Lesson Plan: Historical Connections Board 2

Print version of this lesson plan or all three.

Drawing Connections between Historical World Events and our History on Guam

Creating a Historical Connections Journey (Part 2 of 4)

Subjects

Social Studies, History, Language Arts, Art

Grade-level

Elementary, 4-5
Middle School, 6-8
High School, 9-12

Time required

45 minutes

Materials required

Board and chalk or markers
Historical Connections board (previously completed throughout the year)

Lesson Plan

Description

In this activity, students will use the information from the Historical Connections board to plan an educational, museum-like journey (to be created in part 3, and presented to an audience in part 4 of this lesson series).

Objectives/Skills

Students will review the connections identified on the Historical Connections board.
Students will develop a category system and begin grouping the connections by theme; students will also discuss areas of focus for their Historical Connections journey.

Questions or Assessment

Were students able to develop categories and themes for the identified connections?
Did students have difficulty remembering the historical connections identified throughout the term?
Did students consider their audience and the best way to educate them?

Procedure

Teacher prep
Identify an audience for the historical connections journey.

Draw Connections and Groupings (12 minutes)

Direct students to the Historical Connections board, and ask them to browse through the list. Ask students to name some common themes or connections that they see.
- List student responses on the board.
- Should students be stuck, feel free to provide a few connections as examples. These may include: impact of foreign nation building, international wars, trade, etc.
- Depending on the skill-set of the classroom, the depth of responses will vary. For elementary and middle school students, focus primarily on drawing a few broad connections (e.g. explorers, war, trade). For high school and advanced middle school students, feel free to delve further into the examples and develop more focused connections/themes (e.g. 18th century trade, missionary work, corporations and the tourism industry).
The connections and themes identified do not have to be mutually exclusive, or exhaustive; there are no single correct answers. Rather, responses are to serve as a way for students to engage with the material and draw larger meanings. Allow students to be creative in their connections, provided they can back up their work reasons and evidence.

Introduce the Historical Connections Journey Project (18 minutes)

Explain to students that they will be creating a historical connections journey for an audience.
- Prior to this lesson, identify an audience for the project. Possibilities include: another classroom of peers, a younger classroom, parents and guardians, another teacher or group of teachers.
The journey will consist of a series of poster boards (or sections of wall with taped-up articles and images). Students will develop an order for the journey (most likely chronological), and at each step provide information about how Guam history is connected to international history. For advanced students, this latter portion may include information according to themes (e.g. food, clothing, trade, etc.)
- For example, students may choose to set up the journey in chronological order. They will choose 5 examples of historical events that significantly influenced Guam. Each event will get its own poster board (or section of wall); on this poster board, students will list how the international event shaped Guam according to themes of their choice (perhaps food, clothing, religion, and trade).
Have students pick the four or five significant international historical events that they wish to focus upon.
Then have students narrow down their list of connections (developed in the prior activity) to 3-5 themes. Remind students to consider their audience (for example, if their audience is a younger class, they may want to choose themes that are more easily accessible).

Get into Groups and Plan (13 minutes)

Divide the class into smaller groups (ideally, of 3-4 students).
Assign each group one of the historical events.
Explain that each group is now in charge to developing the poster board (or wall section) for the assigned historical event as part of the overall historical connections journey.
Ask students to begin planning what they would like to include in their section. Encourage them to begin planning their method of research (as they may have to conduct research outside of the classroom).
- If students get stuck, encourage them to focus on the 3-5 themes agreed upon by the class in the earlier lesson. Feel free to provide one or two examples to help them understand.
- Remind students of the resources available to them, including: textbooks, libraries, primary works, experts, and the internet (including Guampedia).
Encourage students to conduct some outside research before the next class period; the next lesson will primarily be a work session, and so it may prove useful for the students to come in with information already gathered.

Recap (2 minutes)
Recap what we’ve done and learned in the lesson and unit:

“Today we’ve reviewed the historical connections board that we’ve been working on all term. Upon reviewing it, we identified common themes. We discussed our new Historical Connections Journey project, and then separated into smaller groups and began work on our respective sections. Be sure to conduct some research at home, as it will come in handy during our next lesson.”

Ask students for their favorite parts of the activity.