Oregon Trail - November Post

          The Oregon Trail is the first portion of the westward migration that occurs under the concept of Manifest Destiny.  I have done a simulation for the event, but have been adding and tweaking it every year.  Even this year I have spent the weeks after the fact digitizing the sheets for the assignment.  It will make it even easier because students will just change one number and it'll do all the calculations for them in the coming years.  This year we were still doing it by hand, which them and their calculators (phones) is the most time consuming part of the project.  

Couples are chosen ahead of time so students are not with the same people every project.

First Step: Students choose whether they are the husband or wife out of the couple.  Husband Students identify which profession they have (Popsicle sticks have professions written on it and they draw it from the cup).  Mostly the boys of the groups are husbands, but we have some same gender groupings due to class numbers and some girls who refuse to be the wife that are husbands.

Second Step: Wives roll a dice to see how many children they have - 1-2 = 4 kids; 3-4 = 6 kids; 5-6 = 8 kids.

Third Step: Name all the children, given them a gender, and an age. (this will impact the weekly consumption of the family)

Fourth Step: Begin Shopping - on day two they are given an estimate of needed resources for a family of four to survive (since no one has a family of four no one can claim favoritism) 

Fifth Step: Begin the Journey

Sixth Step: Starting on week three we start rolling a twenty sided die to see if they were attacked by Native Americans and also start choosing fate cards - rivers, floods, tornadoes, snakes, etc. Plus each week we deduct from their resources their weekly resources.  When they no longer have resources for their family members they begin to die off.  

All of the standard students died this semester.  In the one classes defense they were hit by a tornado and no one rolled where they got to safety before hand.  Some of the Honors students were successful in their endeavor, potentially.  We did not get in as far with the Honors because they had a primary document to complete that the regular students did not have.   Next year with the digital form for the calculations should make this possible still in the Honors class.  

Lewis and Clark - October Post

          Students have done time line on Lewis and Clark and have watched a documentary on it.  At this point we are looking for something that they can create that will show they understand what they have studied and seen.  This year we decided to do journal entries.  Students were broken into groups of three, each person in the group had to choose a different person from the expedition and three different events.  Students then had time to research their specific events and write their journal entries.  Honors had to write three entries with seven sentences each.  Regulars had to write three entries with five sentences each.  The qualifications for Honors were more stringent in regards to details and personal characteristics in their entries that could identify the person without seeing who signed the entry.

Here is an example of an entry: 

June 19, 1803;

I have just sent out the proposal letter to my dear friend William Clark requesting his assistance in my upcoming expedition. The amount of anticipation for the answer to my request is unbearable. I have presented him with all of the information that was given to me, in the best hopes that he will agree to assist me on this fabulous journey. I provided Clark that I have had the choice to indict soldiers, whom of which cannot be commissioned officers, and exceeding no more than twelve, along with any other men that I so believe will be an aid to this journey. I have the highest of hopes.

Meriwether Lewis.

  Overall I would consider the project a success. There was an issue in having all the students turn in their projects (here we are in November and I am still waiting for six projects to be turned in). The reviews went over well with students. The only major issue they faced was in putting their final product together in chronological order. The use of Google Docs for the document definitely assisted in letting everyone work on their portion at the same time. It also helps them in regards to spell check and grammar.

Time Line You - September's Project

          Ever have one of those moments where you think "it's okay I can do that later" and then you realize you still haven't done it.  Well that's me and my project posts.  I've spent so much time creating, grading, reading evaluations of students, etc. for these projects that I forgot to post descriptions and examples from them.  So I apologize profoundly, but here is my September Post (in November).  I will attempt to be more diligent in the coming months.  
         The first big project of the year was checking to see if student's understand the difference between primary and secondary sources, as well as chronological thinking.  In years past I've had them take their life events and compare them with others life events and make one large time line.  This year I had them focus solely on themselves and then find Primary Documents and Secondary Documents to use as reference for those events.  

          Overall the project was a success, but there were multiple students who found the sourcing component of this difficult.  This also led us into the Ordeal by Cheque Activity in which they had to create a story based on a primary documents (checks) about the life of the person.  We also then talked about Historical Perspectives and Interpretations and how people with the same set of primary evidence could come to different conclusions.

Here are examples of the finished products: (You'll notice that the major primary source for most of the students was pictures) Names, Dates, and Pictures have been blurred/erased for the safety of my students.