Connecting Lessons to Common Core: A Missed Opportunity

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

In a few weeks, I am sitting down with my Social Studies department to discuss the Common Core standards for History/Social Studies and identify lessons and activities that meet them. The idea of this meeting really excites me because I love hearing what my colleagues are doing in the classroom. We rarely find the time to sit together and discuss ideas (which is partially why I love #sschat because it’s a group of educators working to develop and meet the needs of our students who are growing up in a rapidly adapting environment).

As I was trying to find lessons that aligned, I came across one about bias that I really enjoyed and with tweaking could be a really great lesson.

Here is the standard that I am going to address:

WHST.11-12.1. Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content. 

Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible biases.

After learning about the 19th century definitions of liberal, conservative, and radical I had students take a look at one of the following events (Charles X of France trying to establish an absolute government, Paris mobs overthrowing the monarchy of Louis Phillippe, and the reign of Napoleon III) and rewrite the section of the textbook in an extremely biased way for each of the three newly-developed political philosophies. In groups, students then shared their interpretations with the class.

The purpose of the activity was to critique the events by using different lenses. And while it was successful and students had a decent understanding of the difference between the three political philosophies, it is an incomplete activity! A lost opportunity.

This should have been an introduction to a larger activity in which students created webpages (or newspapers) to examine primary documents and assess their bias. We could have had competing websites with students covering the events, speeches, and actions from their particular perspective.

This would have also covered the below standard!

RH.11-12.6. Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.

This could have, almost organically, led to an amazing discussion about today’s media and how as individuals we must challenge ourselves to listen to many points of view until we formulate an opinion.

But alas, I did not do that. I did not see it then. Which is why, I am glad that I am taking this time to reflect upon my past lessons. Next time, I will do better. And I will work to hard accomplish the two standards mentioned above with my classes this year.

I think it was Socrates who (may have) said, “An unexamined lesson isn’t worth reteaching.” Wise words, Great One. You really captured the sentiment of this blog post.

 
For more on my Connecting Lessons to Common Core series click the links below:
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Nationalistic Travel Brochures
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Imperialism and Star Wars
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Extra Extra! Primary Documents to News Articles!
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Assignment
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Personal Journals during the French Revolution
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Your Own Personal Latin American Revolution
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Enlightenment – Declaration of Independence
Connecting Lessons to Common Core: A Missed Opportunity (Political Philosophies ~ Conservative, Liberal, Radical)

Posted in Common Core, History, Reflection | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Personalizing History: The Industrial Revolution

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

As a review of the Industrial Revolution, I wanted my students to interact with the text, rather than simply regurgitating it. I decided to have my students take on the persona of someone who’s life was turned upside down due to the Industrial Revolution. I felt that this would be a great way to review the material AND it would provide a fun study guide for them to use (all of the projects were posted on our Edmodo page for sharing).

In groups, students had the option of using any “podcasting-type” platform of their choosing – Audioboo, iPad Caster, Showme Interactive Whiteboard, Puppet Pals HD (the majority of these choices I learned about from my PLN on Twitter). As my students experience with the different platforms varies, I am fine with them using anything they would like (as long as it is easily shared).

The results were a lot of fun – and felt more like Forrest Gump than a traditional History book. After reflecting upon this activity, I remembered that my 10th grade World History teacher gave us a similar project to be done on an audiotape. If only Mr. Gurry could see me now (he’s spending his retirement golfing in Florida).

Here is an example of a group who used Showme.

http://smr.showme.com/sma/embed/?s=pvp9SaG

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Book Review – World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Let me start off by declaring my complete and utter hatred of zombies. Zombies are shortsighted cannibals who turn their victims into zombies. I will never understand people’s fascination this year with growing zombies in a garden (Plants vs. Zombies) or people’s desire to wear stickers that declare “I Heart Zombies.” In a zombie apocalypse, these would be the first people to go (and subsequently turn into zombies).

Last year after discovering The Walking Dead (an AMC TV program based on a graphic novel), I picked up the book World War Z:  An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. Set up as a series of interviews, Brooks examines the “zombie apocalypse” from its point of outbreak to the rebuilding that happens after. The story is well thought out and pushes the reader to reflect on the following question, “Is this plausible?” I’ll admit, I was frightened by my answer to that question.

What made this book spectacular was not the zombies. Let’s be frank, zombies put no forethought into their actions. They want brains, preferably, now (cue musical interlude – Jonathan Coulton’s Re: Your Brains). What was compelling about World War Z was how different governments and individuals handled the crisis. Some governments chose to ignore the problem or to not fund the zombie war efforts as they should have. Some individuals chose to profit off the zombie apocalypse in a variety of ways (including a “reality show”). All of this made was designed to push the reader to think, “Would this happen?”

If you are looking for a light read on the beach this summer, do not pick up this book. But, if you want a book that will make you think about the nature of humanity and what would actually happen if we were confronted with the zombie apocalypse, read it. Twice.

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The West Wing Model: A Reflection on Teaching and the Role of the Teacher in the Classroom

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

Below is an adapted response to a question from my PLP (Powerful Learning Practices) coach on the question “What did you learn this week?”.

We had vacation last week and I spent a great deal of time watching the hit television show The West Wing. In the classroom, I feel that we should be more like President Bartlet – setting the agenda and allowing our students (his staff) to take the reins. Today, in class I was more Bartlet in this West Wing Model (a term that I have coined for this reflection) with my junior World History classes. After a warm up (designed to review prior material and shed light onto new topic),  students, in groups, were given a task to make a presentation on a small aspect of China and their resistance to outside influence. With guiding questions and primary documents and the knowledge that they were responsible for making a multi-media presentation the following day, students began to prepare. My role was to clarify and cheerlead (and occasionally, gently guide them through the primary document).

Events such as these challenge me to reflect upon my role as a teacher. Forcing me to question the proper balance between my inner Bartlet (big picture focused) and inner Leo (Bartlet’s Chief of Staff – focused on details, lecturer). Should  the competing roles be varied throughout the year? Or should they stay stagnant? If you are all Leo, are the students really learning skills or just memorizing facts they will, likely soon, forget? If you are all Bartlet, can you do this from home?

I created this poorly-drawn graph (on the iPad app Educreations, the quality issue is my own, not the app which offers a pleasant experience) to demonstrate how I believe a year should progress using this West Wing Model. It is designed to show how the teacher’s direct instruction role should diminish over time. I’ve also based this graph off of my interpretation of Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership II (which I utilized when I led AmeriCorps teams). I imagine that some teachers, particularly those who are involved in a problem-based learning would disagree with that graph. What would your graph look like?

And what about my students? Some of them are self-starters…Josh Lyman-like. While others are in need of more guidance…Donna from Seasons 1-4. Donna, in my opinion, is the ideal student. While she started off relatively light on experience, she developed into a great leader (becoming the First Lady’s Chief of Staff). I could go on here about how inspirational her growth was and how I yearn for my students to have similar growth. But I will stop and revisit this another time.

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The Enlightenment Meets Social Media

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

What better way to make the Enlightenment come alive than to have my World History students create Blogger sites and set up a conversation on Twitter!

In our activity, students were hired by a consulting firm to bring the ideas of the Enlightenment to a modern “tech-savvy” audience. In small groups, they assumed the identities of various philosophers (Voltaire, the Baron De Montesquieu, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Jean Jacques Rousseau) and wrote a blog post to reintroduce themselves to the world and to discuss how their ideas were incorporated into the United States of America. The posts were then shared under a common hashtag and students, as the philosophers, began interacting with one another.

For the next step, I wanted students to extrapolate the ideas of their philosophers into other historical situations. For instance, a question for Rousseau might be, “What are your views on communism and how it worked in Russia during the reign of Stalin?” To answer this question, students not only have to research communism, specifically communism under Stalin, but they also have to figure out how Rousseau would view both. Now, I could have simply asked the questions myself, but I felt that my students would get more excited to do this research if they were answering to a larger audience. I shared this assignment with my colleagues and my PLN (who then shared it with their PLN’s).

My students really got into the activity, particularly when they realized that they were playing for a larger audience. For 83 minutes (a long block) my students were in research and publication mode. Engaging with those outside of the classroom, as well as each other. I played the role of the facilitator ensuring that all students were engaged.

Overall, my students were able to form a deeper understanding of the philosophers of the Enlightenment and were introduced to both Twitter and Blogger.

Lesson Plan

Objectives           

Students will be able to:

  • articulate the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers and reflect upon their modern day relevance
  • conduct targeted research to answer questions about modern society
  • extrapolate the ideas of philosophers into other modern situations

Common Core State Standards

  1. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
  2. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  3. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
  4. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
  5. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.9 Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

 Instructional Materials and Resources           

    • iPad/Computer
    • Primary Documents
    • Blogger/Blogging Site
    • Twitter 

Instructional activities and tasks

Setup

“You have been recently been hired by a consultant firm to bring the ideas of the Enlightenment to reach the modern “tech savvy” audience of the 21st century. While this is a rather large job, you have been put on a team to complete this task. Your job is to create a blog for a specific Enlightenment thinker and enter into a discussion via Blogger and Twitter with other Enlightenment thinkers educate the public on the views of the Enlightenment. While this technological aspect may be new or seem daunting, you will not be alone ~ you will be guided by Mr Milton throughout the process.”

Part I: The Initial Blog Post and Twitter After familiarizing yourself with Twitter and Blogger, you are first tasked with creating an initial blog post written from the perspective of your philosopher. First start with some background – where you are from, when you lived, major works that you have composed, and notable life events. Then outline your beliefs and how they came to be. Finally, write about how your views have impacted the modern world. Make sure to provide sources for all of your information!

Your group will also be required to create a Twitter account for the Enlightenment Thinker. Please personalize it. Send out some introductory posts using our #MrMHWH hashtag! Tell everyone who you are and how you feel about the world today.

Once this is complete, share your blog post on Twitter using the hashtag #MrMHWH. This should be posted by the end of the first day.

 Part II: The Discussion Go ahead and read the profiles of the other Enlightenment thinkers. Agree with someone, respond to their post! Disagree with someone, do the same. You should respond to at least three posts.

Now we are going to expand the walls a bit! You will begin to field questions from other teachers and historians not only from our school, but around the US (and potentially the world). People will ask you specific questions about how your philosopher would feel about recent world events. For instance, Voltaire may be asked about hate speech, or Rousseau may be asked about Communism under Stalin. To answer these questions, you must do research on the questions premise (and learn more about your Enlightenment thinker.  After a question is asked (via the Twitter hashtag #MrMHWH) you will write a response on your blog (sharing your post via Twitter). Each group will respond to at least two questions. You will then read and respond to the other philosophers at least two of the other philosophers (either as a response on their blog or directly through Twitter). As this is an intensive activity, we may spend a few classes in this discussion.

Part III: The Reflection Following this discussion, you will write a one page reflection discussing what you have learned about your Enlightenment thinker, the other “participants”, as well as how their ideas are or are not present today.

Assessment

15 Points – Initial Blog Post (the post should be free of spelling/punctuation errors and address the prompts fully and clearly)

25 Points – The Discussion (posts and response tweets should be well thought out and accurately reflect the ideals of your Enlightenment thinker. You are required to use at least two sources per question answered.)

10 Points – The Reflection (should be free of spelling/punctuation errors and address the prompts fully and clearly).

50 Points – Total

This post can also be found on http://bhsplp.wordpress.com/.

Posted in History | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

The (Industrial) Revolution will be Twitterized*

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton
Edit: I have transitioned this to using todaysmeet.com rather than Twitter. The activity works the same, but we are in a walled garden that is much easier to set up than Twitter is.

In groups, students were assigned a country that became industrialized during the 18th and 19th centuries. The group’s job was to be the mouthpiece of that country with the task of letting the world know of their progress in industrializing using a common hashtag #MrMHWH. This was not the first time my class has used Twitter in class, so there was no need to explain how to use it. While the majority my students have personal Twitter accounts they elected to create new ones with the name of their country and used an image of their flag for the profile picture.

Getting started in this activity was a bit slow at first. With the exception of Britain, countries started tweeting about what was holding them back from industrializing. Then America tweeted about having gotten the plans to build a mill from Samuel Slater (who was from England). At this point, I reminded my class they should feel free to interact with the other countries (and even respond). When Britain angrily responded to the theft of their plans and told them that they pledged to support the South should there ever be a civil war, I knew that this activity was heading in the right direction.

For the next thirty minutes, in groups my students worked together to tweet out announcements of their progress and to respond to their classmates’ posts. My role transitioned from instigator to an observer (who every now and then would ask students to define terms that they used). Students’ roles varied from researcher, editor, and rapid responder.

When we debriefed the activity, students declared that they enjoyed the interaction that this activity encouraged. The activity and the light to moderate “trash talk” between countries organically led to a great discussion on nationalism.

When the bell rang, students asked if we could do this again. Ideally tomorrow. A few of them walked to lunch talking about the funniest historical tweets.

* Twitterized is not a word.

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Macbeth and Agency: Rethinking the Blame Game!

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

I love getting advice from my PLN. I like being challenged and pushed to develop as an educator. So when @katrinakennett told me to listen to an iTunesU lecture about agency in Macbeth from Emma Smith, I downloaded and listened to it while preparing dinner. It was actually perfect timing, as I was about to introduce Lady Macbeth to my students (who would have vilified her based upon her speech about infanticide).

We began our class that day with students responding to one of the following scenarios. The goal was for the students to really think through the scenarios to decide the responsible party. Ideally, this would create an environment that Lady Macbeth was not given all of the blame for Duncan’s murder.

The scenarios:

The discussion based upon these questions was very fluid. Students suggested that we create a “blame pie chart” to decide the percentage of responsibility for each scenario. I was impressed with the level of thought that my students put in to all of the scenarios. My students also requested that we do more activities such as this to start the class.

Oh! For the blame game on the scenarios! The individuals were given the brunt of the blame for the negative scenarios; while for the baseball scenario, the responsibility was 50% for the father, 20% for the coach, and 30% for the Tom.

I’m looking forward to continuing reading to see who the students blame for Duncan’s death!

Update! I polled my English class today and this is the results!

We are going to do this after each murder and then compare as the blame shifts from one person to another.

Related Post ~ Macbeth Murder Mystery Party Introduction

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Macbeth Dinner Murder Mystery Party Introduction

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

A week or so ago, I read an article about how making predictions leads to a deeper understanding. I decided to take advantage of this idea and my love of Leap Day (must do something epic) to create a Macbeth Dinner Party Murder Mystery with my students! The goal of the lesson was to introduce Macbeth, create a shared experience, and to allow the students to make predictions about the plot of Macbeth. The activity itself was inspired by my enjoyment of the Final Fantasy series and if I had the talent, I would love to make this a mini-internet game.

Prior to the day, some students were assigned to be characters from Macbeth. While they were allowed to use their scripts (below), the goal was they they were familiar with their part. I should say that my students this class are College Prep Level 2 students, meaning that there is a range of English Language Learners and students who need extra time processing information.

When students came into the classroom that day, they were told to mingle with the characters and take notes on what they have to say (as well as eat the snacks that my cooperating teacher and I provided). I should, actually, have created a graphic organizer to keep track of all of the information that students were receiving.

Overall, students seemed to enjoy learning about the different characters and enjoyed the death scene that Duncan put on. When all was done, we discussed what the students had learned from their discussions.

Now, here is where I link back to the article mentioned up top! After debriefing, students made predictions as to what was going to happen in Macbeth. Their predictions were pretty interesting and since they are displayed prominently in my classroom, we will revisit them often.

The scripts:

A few of the predictions:

Related Post ~ Macbeth and Agency: Rethinking the Blame Game

Posted in English | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

A bit about this blog.

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

Greetings.

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a blog here and there. But I’ve found the titles to be too obnoxious to continue (while “Milton’s World” was for my World History class, it made me very uneasy, hence it is abandoned). This made me question the overall purpose of blogging. I am not an expert. Although, I am sure that this blog would be a much better resource for others if I was one. Not to say this this is a worthless blog! I will have to re-edit this paragraph soon in order to keep expectations at a reasonable rate.

Growth is the reason that I am working on this blog. I am creating this in an effort to share what I am doing in the classroom in order to have a conversation about doing better. Please any and all feedback is welcome. Except about my hair. Yes, it is supposed to do that.

My twitter handle is @42thinkdeep. This could seem very pompous; like I was someone who sits around his apartment thinking deeper and forcing others to as well. I chose it as an homage to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Also, @MichaelMilton was already taken.

So, thank you for making it this far into this introductory post. While that last paragraph wasn’t particularly exciting, I feel that it was vital to the process.

On this blog, I will be posting lessons and activities that I have done in my classroom. My goal is not to say, “Do this, it is awesome! I am rock star teacher!” My goal is to share in an attempt to better myself and my teaching ability. If anyone ever uses something, let me know how you adapted it. If you have done something better, please let me know!

I will also occasionally be reflecting upon my classroom and teaching style. Again, my goal is not to say that I am the greatest teacher ever. My goal is to develop a conversation.

Sometimes, I will throw in a book review. There is no real reason for me doing this. I just like to read and find the practice of writing exhilarating.

So, thank you for reading this far down the page. It has been a journey, hasn’t it.

I’ve heard it said that it takes a village to develop a great teacher. I appreciate that you are going to be one of the village people.

-Michael

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