pre-2011 middle school ideas

[Anonymous]

There are overheads for grades 6-8 from TCI History Alive. Recently, they have also made great strides to align all of their curriculum to California State Standards.

[Anonymous]

"Marco Polo Contoversy" does indeed breed interest. You could also try this in the form of a web quest. After mapping Marco Polo's journey and discussing the different positions divide students in to groups, give them guiding questions, a position, and a list of websites they can use to gather information. After organizing their information have a classroom debate. This can be used to meet not only history standards but the LA standards of research, identifying the author's perspective and persuasion.

[Anonymous]

A couple of ideas for teaching the different belief systems:
- webquest- give your students guiding questions then have them search for their answers.
- Character posters of the different founders (my students love these)
-analyze the different belief systems of cultures they've already studied, identify the basic tenents, why/how do we know these... make sure they understand that often "religion is culture", look at the culture's where Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism are practied and were practiced and identify the basic standards of society. Answer which go with each belief system.
-Pictures always help.. I build slide shows off the internet to illustrate ideas and give examples of the belief systems.
- One thing I tried this year as the culminating assessment of the three religions/philosophies is have my students write a compare and contrast essay. They were able to use our class discussion/notes, different websites, as well as books and other resources I have in my room. I provided them with a number of graphic organizers as well (I think these are necc. for the majority of students to organize their info.) This worked wonderfully for all my students but primarily for my eld kids to drive home the belief systems.

Julia Shepherd
Riverside, CA[Edit by="jshepherd on Feb 19, 2:58:13 PM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

Julia,

I love the idea of conveying beliefs graphically. We routinely have students create posters, etc. to illustrate the teachings of the sages. I think that kids would enjoy making their own powerpoint presentations as well. What images do you use to illustrate Daoism?

[Anonymous]

The majority of images I use for Daoism of course come from nature. I use a river (as well as the river system of life. River,animal,insect.. work together in harmony)
-a meditating person, as well as have students create their own images of meditation
- the mobius circle to illustrate perfect ongoing harmony
-have students create their own symbols of equilibrium
-Natural order of decompositon (circle of life); each thing needs to "go with the flow"
-of course the yin yang, and this year I found the manj which illustrates heaven and earth meeting yin and yang.
-Does anyone else have suggestions?
Daoism is the most difficult to find fixed images for...

[Anonymous]

To add to the idea of using the influence of geography on culture one thing my students love is going to googleearth.com. You can zoom in or out so they can see from the satelite view why people may choose to settle/abondon a certain area.

[Anonymous]

Julia, thank you for your ideas. I was thinking about doing something with Chinese belief systems next year, maybe persuasive essay unit for Honors class. With your suggestions, I may even try it this year. I need to spend some more time about how I would want my students to write the actual persuasive essay. Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the website. If you are interested in Japan resources for seventh grade, I am attaching the lessons I created from my NCTA seminar and will follow with the handouts I created to correspond to it. I used this lesson last year to work on dialogue, emphasize perspective and to teach about the Mongol Invasions of Japan. Students create anime style comic strips of the Mongol invasions during a class activity. They also write what if expository essay that covers the role of chance in history. Finally we used partner journals and current events to work on dialogue and perspective while identifying differing viewpoint of historical events.

Thanks for the website. If you are interested in Japan resources for seventh grade, I am attaching the lessons I created from my NCTA seminar and will follow with the handouts I created to correspond to it. I used this lesson last year to work on dialogue, emphasize perspective and to teach about the Mongol Invasions of Japan. Students create anime style comic strips of the Mongol invasions during a class activity. They also write what if expository essay that covers the role of chance in history. Finally we used partner journals and current events to work on dialogue and perspective while identifying differing viewpoint of historical events.

I switched to sixth grade this year so I have not been able to tweak the lessons since the first run last year. Please share any changes that you make or feedback you have.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Attached is the outline I use for the cartoons of the Mongol invasions of Japan. It can be duplicated for any series of events that you want students to represent visually. I have students write captions and dialogue to correspond to the event. For the Japan lesson we draw pictures from right to left to match the text orientation.

[Anonymous]

This attachment is the outline for a buddy journal that I use with students to develop the dialogue for their cartoons. More importantly they write from and respond to the different perspectives of people involved in history. I use the same approach in Language Arts for students to understand or develop characters.

[Anonymous]

Last post related to my Japan lesson... I promise I am attaching the reflection handout that I use with the cooperative learning anticipatory set that highlights different perspectives. This activity and the Zoom and ReZoom books were featured at the San Jose Writing Project and really create an "aha" moment that germinates great discussion.

[Anonymous]

I like the idea of using a persuasive essay for the three religions. I would first make sure they have a firm understanding of the period, cultural, ecomomic and political background of where the religion was practiced.

- split your class into the social hierarchy groups of the period and have them research why the religion(s) appealed/did not appeal to that group. (maybe cooperative learning groups?)
-OR, split them into Buddhist, Daoist, Conf. groups, have them make charts giving concrete examples of why/why not the religion appealed to each group.
-Have the students present their findings and post their charts for ref. while they write.
-Have them write the essay using the guidelines you set out for them.
-Split your class into groups based on the three religions and have them debate eachother.

-Do you want them to use all three religions in their essay?
-Do you want them to choose a perspective, or assign a perspective. Ex. You are a scholar official...
-Do you want them to use examples from today, or keep in in the period they are studying?

I've visualized this in my head, but I don't know how well I've explained it here. If you have questions, please let me know. Maybe we can brainstorm for more ideas together.
😀
Julia

[Anonymous]

The History Alive! textbooks are awesome. They are created by a teacher, and they are organized in ways that make so much more sense than some of the textbooks I have. They have great pictures, and if you can get your district to approve it (or department) or just buy a full set... it is absolutely worth it. You can get the pictures in the text in a program that you can show with detail to help compare and contrast. They encourage so much kinesthetic learning. I went to a seminar of theirs during the California Council for the Social Studies conference in San Diego... I would switch to their texts in all grades if I could (I'm doing what I can). In the meantime, I think using some of the info in them is a great resource that really benefits the students. The website is great too, and even has some help with primary resources when possible.

[Anonymous]

I think some good ideas for art lessons are using Chinese calligraphy and Chinese/Japanses landscape painting with middle school or high school students. The last meeting was really good to see some of the examples of Chinese art. I am currently planning on doing a unit that includes stamp making, calligraphy, and landscape painting.

[Anonymous]

I used a lesson on the etymology of Japanese with my students starting with the Chinese pictographs. They could then see the progression of the symbols as well as the adaptations made by the Japanese after they adopted the Chinese symbols. I have them create their own symbol as well as use the Japanese to create a water color "name" plate.
I say "name" because they have to choose ideas that represent themselves.
I found this to be a great transition lesson between China and Japan, illustrating how much was borrowed from the Chinese.

[Author]

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