Sidewalk Chalk Art Review

By Jeff Burns

It’s the end of the year, and teachers are always searching for fun and meaningful ways to review material and prepare for those end of course tests, finals, and AP exams.  Why not take it outside and engage your students’ creativity in the process.

For a couple of years now, I have taken my AP US history classes outside to do sidewalk chalk review.  It’s simple and takes just a couple of periods.  First, I assigned each group one of the APUSH time periods. Their instructions were simple: design and create a sidewalk square that illustrates the most important themes, concepts, events, ideas, and people of the assigned period. They had one period to plan, and one period to draw. 

It doesn’t require much:  administrator’s permission and sidewalk chalk.  Dollar stores have cheap sidewalk chalk.  I got it for $1 a box at Dollar general.  Some students even brought their own.  Other useful tools that students brought included stiff dust brooms for erasing and spray water bottles. To get their best effort, I offered a replacement grade to the groups with the best squares, judged by the other US history teachers in my department.  

 

Using an Assembly Line as a Hook to Introduce Industrialization

By Jeff Burns

For several years, I’ve been introducing the industrialization of the Gilded Age with an assembly line simulation that’s a lot of fun for students and always leads to a great discussion. I got the inspiration from somewhere, of course, but I’m not sure where, maybe a History Alive (TCI, Teacher’s Curriculum Institute) activity, but I’ve adapted to my classroom and my personal demeanor.  You see, I’m not an overly effusive person; I’m pretty stoic, dour, emotionless – take your pick.  Students lovingly liken me to internet sensation Grumpy Cat. (If only I could channel my personality into tens of millions of dollars like Grumpy Cat.)

This topic usually falls immediately following Thanksgiving for me, so I begin class by spinning an elaborate tale. I tell the class that I had an epiphany over break. I finally figured out the vehicle that will make me a millionaire and allow me to quit teaching.  It’s the toy sensation that will change the world.  Children around the world will go into frenzy for it. I even have a Shark Tank appearance coming up next week to get backers.  I’m sharing it with the class because I need some help creating some initial inventory, and they can help me.

I use these slides to make my pitch.  (The clumsy cheesiness is part of the charm.)

 

 

 

 

The Burnsie bears a remarkable resemblance to myself.  You can make it anything you want, just some simple drawing or folded object.

For the next step, I use rows of five desks each, markers, and lots of paper cut into fourths.  I use scratch paper, extra one-sided copies saved up all year.  Give every student a marker and 4 o 5 paper squares.  Tell them you’re testing them to see who can get in on the ground floor of this money-making opportunity by producing a burnsie inventory. Their instructions are to draw as many burnsies as possible in 15-20 seconds. When time is up, have them count their completed burnsies and examine a few to compare their consistence, with each other and with the original.  Invariably, this first effort is not going to be successful.  I make  big deal about how many more have to be produced and how they have to be consistent.  No matter where they are in the world, children have to wake up to find a consistent, high-quality, handcrafted burnsie under their tree.  How do we achieve that?  Students offer suggestions like, more workers, using photocopiers, stamps, or stencils.  No, I say, that defeats the purpose of hand-crafted, made-in-America quality.  Someone will suggest an assembly line. OK, How does that work? The student explains, and we give it a shot.  I pit rows against each other.  Usually to save paper  at this point, I reduce the pool of workers to two rows pitted against each other and have volunteers staff the rows, while the rest of the class watches. However, you could have more rows competing.  Then each student in the row is assigned a part to draw:  head, face, body, arms, legs.  They have to draw their parts and pass it to the person behind.  For this round, I usually give them 45-60 seconds.  When time is called, we count and talk about consistency and quality (usually better).

Now, that’s better, but not quite good enough, how do we make more,  faster?  They offer various suggestions.  Maybe the boss (me) can offer positive incentives or negative disincentives for example.  We discuss various options.  Someone will then suggest (maybe following my lead) turning the desks side by side to facilitate the passing.  They may even switch positions or participants or make other suggestions that you may want to implement.  We then do 1 or 2 rounds of 45-60 seconds each, and the production is always better.

 

Finally, we debrief.  How did you feel during this simulation?  Participants will say they felt stressed, anxious, etc. What would it feel like to do real assembly line work today?  What are the physical and mental effects of such work?  Now put yourself in a factory in 1890 or so.  What other factors and effect would be involved.  We usually have a great discussion about working conditions.

The finishing touch is to show the classic candy factory scene from I Love Lucy.  It’s available on Youtube, even in new colorized form if you don’t want to shock the students too much.  While some students will have never seen it before (Sadder still, some students may not have a clue who Lucy or what I Love Lucy is.) but most of them will have seen Drake and Josh do almost exactly the same scene, and they are amazed that it was done fifty years earlier by someone else.

Creating Classroom Games: Bingo

You can customize simple content games for the classroom to help students review and reinforce knowledge. It just takes a little creativity. Follow the steps to create your own content bingo.

Establish a list of terms (people, places, things) students need to know.

For this effort, my list includes: Samuel Gompers, Jane Addams, Theodore Roosevelt, Sitting Bull, NAACP, Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller.

Establish a list of descriptors for your terms. You should include at least two descriptors for each term. The descriptors can apply to more than one term.

Example- “Muckraker” describes Upton Sinclair, Jacob Riis, and Ida Tarbell.

The descriptor for my set are below.

American Federation of Labor, Ghost Dance , The Jungle, Conservation, Reservations, US Steel, Hull House, Wounded Knee, Captain of Industry, National Parks, How the Other Half Lives, Vertical Integration, Progressive, Civil Rights, Standard Oil, Meat Packing, Homestead Strike, Horizontal Integration, Robber Baron, Meat Inspection Act, The History of Standard Oil

 Ensure that students have organized what they have learned about the terms. Students could use a simple chart to organize what they have studied.

People and Groups of the Gilded Age
Samuel Gompers
Jane Addams
Theodore Roosevelt
Sitting Bull
NAACP
Jacob Riis
Upton Sinclair
Ida Tarbell
Andrew Carnegie
John D. Rockefeller

Students will use the list of terms to customize their bingo boards.  I used the simple board below. Students started by writing a name of a person or group from the set above.

    Once students have customized their boards. You only have to explain the rules and begin game play.

   We played using the rules below in class.

·         The goal of the game was to get three correctly complete three boxes in a row.

·         You can make a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row.

·         A square is complete when the term is matched with two correct descriptors.

·         The term and descriptors must match in both historical accuracy and historical interpretation.

·         Once a row is completed the player yells “bingo.”

·         The squares must be verified before a winner can be declared.

To select descriptors during game play, I used the spinner from classtools.net that can be customized with a simple typed list. The spinner was projected on the board and the chosen word simply popped up.

This was a simple way to add a game to my class. It got students talking about the topic and provided a form of review they were attentive to as they played to win.

How do you add games to your class?

Taking Risk to improve Student Understanding of Reconstruction

By Nina Kendall

Sometimes the most interesting and relatable performance task are the hardest to explain. Most Americans spend time in high school studying Reconstruction, but few understand it well or can express why it failed to realize its full reform potential.  In a moment of creative risk-taking I found a great comparison to help students relate to Reconstruction. I described Reconstruction as a “makeover” for the nation. In the 1870s if America was a car, then Reconstruction was the Radical Republican effort to “pimp” our ride (nation). Once my students stopped giggling over their teacher saying, “pimp my ride” they dug into the material.

Their ultimate task was to make a presentation with a visual that demonstrated how Reconstruction was like a national makeover and  describe how successful the makeover or “pimping”  was at achieving its expressed goals. This was a risk that paid off in my class. Students took initiative in organizing their projects and selecting their tools. It was during this process that my students introduced me to comic creators online like Toondo or Comix.

These webtools are great tools for students to use when completing a performance assessment. Both of these tools allow student to create comics that students can be used to show their understanding of the topic being studied. My students used tools like this to create the “before” and “after” pictures of a nation that had experienced Reconstruction. 

As you plan for the semester to come follow your creative instincts.  Simple plans and unique comparisons can lead to better student engagement and understanding. I did with Reconstruction and it worked. Their images were great and the commentary the students provided about the impact of Reconstruction left me feeling like we had better met the challenge of learning this topic than ever before. 

Crafting Comparisons: A Creative Activity for Teaching the CIvil War

By Nina Kendall

As an extended activity the during the Civil War unit, I challenge students to write metaphors comparing some aspect of the Civil War to some facet of a football game.  This activity is simply called, “If the Civil War was a football game.” Students have the opportunity to view models comparisons and a list of broad topics that we study in this unit. It is their job to make evidence based comparison using accurate and colorful language.

I do this activity with students with students enrolled in regular US History class and in Advanced Placement United States History(APUSH). With students in the regular US History Class, I provide a sentence frame, a model sentence, a list of history terms to choose from, and a reference list of football terms as reference. For the APUSH students, I share a few examples and challenge them to make their metaphors. I let my APUSH students choose to work by themselves or in a group. The rule for the assignment is simply the groups must turn in at least 10 metaphors for every group member. Students also had choice about the aspects of the Civil War they choose to be the subject of their metaphors.

This activity is very engaging and a great opportunity for students to be creativity. Students examine the war from economic, political, and military perspectives as they strive to understand how different people and events played a role. Some of the greatest independent  thinking about the Civil War from students happens during this activity. Students frequently extend their inquiry to different perspectives as they craft their metaphors. Further as students are crafting their own comparisons and selecting evidence to support their comparisons it is a great way for me to evaluate their understanding of the  period and their growth in using historical evidence.

At the conclusion of this activity students share the part of their work they are most proud of with their peers. This is a great day in class. I establish some rules for sharing. Each topic can only be used once in the entire class.  We rotate after each comparison to another person or group. Students are invited to express their appreciation and approval for the work of others. Students  happily share their work. As time runs down, students compete with each other to be able to share another part of the work.

Metaphor Rubric

   

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Focus on Metaphor	There is one clear, well-focused metaphor. Main idea stands out and is supported by detailed information.	The metaphor is clear but the supporting information is general.	The metaphor is somewhat clear but there is a need for more supporting information.	The metaphor is not clear. There is a seemingly random collection of information.
Support for Metaphor	Relevant, telling, quality details give the reader important information that goes beyond the obvious or predictable.	Supporting details and information are relevant.	Supporting details and information are relevant, but are not period specific,	Supporting details and information are typically unclear.
Creativity	The project contains many creative details and/or descriptions that contribute to the reader's enjoyment. The author has really used imagination.	The project contains a few creative details and/or descriptions that contribute to the reader's enjoyment. The author has used imagination.	The project contains a few creative details and/or descriptions, but they distract from the story. The author has tried to use imagination.	There is little evidence of creativity in the project. The author does not seem to have used much imagination.

Rubric from Read Write Think