Title: Electronic History Chapters: Cultural and Social Transformation since 1865

Submitted by:

Name: John McCarthy, English, and Scott Banks, Social Studies

 

School Building: Clarkston High School

 

School District: Clarkston Community Schools

 

School Address: 6093 Flemings Lake Road / Clarkston, MI 48346

 

E-mail address: scouting3@yahoo.com (John McCarthy) / banks_scott@yahoo.com (Scott Banks)

Subject Area: American History and English

Intended Grade Level(s): 9-12, whenever American History is offered.

Description:

Students will research the evolution of cultural and social issues in areas of Westward Expansion, Immigration, and Civil Rights. They will practice writing clear details with supporting evidence and examples and evaluate ways of improving drafts through work shopping. Finally, students in teams will synthesize research into an electronic PowerPoint chapter book. This will become a usable interactive learning tool for the other students in the program and those that participate in later years.

Narrative:

The project joined American History and English Language Arts as students collaborated in teams to research and learn about the turn of the 19^th Century. Teams specialized in one of three areas, between 1866 and 1925: Westward Expansion, Civil Rights &endash; Women or African Americans, and Immigration. Teammates explored information about different people from their area and each person selected a person or group to do intensive research. Throughout the project, useful resources were kept on a classroom website:

http://epiphany.simplenet.com/mccarthy/index.html

The success of the project was in the intensity of students as they learned about the people and society within their research area. Within teams, they analyzed information for insights and evaluated what to incorporate into the final PowerPoint project. The resulting products fostered understanding of the time period that could not have been accomplished using traditional means. Knowing that the Electronic Chapters would be published for other students to view and utilize reinforced their serious approach towards creating quality pieces.

Students learned the importance of determining keywords and images as representative of their main points for each slide. Decision-making was crucial as teams judged the value of using sounds, transitions, and graphics as enhancing or hindering the presentation. In addition, students created historical fiction based on the research. They took on the challenge of writing stories that stayed true to the cultural and social framework of the era while allowing them the creativity to express themselves.

Most important was the using the Internet for research. Students used the media center resources, but the Internet allowed for broader access to knowledge. Teams were guided towards determining reliable sources versus those that were questionable. Using a research sheet with live links allowed the teachers to control where students searched, virtually eliminating concern about accessing inappropriate sites. A good balance was found between giving students sites to gather information and allowing them to seek and judge for themselves relevancy to their project.

 

Curriculum Benchmarks:

Total amount of time for lesson: 16-18 hours

Materials/Hardware/Software:

Computer Lab with Internet Access, Web Browser, Microsoft PowerPoint, Word processor (Microsoft Word preferred), 5-10 computer microphones.

Teacher Preparation:

Prepare the research guide with links to sites that are appropriate to content area. www.yahoo.com has historical categories for easy search of content related sites to evaluate. Our worksheet is published on John McCarthy’s classroom web site for students to access at:

Teachers without a web site can simply have the full web addresses listed, from which students can type into the browser. Typing URL addresses into Microsoft Word transforms into live Internet links without teachers needing any html knowledge.

Gather microphones for use while students produce PowerPoint files and reserve the computer lab for research and PowerPoint development.

Prerequisite Student Skills:

Students must know how to use a web browser, a word processor, and the basics of Microsoft PowerPoint. Mini-lessons are done to teach students what they needed to know for PowerPoint, including recording their reports.

Student Activities/Procedures: Step 1:  Form teams of three and agree on one of the following areas to research for an electronic chapter book. (3 hours) Using all components, each team-member will take responsibility for one of the three components: A, B, C Components within an Area Overview of selected area Influence/Impact of an American Influence/Impact of another American
Areas (Use Yahoo categories for research)
Westward Expansion Suggested topics Evolution of 1 nation: 1 continent Railroads Homestead Act of 1850 Immigration Suggested topics Melting Pot: Americanization vs. cultural identity Fall and Rise of ______ (ethnic group) Ellis Island: Why & Conditions they came Another related listing of links Early Civil Rights Suggested topics Women's Suffrage -Seneca Falls to the 19th Amendment -Economic freedom vs. suffrage Black Civil Rights -Separate but equal -Evolution of the NAACP -Evolution of Nation of Islam -Jim Crow Laws			Americans of Westward Expansion Samuel Morse, Alexander Bell, Leland Stanford, George Westinghouse (air breaks), Granville Woods (telegraph), Chief Joseph, Chief Sitting Bull, Fredrick Jackson Turner Americans of Immigration Who was involved in the Ellis Island system? Who was involved with the Statue of Liberty? Americans of Civil Rights Lucrecia Mott, Susan Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Jane Addams, or choose from a list at 75 Suffragists or Women Studies (Read biography of Victoria Woodhull) African Americans WB Debois, Malcom X, Booker T. Washington, M. L. King, Fredrick Douglass Additional Links: African American Studies, Women Studies, Other People, 19th Century People, Native Americans, History Archives
Each team member composes three pages of notes, including at least one website and one book (non-encyclopedia). -Make copies for all teammates with MLA citation of books and websites. -Identify a website to email for additional information. Minimum sources for team Annotated Bibliography - 3 books and 3 internet sites -include one primary source and one biography or autobiography   Step 2: Query Letter and Personal or Historical Narrative Query Letter (Timeline: 1 hour in class plus revise as homework) 100 word minimum 1 revision including content (30 word rephrase) then grammar and spelling check. Introduction - Body: requesting answers to three questions (one that is open-ended) - Conclusion Historical Narrative (Timeline: 2 concentrated class hours plus 3 workshop hours while working on presentations) Historical Narrative Write a fictional story using your historical research as background. Length is open. Story format: Include a main character with a problem. Worsen the character’s situation. Next, resolve the problem. Through workshopping, conference with peers and write two revisions. Step 3: Electronic Chapter Book using PowerPoint (7-9 school hours)   As a team, choose an Organizational Style for putting together the three parts of the electronic chapter book. Compare & Contrast Evolution Cause and Effect Slide Order and Layout Title with teammates' first names and copyright date. Table of Content 3 to 5 slides per person for their component. optionally: including 2nd slide. -include 2 related objects: one being an image (ex: image, sound, video, chart, graph) -include sole link to a narrative for each component -include related Internet links Slide with annotated bibliography and links to a primary source. Slide with study questions: 2 per component. Credit slide: annotated bibliography with live links to web sources. Slide transitions:  1 minimum per component where applicable   Assessment/Evaluation:   Evaluation Process
	3 pages of Notes
	Annotated bibliography
	Query letter with revision notes (30 words rephrased)
	Narrative draft with 1st revision notes (content: 50 words rephrased)
	Narrative draft with 2nd revision notes (include grammar and spelling)
Product
Narrative
Query Letter
Electronic Chapter Book: content that is clear (understandable), depth of details, parts such as links work. All projects will be published on the classroom website for evaluation.
Teachers' evaluation: 80%
Teams' evaluation: 20%
Contacts If you have questions, talk, phone, or email Mr. Banks or Mr. McCarthy

Follow-up Activities:

Projects are posted for students to review different teams’ Electronic Chapters.

History review for examination.

Historical narratives are optionally used in a Writer’s Workshop Unit in English.

A copy of the project, along with links to samples of students’ work, can be found at:

If necessary, the student sample may be downloaded from the project site at:

http://epiphany.simplenet.com/mccarthy/lessons/Echapters/EchapSamples.html View sample student PowerPoint project  Download the PDF version of this lesson