Mrs. Davis

Racially Diverse Emojis

Impeachment of Trump

Brexit

Boston Marathon

I have been teaching social studies my whole career, both as a homeroom and co-teacher. What I have noticed is that many students are unable to connect history and the way it ties their current lives. Every time I introduce another movement, war, or government plan, their eyes glaze over. For many students, it is difficult to think beyond their current timeline. It occurred to me that we teach a lot of history, that tends to repeat itself, and that is also true of the last 10 years of their lives. I decided to do a project encompassing history from their lifetimes and look for similar patterns.

Each student was asked to either choose a topic or to let me assign them one. The first step was to research their topic, then write an informational essay, citing evidence from their sources. Next, they made a picture of their topic, and chose a background for their individual slide on the video. Mrs. White used a "green screen" to capture them in front of their background, while showing off their drawing . We used the music from Billy Joel's , "We Didn't Start the Fire". I rewrote the lyrics, based on their topics, the student recorded the chorus with Mr. Isbell, and I recorded the verses. Then we put the whole thing together and made our own music video of "We Didn't Start the Fire"!

This PBL was a cross-curricular activity in social studies, reading, writing, art, and music. It incorporated multiple standards, in each subject area, which requires a lot of planning up front, but reaps rewards for multiple subject-area grades. Most of all, it was just fun and engaging. My class is proud of their accomplishment and to be leaving a legacy as they move onto middle school next year.