Pearl Harbor and September 11

In my Junior-level US History class, we have been discussing WWII. Every year I struggle with reaching the modern day, as things happen and we don't always get to discuss all of the topics that we should. This year I decided to help my students to synthesize a connection between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the attacks on September 11, purely in the way that it affected Americans and their perceptions on other people.

On the first day, we discussed--very briefly--what occurred at Pearl Harbor, which led to--among other things--Japanese internment. I wanted to focus on the perspective of the Japanese Americans that were held in internment camps before we took a look at the American point of view and American reasoning, as exposure to that perspective could have closed their minds to other points of view.

First, I compiled 14 primary sources that depicted Japanese internment in both negative and positive lights. I found as many local sources as I could, which was possible even in our area of rural Wisconsin. My students were tasked with taking a look at the primary sources and determining what the sources told them about Japanese internment. We then discussed the sources and the impact that Japanese internment had on Japanese Americans, as well as the impact that the primary sources would have had on a Japanese American who lived through internment.

The next day, we took a look at video footage of both the aftermath of Pearl Harbor as well as video news footage of the attacks on September 11. I also showed two History.com videos that do a great job of showing a timeline of what happened on September 11. We then watched, and compared, FDR's speech on December 8, 1941 to George W. Bush's speech on September 11, 2001. We discussed the words they used, the emotion they expressed, and how the viewers might have felt watching the speeches.

After we viewed the videos, I told my personal story of what I remembered from September 11. As a fifth grader, I remember not understanding what was happening. I understood that planes were crashing and buildings were falling down, and that was really it. I then explained how over time I have gained a more sophisticated understanding, and the events of that day greatly affect me, especially knowing how many innocent lives were lost.

I then assigned my students a short assignment. They had to find one image from Pearl Harbor and one from September 11, and then explain how the image would affect the emotions of an American living through the event. They could choose to focus on any group of Americans, including Japanese Americans or Muslim Americans. They also had to ask someone for their personal history of what they remember happening on September 11.

After all of this, I felt like we needed one more way for students to explore how imagery could affect one's emotions, and how symbolism was incredibly important in memorializing tragic events. We looked through pictures of various Pearl Harbor and September 11 memorials, discussing the symbolism that was present in each one. I showed them that every little piece of each memorial was planned that way for a reason. I then tasked my students with creating a memorial of their own. They were able to depict whichever event they wanted in whatever medium they preferred.

Some students built 3D models, painted on canvas, drew posters, and created online graphic designs, but most of all, I saw that they took the project seriously and put intense thought into their memorials. They understood the impact of these incredible disasters and truly wanted to memorialize the memory of those who were affected by the attacks.

These few lessons only lasted a couple of days, but my students gained an appreciation for historical events that I hope will affect how they understand other important events. Events are not simply stuck in the past; they greatly impacted people, and I am glad that my students were able to understand that in such a mature fashion.

Here is what we worked on... I have to put this together in a HyperDoc to make it easier to navigate!

Day 1: 

• Learning Target:
• Compare and contrast the attack on Pearl Harbor with the attacks on September 11.
• Activities:
• Watch videos (live coverage)
• Pearl Harbor Coverage
• 9/11 Timeline - New York
• 9/11 - United 93 and Pentagon
• Speech analysis while watching videos (Who is the speaker, and when are they speaking? What is the main message of the speech? What tone does the speaker use? Choose two powerful words from the speech and explain why the speaker used those words.)
• FDR's "Day of Infamy" Speech
• George W. Bush's Speech on 9/11
• Image analysis (Pearl Harbor and September 11 - Google Slideshow Assignment) - due tomorrow
• Example 1
• Example 2

Day 2:

• Learning Targets:
• Compare and contrast the attack on Pearl Harbor with the attacks on September 11.
• Understand and exhibit the importance of symbolism, specifically in memorials
• Activities:
• Discuss memorials (symbolism, effect on viewers, etc.)
• Find links for students to explore - What meaning did they find in the memorials? Choose a symbol you found to share with the class.
• Design a memorial
• Your task is to design a memorial that commemorates either the events of the attack on Pearl Harbor or the attacks on September 11.
• Your memorial may be a building, statue, mural, banner, or any other type of visual memorial. You can create your memorial in any medium you choose: online, on paper, 3D, etc.
• You must include at least three symbols in your memorial.
• In an accompanying description, you must describe the meaning of your three (or more) symbols.
• Your memorial will be worth 10 project points. It is due on Tuesday, May 8.

There were some very thoughtful memorials. I wish I had taken pictures of some of them!

Flipgrid - Reflection on @EdCampMadWI

I attended an Ed Camp today in Madison, Wisconsin and had the opportunity to go to four awesome sessions. One session focused on Flipgrid.

I've been hearing about Flipgrid (@Flipgrid) for a while now, but I hadn't quite caught #FlipgridFever. I just wasn't sure how the platform worked, so I was grateful for the opportunity to learn firsthand at EdCamp in a session proposed and facilitated by Katie Copley (@mrs_copley_pvms).

Instead of writing here about how Flipgrid works, I'm going to use this space to create a list of ways that I am considering using Flipgrid in my classroom. Feel free to use and adapt!

• Record answers to questions that the judges might ask during our National History Day Contest
• Ask each other questions about their NHD projects
• Critique each other's NHD projects
• Side Quest Challenges (for gamification purposes)
• Post trivia questions or riddles and students could gain XP for answering them correctly
• Summarize a concept we are discussing in class
• Summarize a reading
• Explain a current event that they heard about this week
• Get to know each other at the beginning of a new class
• Reflect on a finished project/assessment
• Reflect on process
• Reflect on progress
• Teach each other how to use a tool or skill
• How to format their annotated bibliography
• How to cite a source
• How they determined meaning in a text
• Ask questions about assignments
• Debates/discussions on controversial topics
• Interpretation of a primary source
• Describe a modern analogy of a historical concept/event
• Historical "interviews"
• Job interviews (Homeroom Academic and Career Planning)
• Practice for Student Led Conferences

Civil War Battle Stations - ENGAGING History card game!

Sorry for the broken images. I am going to fix that as soon as I have an opportunity to take new screenshots. I'm not sure what happened there.

This year I began to gamify my classes. I have been taking it slow, but recently I decided to really jump in, and I am so glad that I did!

My big success this week was creating a Civil War card game that greatly engaged my students in learning about the battles of the Civil War using about 60 minutes of class time. I had so much fun creating the game, and my students had a lot of fun playing it!

Here is how I developed the game...

I had a dilemma. We were nearing the end of the semester, and I needed to fit my Civil War unit in before the first semester was over, but that meant that the unit could only be two weeks long.

I had no idea where to start! What to focus on, what to skip... I knew that I had a great activity in mind with History Blueprint's "Civil War Battle Stations" activity, but in prior years it had taken three or four class periods for students to slooowwwwly navigate through the 12 battles in the activity. That was way too long. My students simply weren't engaged in the activity all by itself.

I really liked the activity, but I wanted to add some game mechanics in there to motivate my students. We've been using Classcraft, so I decided that XP would be an excellent reward for my students.

But how would I grant XP? Correct answers? That didn't seem motivating enough. The first group done? That wouldn't guarantee that students would try to get the correct information.

Instead, I decided to make a card game that would extend upon the activity.
I had so much fun putting the game together and coming up with the random events! Here is how the lesson played out:
Students would still have to navigate the battle stations (posted around the room) and fill out the chart (battle name, victor, location, and how the battle affected the outcome of the war), but there was an additional element.

Since the beginning of the unit, my students were organized into teams that were nicknamed with state names. Certain states, like South Carolina, were Confederate states. Others, like New York, were Union states. I also had groups that were the border states, which were the states that remained in the Union but still had slaves. I made it clear that the teams were named as such just to help students remember the two sides in the Civil War, and that I didn't believe that students had one perspective over the other.

We began navigating the "battle stations" yesterday. When students visited a "battle station," they would record the information from the battle on the chart and then come see me. I would check for accuracy, and if all was correct, they would get to choose one of the cards that I made.




If the student was part of a "Union" state, and if the Union won the battle that they had just recorded, the student would get a green-colored card (printed on green paper). The green cards were items or good events. The same goes for if the student was part of a "Confederate" state, and if the Confederacy won the battle.

If the student's side (Union or Confederate) lost the battle, they would have to pick a red-colored card. The red cards were negative events.







There were some cards that negated each other.

Here is one example:

The goal of the game was to survive the Civil War. Two-thirds of my students made it through the war alive. Even when students "die" in the war, they continue to play the game and visit the battle stations, as each card was worth a random number of XP. I had the cards' values written down on my master copy of the cards, so I knew how much each card was worth, but my students did not. This provided a little bit of mystery!

Once the game was over, students that survived the Civil War earned 500 bonus XP. Students also gained XP for each card. They earned XP for both good and bad cards, as there were more Union victories and I wanted everyone to have an equal chance of gaining XP.

Instead of taking four class periods, the activity took one and a half. Instead of students wanting to sit out, all students were engaged, even those who generally try to avoid classwork. The key is that it didn't seem like classwork. In fact, it wasn't classwork. It was a game! And through the game, my students learned how each "battle station" event affected the outcome of the Civil War. They were able to see how the war played out, and they had fun doing so!

Here is the "Civil War Battle Stations Card Game" document with the cards that I created. Feel free to make a copy and make the cards your own!

"Civil War Battle Stations Card Game" Document

My plan is to spruce up the cards a bit and adding more as time goes on, but I'm excited to get these out there! Enjoy!

Ditch Summit: "Where Technology and Pedagogy Collide" Reflection

I have been voraciously seeking professional development opportunities of late, as I have just this year become involved in Twitter, using it as an avenue to grow my Professional Learning Network.

Since joining Twitter, I have begun to listen to podcasts (which really make my one-hour drive to work bearable!) and have begun to follow the blogs of major inspirations such as Kasey Bell (Shake Up Learning), Matt Miller (Ditch That Textbook), Eric Curts (Control, Alt, Achieve), and Michael Matera (Explore Like a Pirate).

My passions in Social Studies, technology, and making learning fun have given me the motivation to keep seeking opportunities to learn.

One particular professional development opportunity that I was happy to be a part of is Matt Miller's Ditch Summit, which I am going to take the opportunity to reflect upon throughout the next few days.

Today I will start with the big question that popped up while I was watching "Where Technology and Pedagogy Collide" by Tanya Avrith and Holly Clark.

Question: Does posting the standard kill curiosity?

In my district, we are required to post our learning targets for the day. I have them posted on my website, on my daily agenda on Google Classroom, and even on assignments or class activities that my students complete during class time.

But am I killing my students' curiosity by doing this? If I tell students where we are going, am I destroying their desire to create and reach for their own learning targets?

Tanya and Holly's session have me thinking a lot about this.

I understand the reasoning behind posting the learning targets, and I think it's awesome for a couple of reasons.

1. Students know the end-goal. They understand where we are going with the information and concepts that we are discussing in class and they can prove that they know it when they have mastered the concepts.
2. It keeps me accountable as their teacher. I make sure that I teach the standards, but posting the learning targets makes me doubly responsible to make sure that I address the entire target and not steer off course too far.
3. The learning targets are in kid-friendly language, so they can understand what the goal is.

On the other hand, there are questions that make it seem like a better idea to not post learning targets.

1. If students are given a learning target, do they master the target and then stop there? Will they refuse to learn beyond the target? Will they care to think beyond the target?
2. Do posted learning targets stop students from creating their own questions? I want my students to not only learn important concepts, but to be able to create their own inquiry. Will posting an end-goal essentially kill that drive to know more?
3. If we are shackled by a learning target, will that stop us from discussing important topics that aren't in the standards? Topics such as this do exist. If I post the learning target, does that mean that we can't create a new learning target for the day?

All in all, this is a question I am continually struggling with.

I'm wondering if there is a way to create a learning target that does not kill curiosity? Hold up... I need to stop myself there. I read in Teach Like a Pirate that instead of asking "Is there a way?" I should instead be asking "How can I make a way?"

So here I restate my question: How can I create a learning target that does not kill curiosity?

Maybe this could work as an example learning target: "I can create questions that help me to analyze how physical geography influences the economy of a region."

Or, my students can work together at the beginning of a unit to create their own learning targets. As their teacher, I could facilitate and steer them to be sure that we meet the required standards as well as satiate their curiosity.

This way, learning targets would change year to year... but that is not a bad thing. Some classes will already have met a target that I have set, and it makes sense for different groups of learners to have different goals.

Perhaps it be acceptable to provide learning targets but allow students to come up with one learning target of their own for the unit. This learning target could be unique to each student, or we could come up with a few learning targets as a class. This hybrid of teacher-led and student-centered learning targets would be the perfect place to start for me, while I try something new. I will keep you posted!

Student Projects on the NEW Google Sites - Learn from my mistakes!

I love using GSuite with my classes because the ability to collaborate is phenomenal.

This year I wanted to try a little something new, so I decided to use the new Google Sites. I use it for my own website to post assignments and I am quite familiar with it, so I figured it would be no problem getting my students started using it.

I was wrong.

Not because my students couldn't handle it... They did awesome! There were just a few snags along the way.

I want to give you the opportunity to learn from my mistakes and try it for yourself, without all of the headaches! (Examples included.)

Here are the things that I have learned in assigning a website project to my students...

1. Be careful sharing a site with the whole class

I created the site and shared it with twenty students. They were great and did not mess with each other's pages... on purpose. Just be sure that you can trust that your students will respect each other's pages.

2. Tell students not to change the theme

The theme is connected to each page, so if one student changes the theme, it changes all of the pages. A simple solution is to have all students leave the theme alone!

3. Show students how to switch between the "insert" and "pages" options

My students were doing a webpage with some subpages, but it was confusing for some how to switch between different pages and how to insert text boxes, images, videos, etc. Just show them the tabs on the right side of the screen, and they figure it out pretty quickly!

4. Instead of having students add a ton of pages, have one page per student

If time is of the essence or if students only need to add one page, only having one page per student could save some headaches that happen when students have to switch between multiple pages. A website with many pages could be amazing, or cumbersome, depending on the task you are assigning. The websites that I have linked at the bottom of this post provide examples of both sites with many pages or only one page per student. I'd recommend starting with one page per student for beginners.

5. Show students how to add a text box

In order to type in Google Sites, students first have to add a text box. Walk them through that tool and the other tools on the "insert" tab so students can create a dynamic webpage!

6. Show students how to search for images directly in Google Sites

Images can be added directly from Google on Google Sites. This is so much simpler than searching for an image, saving it, and uploading it to Google Sites. Show students this helpful shortcut!

7. Publish often! This saves progress. Auto-save is not foolproof...

The auto-save feature on Google Sites isn't fool-proof, but it has only happened a couple times that a small amount of progress was lost. Remember to publish the site often, just in case something happens to student work!

8. There is no way to bring back a deleted page... yet.

Be careful with this! If a page is deleted, it is gone forever unless it is restored immediately. This could really ruin a kid's day. This is why I suggest publishing often and making sure that students only touch their own pages!

9. There is no way to see the revision history in Google Sites... yet.

This is a biggie. Without the option to see revisions, changes can become permanent. Deleted images or text boxes cannot be recovered if the "undo" button isn't pressed pretty quickly after something is deleted. Deleted pages cannot be recovered at all. Another down side to the lack of revision history is that when students work in groups, the teacher cannot be sure who completes which work on the page.

10. Trying out the new Google Sites was absolutely worth it!

I love assigning web sites. My students like how quick and easy it is to make a site on the new Google Sites... once they got the hang of it, that is! Try it out for yourself, and let your students be creative! It's amazing what they create for the world to see.

Websites created by my 7th and 8th grade students:

Central American Nations

European Nations

Violations of Rights (6th Hour)

Violations of Rights (7th Hour)

Gamification: Month 1-2

This year marks my first endeavor into the imaginative world that is gamification. I had heard of gamification during my college career (I graduated in 2013), but I didn't have a great grasp on what it was exactly.

Last spring a colleague and I attended the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies conference in Madison. At the conference we learned a great deal, but the session that stuck with me the most was Michael Matera's session about gamifying a class.

I was completely won over by the strategy before the session even ended, and my colleague was too. We both bought Matera's book, Explore Like a Pirate, and I began reading it right away. The beauty of the book is that it is well-organized, but it doesn't have to be read from front to back. I have spent a lot of time annotating, bookmarking with post-its, flipping back and forth, and revisiting sections of the book time and time again.

As soon as I attended the session, I knew that I wanted to gamify my classes this school year. With Explore Like a Pirate, I finally had the tools that I needed to do just that.

My only problem starting out was the scope of it all. Gamification is a vast, ever-changing world, and I started in the deep end. I dove in and planned out my entire year, focusing on the theme, items, badges, all of it. I simply didn't plan for how I was going to keep track of it all. There are resources out there, but with 5 different classes (not 5 class periods... 5 different classes) and with one of those classes being brand new to me, I feared that I wouldn't be able to stick with my theme throughout the entire year. By the time September arrived, I simply wasn't ready.

Instead of scrapping the whole idea (which would have left me heartbroken after all that work and dedication!), I decided to go with a suggestion offered by many of the experienced gamifiers. Use Classcraft!

Classcraft has entirely changed the way that I teach. As a firm believer in PBIS, I can assure you that Classcraft follows that philosophy quite closely. My students earn experience points for being positive, going above and beyond, helping each other, and trying new things. My students are asking for additional work to do for XP, when last year they would have done anything to get out of doing a homework assignment. My main concern, though, is making sure that the experience points (XP) do not replace homework points. The XP are for classroom behavior, and the homework points are for reaching the learning targets.

Last year I had a lot of issues with behavior management. This year, I barely have any issues and class participation has skyrocketed. I bought in, the students bought in, and it's working wonderfully!

Content Passion

Today I received Teach Like a Pirate in the mail. I'm excited to start a new adventure and delve deeper into my late summer PD!

The author, Dave Burgess, suggests that there are three categories of passion: Content Passion, Professional Passion, and Personal Passion.

The first question posed by Dave Burgess that I am going to focus on is as follows:

"Of all of the topics and standards you teach as part of your curriculum, which are the ones you most enjoy?"

As a History teacher, the topics that I most enjoy include colonial America, the Civil War, and the Progressive Era.

Growing up, I was a huge fan of the author Ann Rinaldi. She did an amazing job at taking historical events and putting them into a story that a young girl like me could enjoy. Aside from my dad, who absolutely lives and breathes history, Rinaldi is one of the people that had the largest impact on my love for history. One book of Rinaldi's that I absolutely love is The Fifth of March. It was the first book of hers that I read, and once I finished it, I set on a quest to buy each and every one of her books--a goal that I met, by the way. This book, focused on the Boston Massacre, sparked my interest in learning about all things colonial America. Not just Jamestown or the Revolutionary War, but all colonial history. It continues to amaze me that people could completely leave their lives and set out in a world completely unknown to them--and this still happens today! Immigration is so often looked at as a negative thing (at least here in the United States), but people rarely stop to look at the perspective of the person who is emigrating from what used to be their home, setting out into a vastly different horizon. It's incredible to think about.

The Civil War era is another time period that fascinates me. I have been incredibly interested in the Civil War ever since my family visited Gettysburg when I was 12 years old. I brought my dad and my sister back to Gettysburg in July of 2013 for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. I planned the whole trip so we would be able to see as much as we could and do as much as we could, including marching Pickett's Charge on the 150th anniversary. I planned so much that my dad and sister still refer to the Gettysburg trip as an "edu-vacation"... and they no longer allow me to plan vacations! They enjoyed it, but we were all exhausted when the trip was over.

I love teaching about historical individuals that have changed, or have done their best to change, the world. The Civil Rights Movement is awesome, as are revolutions, but my favorite time period to teach about change is actually the Progressive Era. The one thing that I like best about it, and most other historical periods actually, is that there is no true beginning or end to the Progressive Era. Sure, history textbooks find a way to define it, but the beginning and end dates are certainly up to interpretation. I love working with my students to uncover why this time period is called the Progressive Era and how all of the reforms during this time period have drastically altered the world that we live in today. Many students become very engaged when we talk about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (rat poop in the food, disease everywhere, etc) as well as when we discuss Nellie Bly's Ten Days in a Mad House (where she pretended to be mentally ill in order to expose the horrible way that the mentally ill were treated), but there is so much more to the time period. I certainly use those excerpts as hooks, but students get so into discussing Progressive reforms and especially when answering the question: "Were the goals of (insert Progressive Era Reform here) met? Explain." I get so many students that go beyond the yes or no answer and discuss how some aspects of the reform have been met, but others still continue to be issues today.

I bet you can tell that these are my historical passions... I meant for this post to be short and sweet, but I got so excited that I couldn't stop writing! I want to allow my students to bring their passions into my classroom as well. I first have to remember that we are all passionate about different things. Even though I am in love with history, there will be students that aren't! I have to find a way to bring their passions into my classes too.