Menu
close
Home › Forums › Teaching About Asia Forums › Middle School Ideas › pre-2011 middle school ideas
Anonymous.
AnonymousIt occurred to me that I referenced AskAsia.org (http://www.askasia.org) in my last post without saying anything about it. This website, which I'm sure has been mentioned on this forum before, is maintained by the Asia Society, "an international organization dedicated to strengthening relationships and deepening understanding among the peoples of Asia and the United States." Sounds familiar, eh? In this case, however, the Asia-inspired billionaire is John D. Rockefeller III.
It not only has a great "interactive atlas" co-authored by the National Geographic Society for students, but also lesson plans, maps, images, and discussion boards for teachers. It's definitely a great one-stop shop for Asia-related information.
My only criticism is that with so much information, it's difficult to find what you're looking for without becoming hopelessly distracted. If I can't concentrate, imagine how a 12-year-old all hepped up on Hot Cheetos is going to fare.
m@x
AnonymousHave any of you guys found this website useful?
http://www.historyforkids.org/
Founded in 1995 as a community service learning project about Rome and Greece at Portland State University in Oregon, this site now seems to cover all of Europe, Asia, and Africa, up until 1500 (CE). There's definitely a wealth of information here, and the site aims to be kid-friendly, but....I don't know, I'm not sure how valuable this would be in the classroom.
For one thing, it's very ad-heavy, and if you're using outdated computers (as most of our students are) it's very slow. In some cases, the ad takes up more space than the column, implicitly sending the message that the ad is more important than the text. And I find the text itself a little too simplified.
Maybe this would be useful as an "into" activity, just to get kids interested and spark a few ideas, but I'm not sure that it's the most educational site out there.
thoughts?
m@x
AnonymousYou guys should check this out:
He's a middle school history teacher in Palm Beach, Florida who has created an incredible website. We found all kinds of stuff when we were creating our lessons, and then one day realized that since we were only using the China pages (http://www.mrdowling.com/614china.html ), we had only scratched the surface!
All of his lessons and homework (even quizzes) are available for download (and in Word, so you can make any changes you need) and all he asks in return is that you drop him an email telling him (and his students) how you used the site. Thumbs up.
Hey, maybe someday our website will have been visited by people in over 180 countries . . .
Linda Zarou
AnonymousHi. I am an NCTA alum (2003), and am benefitting from all the Middle School ideas here. Sounds like you have a dynamic seminar! I am currently teaching Japan (7th grade), and use TeacherWeb for my classroom webpage. I have quite a few resources posted there now. You might want to take a look. The URL is http://teacherweb.com/CA/SouthPointeMiddleSchool/MsBrittenham/h1.stm
[Edit by="dbrittenham on Jan 29, 2:49:52 PM"][/Edit]
AnonymousI just read your post requesting ideas for teaching geography. The most original method I have found is to have the students use their bodies to represent landforms. They lay on the floor to represent rivers and seas and wave their hands to represent the way the water flows. If they are being the Gobi desert, they will whisper, "hot, dry, hot dry." They stand up with hands overhead to represent mountains. After you have placed everyone strategically, corresponding to a map you are displaying on the overhead of the region you are teaching, then the rest of the class usually decides where the best place to settle is. Most of the 6th grade geography standards expect the students to understand how geographic factrors effect where ancient cultures settle. Once Dalvon has played the Yangtze River or Myeshia and Shonisha have been the Himalayas, you'd be surprised how easily the class remembers the geography of the region.
Linda
AnonymousWhat a cute and original idea! This is definitely an idea I will use with my 6th graders. Tell me, have you ever taken pictures of your geography lesson? I would love to see a picture of "China"!
Felisa
AnonymousSince I have finished teaching my unit on Ancient China, I am starting to reflect on what worked best. One of my favorite lessons was inspired by Dube's "Encounters" method of teaching. In order to make the three philosophies of Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism seem real to my 6th graders, I taught each lesson using an environment reflecting the respective philosophy.
For Confuciansim, students arranged their chairs in small circles and a student representing an elder stood above each group as the wise mentor who led the instruction. Students showed their elders great respect. bowed to them and thanked them for teaching them.
The next day for Daoism, students could sit anywhere they liked--most chose the floor or on top of desks. They were allowed to study anyway they liked and to demonstrate what they learned in creative ways.
On the last day, students were ushered into the classroom to desks in rigid rows an arm length's apart. They were ordered not to look the teacher in the eye and to study the material on legalism silently on their own. Any student who disobeyed was exiled to stand in the back of the room. The kids loved it and when asked to write an essay on the three philsophies they really came through.
Attached is the writing prompt I used as an assessment.
Linda
AnonymousAn idea to help sixth graders use critical thinking while studying the achievements of Qin the first emperor of China is to have them create a "commenorative plaque" or a "wanted poster" once they have researched Qin. They need to decide whether he was an effective ruler or an ineffective ruler and whether they should decide to immortalize him with a plaque or put out a warrant for his arrest using a wanted poster.
I downloaded examples of plaques from the internet to give kids ideas and most of them knew what a wanted poster looks like. As part of either poster, they were required to illustrate at least 3 things that Qin did to support their conclusion.
The posters turned out so great I laminated them for posterity.
Attached are a few examples.
Linda
AnonymousAs a final assessment for my 6th grade unit on ancient China, I had my students create accordion books to answer the question: What factors promoted unity and what factors discouraged unity in ancient China and why.
First I had them brainstorm using the topics and factors under each topic below:
Two examples were already done for them:
CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Shang tombs
Building the Great Wall--promoted unity because it protected China from foreign invaders
Development of Silk Road
Standardization of writing and weights and measures
Tai chi
GEOGRAPHY
Elevation--promoted disunity because it kept the settlements separated from each other
Temperature
Rainfall
Types of vegetation
GOVERNMENT
Legendary emperors
Shang dynasty
Zhou dynasty
Qin Shi Huang Di
Han Dynasty
PHILOSOPHIES
Ancestor veneration
Confucianism
Daoism
Legalism
Buddhism
TRADE
Exchange of goods during Shang dynasty
Merchants during Han dynasty
Silk Road routes
SOCIAL GROUPS
Artisans
Imperial family
Merchants
Nobles
Officials
Peasants
Slaves
Soldiers
After they chose four factors that promoted unity and four that discouraged unity they illustrated the factors and wrote summaries of each on the pages of their books. They turned out beautifully.
Attached are some picutres of the final result.
Linda
AnonymousI'm having difficulty finding a focus for China. How can I effectively teach the different schools of religous thought? I adapted the idea of the debate that Clay had us participate. I want my students to work in groups and present information about how their religion views various topics like government/family/etc.
Any other ideas?
jem
AnonymousI ran across this web site and thought it looked useful. It is a collection of lesson plans from the New York times.
AnonymousA couple of years ago I purchased the Tales of Time Literature Aligned to CA History-Social-Science content Standars Grades Six to Eight. It is a great list of fiction, historical fiction, non-fiction and poetry readings that include titles, authors and descriptions. It fills a 3" binder! It is a great resource for literature that is linked to the 6th to 8th grade history-social science curriculum.
It cost $15.78 from the San Joaquin County Office of Education, PO Box 213030, Stockton, CA 95213-9030.
AnonymousI love geography and start every unit with a map test that, surprisingly, my students look forward to more than a chapter test!
I start with a blank map and a list of about 40 countries/geographic features. Students then label the map with numbers based on their list of countries/geographic features. For the test I give the same map with the numbers scrambled. Usually about 80% of my students get As and Bs. They seem to have a real sense of accomplishment when they do well on the test and they are less anxious about future map tests. Studying is still critical to their success.
I usually try to give my students memorization tricks for remembering location of places. I know some teachers who are able to sing the order of the countries to their students (Europe map specifically) but I am musically challenged so I can't help you there.
AnonymousHow much time do you budget to complete this task? Do you have any pictures of previous books or cardboard printers?
AnonymousThank you for the idea and resource. I am going to use it to begin my unit on China. In the past do you have students email, present or print their scrapbooks. What if any grading criteria do you communicate to students? At the end of the unit do you have them update their scrapbooks to reflect their learning?