Project Abstract
Throughout history and still today, people have tried to make a difference in the world around them through the use of violence and non-violence. In this project, students will explore what the results of these attempts have been. Ultimately, non-violence is much more effective in accomplishing a long-term positive change within our world. Students will also explore violence and non-violence on a more personal level. As a class, students will work together to create lessons to showcase what they learned and to teach elementary school students about non-violence. In addition, they will create a collaborative mural on non-violence. The content about non-violence that will be learned through this project will guide the rest of our year as we learn about global issues and how people are trying to make change. It will also be relevant as we learn about major wars throughout history and those that go on today, and how peace can be fostered in our world.
What did you teach and how did you teach it?
Students will spend the first four weeks of this project doing the following:
Learning about what non-violence is and strategies of non-violence
Studying six violent revolutions: The Glorious Revolution of England, America, France, Russia, China, Cuba
Analyzing the effectiveness of violence through historian Crane Brinton’s theory on violent revolutions
Reading and analyzing Animal Farm by George Orwell, a critique of the Russian Revolution
Writing an essay on Animal Farm
Studying six non-violent revolutions: India, United States, South Africa, Denmark, Poland, Chile
Learning about leaders of non-violence such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi
Preparing lessons to teach their classmates
Reading and annotating primary and secondary sources
Participating in class discussions
After they have completed the above activities, they will work to develop a lesson to teach second grade students about non-violence. They will also work on a collaborative mural (where everyone on the team will have a part), which will be displayed at the elementary school.
What concepts and skills did the students gain in this class through this project?
Oral presentation skills
Essay writing skills
Practicing refinement
Participating in Socratic Seminars/ class discussions
Teaching for a specific audience
Collaborating with a large group of people
Professionalism
How is the curriculum for this project academically rich and grade-level challenging?
Below is the list of the main project requirements that students were evaluated on. They learned about many different concepts in history and had to show their learning in a variety of ways.
Project Requirements:
Teach the Class: In this project, students will research one violent revolution and one non-violent revolution, and with other students, will teach the class about it.
Read a Book: Students will read and write about the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, which is a critique of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Write an Essay: Students will be writing an essay on the novel Animal Farm.
Participate in the Creation of Lessons and Art on Non-Violence for Young Children: Students will work as a class to create lessons on non-violence and a collaborative mural. They will use this as a way to teach elementary school students about non-violence. While at the elementary school, students will work on collaborative art with the elementary school students around the theme of non-violence. All artwork will be displayed at the elementary school.
To what extent was there integration across disciplines in your class through this project?
This was a project completed in humanities class, but there was an art component integrated into the project, which was a key part of the final product.
Which Habits of Heart and Mind (HoHM) and Design Principles were utilized in this project?
Refinement (see question below)
Cooperation: Students had to work together as a team of 50 to complete the collaborative mural that is now displayed at the elementary school.
Perseverance: Because we had an outside audience for this project, students had to create products that were professional and of high quality. This meant refining work multiple times until it was professional enough. This required perseverance from the students.
Mindfulness: The audience for the lessons on non-violence that students created was second grade students, so my tenth grade students had to be mindful about creating a lesson that was engaging and at the appropriate level.
How did you incorporate refinement through this project?
Refinement was the main Habit of the Heart and Mind that was utilized in this project.
First, with the essay on Animal Farm, each student participated in the writing process, which included a lot of refinement. They created a rough draft, and participated in a self and peer critique process with it. Then, they refined it and turned it into the teacher as their second draft. They then had to refine it again, and then turn in a final draft to the teacher. Those that did not receive a B or higher on the final draft had to keep refining their essay until they received this grade.
With the lessons on non-violence that they prepared for the second grade students, they first presented them to our class, which filled out peer critique forms for them. Then they had to refine their lesson and present it to the teacher. With my feedback, they had to refine it again and present it again to the teacher. Those that were not approved at that point had to keep refining their lessons until they were approved by the teacher to teach at the elementary school. Some students had to refine their lessons five times, but they were proud of the final product they created and how much they had improved.