Hands down, my favorite class so far. I liked the fact that we covered a variety of activities and I actually found the skills progression chart quite useful and extremely interesting.
I would 100% use both of these activities in my classroom and believe they would be most well-received/understood in upper middle school and all levels of high school. At first, I did not understand the point of the year progression document activity, but once everyone had sorted their evidence, I was surprised at how much information had been gathered + how many inferences could be made. Surprisingly, I have never done an activity like this before. I have examined primary sources in depth but never put them in order and compared them to other groups’ data. Also, I appreciated that the activity allowed for individual, group, and class collaboration.
I have done a compare and contrast activity with historical pictures before, maybe even the same ones if I am remembering correctly. I have always enjoyed it..however, I think we did kind of go over board talking about the similarities/differences that we saw in the pictures. Nevertheless, a great activity!
I think that as everyone is finding their groove, the class is becoming more exciting and moving at a better pace. Sometimes I feel like we spend too much time on activities that only need a brief overview because we are all older. But, that could be just my fast-paced nature. I do think yesterday’s class was much better. Regarding time, in my opinion, literature circles do not need to be as long. If everyone does what they are supposed to do and stays on track, it isn’t a complex task. — On a happy note, I do enjoy my book! I wish it were written for adults because the young writing is sometimes hard to take seriously. I love a good love story mixed with some murder and maybe some fighting but I do understand that the book is written for kids. I think it does a great job incorporating history with intrigue and I am glad that I hadn’t read it before.
Overall, I think the flow of class is getting better and I am happy that I will utilize the lessons provided yesterday.
Molly, I am so glad you found the lesson analysis on the life of Mr. Stohr so meaningful. It was truly an exciting collaborative activity that incorporated critical thinking skills. Dr. Stohr has a remarkable collection of her father’s possessions. The skills progression chart is a great tool for helping to embed historical thinking skills into the teaching of content. I think you will find it a helpful resource when writing the upcoming lesson plans. Thank you for your reflection.
I am glad that you found this class to be better paced. We’re still finding our groove as we co-teach. We are intentionally taking time with activities because we want you to be reflective and think about how they might be implemented in a classroom, how they might be scaffolded, where challenges might arise, etc.
I’m glad you enjoyed the the document analysis lesson. I think resources like this are great tools for teaching skills. We don’t always need to rely on materials from “famous” people. Examining these documents not only allowed the class to pull together a story, but a longer lesson would allow for a deeper examination of the time period during which the story occurred and would provide some insights into the time that may not appear in a typical textbook excerpt.