Revolutionary War Timelines

Summary

In this lesson, each student puts himself/herself into the shoes of a museum curator. The teacher assigns each student a primary or secondary source dealing with an event or individual from the Revolutionary War era. Individually, each student researches the origin and importance of his/her assigned document in the context of the Revolutionary War era. After the students complete their research, the teacher places the students in pairs or groups of three, and these groups share their research with one another and create a short summary of their assigned event. Using a variety of search techniques, the students locate internet resources and media related to their assigned event/individual. Each group submits their event description and hyperlink information to the teacher via a Google Form. The teacher copies and pastes this information into a new Google Spreadsheet. Using Timeline JS, the information in each class spreadsheet is reflected on a Google Site (created in advance by the teacher), where students can view each other’s work. Students use each other’s event descriptions and media to learn about a variety of events and individuals from the Revolutionary era and answer several high-level critical thinking questions on the topic of the Revolutionary War.

Important Note:

The teacher SHOULD NOT provide the students with any SOL content knowledge prior to or during the assignment. This assignment is intended as student-centered activity, where the students can demonstrate their knowledge of history SOLs through research and self-discovery.

The “American Revolution Timeline” lesson is based off of this project, which is larger in scope and takes a much longer period of class time to complete. This lesson was designed as a way to integrate the same type of research skills practiced in the original project into a much shorter period of time.

Lesson Reflection:

Teacher:

“I enjoyed using the student created timeline as a teaching tool throughout my unit on the Revolutionary War. I believe the students’ individual research and their use of the timeline gave the students more exposure and a deeper understanding of each Revolutionary event and individual compared to what I would have been able to otherwise provide to the students through my normal lectures and other teaching activities.

I prefer this lesson to the one we completed last year. Although I really enjoyed the project from last year, I felt like it was a bit too much for some 6^th graders. The lesson this year still focused on research skills, but to an extent that was more in line with the students’ abilities. When I complete this lesson next year, I will probably have each student research three to four documents per pair rather than just one. I could assign each student one document and then have the students choose to research one or two others that they find most interesting. Then, students could find media and write their summaries based on interest. I think the end result of this formatting, would be that the student’s would do an even better job finding interesting media for each event.”

ITRT:

“Last year, the 6^th grade US History teachers completed a much larger version of this lesson. This year, several of the 6^th US History teachers wanted to include several other lessons and activities within this particular unit that they had to forego last year due to the extent of the project. At the same time, all of the teachers thought that the students benefited from the research project last year, so we wanted to adapt it for use on a smaller scale. This way, we could work on the student’s research skills and prepare them for a larger research project that we will complete at the end of the year this year.

I love this assignment because of the freedom it gave to the 6^th grade team. Some teachers chose to expand this lesson into more of a project-type activity, while others used it as an opening lesson before completing other activities on the Revolutionary War. And, due to the nature of this assignment, the different pieces could be taught on non-consecutive days, which allowed the teachers to plan specifically for their classroom schedule and their students’ needs.

All of the 6^th grade team completed the steps that are listed in the summary. These steps can stand on their own as a lesson, but some teachers added to them by completing some or all of the following activities:

When completing activities related to specific events or individuals later in the unit (for example, the Boston Massacre), the students who researched this event became the “experts” for the day. These students led a chat (using Today’s Meet) in which the rest of the class asked the “experts” questions about the event.
Students reviewed specific events on the timeline as a warm-up before the teacher officially “taught” these specific events using a variety of other activities.
Students reflected on which event summaries were “the best” and then evaluated their own work using the rubric.

TIPC Ratings

Ideal – 7

Research and information fluency are the major focus of this particular assignment. This assignment allows students to practice historical research methods that a true “historian” might use while writing a book or creating a museum exhibit. Although all of the students’ research is conducted online, this project allows students to see research as an ongoing process and to practice historical research skills. Constructing research questions is essential for any historian, as it determines the focus of his/her final product and helps him/her locate the most relevant information. Within this assignment, students develop research questions when posed with a variety of primary and secondary documents. For each document, the students determine how to use internet search resources and tools to properly identify the document and then place the document in the context of the Revolutionary War.

Another historical research skill that students practice over the course of the assignment is selecting accurate, appropriate, and relevant information. Students learned source evaluation techniques at the start of the year, but they also learn several new techniques throughout the course of this lesson through teacher demonstrations. These evaluation techniques not only help the students to create a historically accurate museum but also ensure that the museum exhibit engages the audience. Students select resources and materials based not only on content but engagement and interactivity. In selecting the most appropriate information, students practice their synthesis skills. This synthesis of information is displayed in the students’ final exhibit, which allows viewers to read and also interact with information in a variety of ways.

Approaching – 4

Throughout the assignment, the students use digital tools to communicate and collaborate with their peers. After students complete their individual research, they share their research with their partner(s) using GoogleDocs. Using this tool, students are able to collaboratively edit their event description and create a list of possible internet resources in one central location. The final timeline is also a collaborative venture. Although each student only researches one event initially, students use the resources gathered by their classmates to learn about the events of the Revolutionary War.

Ideal – 6

The problem for this particular assignment is telling the story of the Revolutionary War, given a limited amount of resources from which to begin researching. This task is very much a real-world problem, as historians and museum curators face this difficulty on a frequent basis. Students select the most appropriate search techniques to uncover the identity of a primary or secondary documents located in the research template. Once students identify a document, the hard work begins. The student must create new search terms, apply new search techniques, and synthesize a large amount of information to help determine the document’s relevance to the Revolutionary War. In other words, the students must determine how each document helps to “tell the story” of the Revolutionary War. Within the museum exhibit, students must justify their inclusion of information and images in the same context – does it help to tell the story of the Revolutionary War? Finally, students use the resources and media provided on the final timeline to answer several high level questions regarding Revolutionary War, where they must justify and explain their responses based on historical evidence.

Approaching – 5

Although they do not choose the tool used to create the final product, the students do create meaningful, original work within the assignment parameters, as the students create their own event descriptions that are included in the timeline. There are also aspects of personal choice within the lesson, as the students choose which internet resources to hyperlink in their final event description. The students use the timeline to summarize, make predictions, and analyze the events of Revolutionary War.