an opportunity to conference individually with kids who seemed to be struggling with the information.
7. The final portion of the lesson required students to take a quiz, using Edmodo. Based on their scores, I’d say our review was effective!

Question 8 covered a topic directly from the text that we didn’t cover in our review. To say the least, students perform better when they have heard the information out loud and discussed it! At the end of the day, I was very proud that I taught well…and students learned well.

• Thank the person for their gift/service/contribution.
• Say something nice about the person/their gift.
• Reiterate why you are thankful.

I also asked them to include a greeting and closing and decorate the front of the card. This lesson had two goals, one personal and one curricular. Students had to understand how to write a thank you note, a skill they can use their whole life, and they also had to prove they understood what George Washington did for our country. This lesson also created an opportunity for all students to have their work displayed in the hall.

Most students said very poignant things about how hard he worked as a general and as president. They summarized stories about his life and thanked him for his service to the United States. There were also some humorous ones, such as…

Dear G. Wash, 

Thank you for working hard as president. You did such a good job! I would go out with you. Thanks again for all you did.

 

She got it.

In addition to the presentations, on election day, I asked my fellow teachers to wear patriotic colors, and I took some pictures of those that voted. In the hallway, I paired those pictures with a banner touting students opinions of why it’s important to vote. Some responses included…

• So that I can complain later.
• Men and women have fought and died for our rights, such as voting.
• You vote so that you can have a say in the government.
• It is your responsibility as a citizen to vote.

Finally, I offered students extra credit if they took a picture of themselves watching election coverage.  These funny pictures have definitely gotten the most looks in the hallway, and the overall display has generated a lot of discussion.

1. Finalize and drop student PowerPoints (we have 1:1 laptops with the most GENIUS dropboxes!).
2. Nosies Questions. I.e. Put your finger on your nose if you know who wrote the Declaration. Put your finger on your nose if you know when it was signed and approved. I love how this allows every kid think time!
3. Video clip: This helped students solidify the information they learned. The reflection question we discussed was, “What would you have thought when you first heard about the Declaration?” (Think-Pair-Share)
4. I created a Google Form that allowed students to reflect on what each sentence of the Declaration’s preamble meant. Once students had time to reflect on their assigned sentence, we discussed it as a large group. I loved that each student was responsible for a response versus one student always raising their hand to interpret.
5. Final reflection: I asked students, “If you were a member of the Continental Congress, would you have signed the Declaration?” I rolled out a giant piece of white butcher paper and every student was required to record a response that we can later display for everyone to see.

Every student had to be involved at each stage of this lesson which I really valued. Additionally, students of all abilities were able to access and understand the information. I’m looking forward to trying a fishbowl tomorrow to discuss student opinions more in depth!

1. I created a political cartoon about the French and Indian War. I asked kids to interpret the cartoon to determine what was happening in the English colonies in 1754.

2. As a class, we read a passage from our textbook (United States History: Beginnings through 1877) to gain background knowledge about the war.

3. I divided kids into French, British, and Indians. The British and French had to convince the Indians to join their side, demonstrating that they understood the advantages of siding with their country.

4. After the American Indians chose sides, I asked each country to make a list of demands that they would require to end the war. A student representative presented the demands.

5. Obviously, the students couldn’t come to an agreement. We went back to the textbook to read about the Treaty of Paris and analyze a “before and after”  historical map.

6. Finally, each student received a sticky note on which I asked them to write “what stuck with them” about the French and Indian war.

I loved that the lesson was chunked up into lots of parts–reading, writing, map interpretation, understanding political cartoons (that ALWAYS shows up on the Iowa Assessments!), and that all students had a role to play in the discussion. Students were really engaged during the teamwork portions of the lesson. As long as my patience holds out today, I think it’s going to go great!

1. Novice-Expert Jigsaw
2. Power Notes
3. Main Idea-Detail Notes
4. Concept Map
5. SQ3R (Simply called Q and A in my room)
6. Picture Notes (I called it an ‘illustrated reader’ because students had to write summary sentences in addition to drawing images.)

I’ve modeled each strategy and offered support to students as they use it on their own. We’ve tried reading textbook passages as a whole class, in small groups, with partners, and independently. I hope that exposure to lots of types of strategies will better prepare kids for high school when there isn’t as much direct instruction on how to take notes/read content material.

Do you have a couple of Peters in class?

LUASANNE LAPTOP INSTITUTE

At the Luasanne Laptop Institute, I attended a session by Patrick Woessner titled, “Fostering Digital Literacy through Passion-Based Learning.” He showed us this Office Space clip, and it brought it home for all of us that passion is ‘motivation in action.’ He asked what we were passionate about. One said reading. One said card-making. Another mentioned cycling. Mr. Woessner’s goal: find the passion of his students, and put it in action!

HIS STORY

Mr. Woessner was charged with making all of his 7^th graders ‘digitally literate’ in eleven fourty-five minute face-to-faces. Feeling unsure of how to do this, he sketched out a plan with a set of essential questions, student objectives, and outcomes. Knowing that ‘passion is everything,’ he framed his essential questions:

+ How does technology affect and reflect who you are as a person and a learner?

+ How does your passion affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?

If he let student passions drive their work, he knew he could be more successful than if he pounded home a specific set of technology skills in such a short time.

Another challenge for Mr. Woessner was that seventh graders don’t necessarily know what they are passionate about. He used a variety of surveys to get at how students like to learn, what their interests are, and how students most prefer to express themselves and what they know. Once students were thinking about their passions, they were able to begin planning a project of their choice.

Students took complete ownership of the project they were asked to create. Along they way, they learned about social networking, website evaluation, effective search strategies, social bookmarking, copyright/fair use policies, and other necessary digital skills. The course turned into project-based learning at its finest.

MY TAKEAWAY

The core of Mr. Woessner’s presentation reminded me of the most simplistic of ideas driving home education: know your students, engage your students, give them a voice. Even though these are ‘no-brainer’ concepts, educators get lost in the muddle of everyday teaching and sometimes forget about what drives their kids. The students in Mr. Woessner’s class gained so much more when they were allowed to work with ideas and tools that they were passionate about. They will remember the necessary technology skills because it was important to them to use these skills effectively.

These takeaways may seem so obvious, but I needed a reminder. I needed to sit in a classroom on a hot July day and be reminded that I love teaching, I love kids, and that finding my passion for teaching will help students become passionate about learning.

Step One: I’d like to give a shout out to Ken Burns for making the best Civil War documentary ever! We watched the section about the Battle of Antietam today to help students understand what happened. Great narration, great images, great maps. Love, love, love! I did ask students to complete an anticipation guide along with the video.

Step Two: Quiz. Thank you, Edmodo, for being awesome.

Step Three: I played the Battle Hymn of the Republic and To Arms in Dixie. Many of the students thought I was a big dork, but I was so happy to be incorporating music into my classroom! I asked students what the artist wants the audience to believe when they hear the song, and then they wrote a few sentences comparing and contrasting the two songs.

Student response: “I think they’re similar because they both make you feel patriotic and ready to fight. They’re different because the Union song makes you feel more proud and it’s not as upbeat and exciting as the Confederate song.”

All in all… a successful day in 8th grade social studies!

I created a review game using PowerPoint–something I’ve done in the past–so kids kind of know what to do. (Phew! Doesn’t that make life easy!)

I did model the game after Jeopardy this time which I don’t usually do. I didn’t keep track of money though! lol! I divided students into groups of 3-4 and every group had to answer every question by holding up a white board with their answer. I prefer this method to engage as many students as possible in each question. I was pleasantly surprised by the discussions I heard from students as they decided what answer to write down.

Questions were all in multiple choice format which made it easy for students to talk about the questions and relay their answers to me. Each question is hyperlinked to a correct or incorrect slide. I was pretty proud of my PowerPoint skills in this particular lesson.

As for fun highlights, students always enjoy picking a team name (i.e. “Sparkles,” “Spider Monkeys,” and “We’re #1″), and they thought my happy panda/sad panda to let them know the answer was pretty cute too.

I find games like this pretty easy to manage because kids want to play! I read the question in my firm teacher voice, but I do not read the answers. Students quiet themselves down to read and analyze the options. They naturally progress into discussion when they are ready, and I just have to call “What’s your answer?” to quiet them back down. They tend to enjoy the bit of competition.

Now that students are refreshed on what the North was like before the Civil War, they are all ready to learn about the South!

My school is making all sorts of advancements into 21st century learning, but there are still those out there who aren’t ‘believers.’ I think this piece of evidence might help sway some! I don’t think I could say it better!

What do our students throw away at the end of the school year?

In an effort to speed things up, I’m going to offer students a range of projects to complete over Chapter 12 which details life in the North before the Civil War. In addition to completing one of the projects below, students will also have to record a ‘commercial’ about what they learned. I will compile these snippets into a classroom video that can be shown as a review. Check out the projects–and let me know if you have any advice!

I’m really excited about these projects! I’m most proud of the Ad Campaign Project because I think it embodies the elements of a good project more than the others–choice, student-driven, very creative, etc. I’m hoping that students of all abilities and interests will find something they can latch onto!

Each of these projects is accompanied by a rubric similar to the one below:

I have to give Read-Write-Think credit for getting me started! I find that I often make very limiting rubrics (e.g. “Five Illustrations: 5 4 3 2 1 0). I really like that this rubric is more broad and lots at the ‘big picture’ of the students’ projects.

Now that the planning is done…we’ll just have to see how students respond!

Recently, my sister moved to Milwaukee. That may not sound relevant to my teaching, but it is because she complained about me to our cousin. Her complaint, “Maggie never calls me,” had an impact on me as a teacher. I don’t make phone calls. I don’t like talking on the phone. I could give you a laundry list of reasons, but the simple fact is, it gives me anxiety. Ever since her complaint, I have tried to make more phone calls to parents instead of sending them emails.

Analysis

Recently, I had concerns about a female student in my 8th hour class. I won’t diveinto detail about this concern because it is of a rather personal nature. In the past, I would have simply shot of an email to her mom or dad and crossed my fingers that I got a reply. This time, I searched through our Infinite Campus database and came up with the work number for the student’s mother. Despite my sweaty palms, I perserved through the dial tone until the mom picked up. I made it a point to greet her and ask if she had time to talk. When she said she did, I proceeded to explain my concerns about her child and listened to her responses.

Reflection

Considering the delicate nature of my concern, I think it was doubly important that I opted to make a phone call instead of send an email. The mom seemed very happy that I called. She didn’t rush me off the phone. She didn’t yell at me. She asked questions, thanked me for calling, and seemed genuinely concerned about her daughter’s success in my class. Having such a positive interaction with a parent on the phone did decrease my anxiety to some extent. I hope, in the future, I will continue to “be daring” and make more parent phone calls!