Summary
How can we help students understand time periods in the past? In this lesson, students are immersed in 1963 through a series of activities in order to better relate to the book “The Watsons Go to Birmingham.” Students participate in a pricing activity for goods in 1963. Students then represent an important event in the Civil Rights Movement on a class timeline to help them better understand events occurring in a class novel.
TIPC Ratings
7 – Ideal/Target: Students are compiling information from selected sources in order to display it in an interactive timeline. Students chose their own event to research based upon interest. Students chose sources that were relevant and appropriate as they acquired new information to apply in the timeline.
4 – Approaching: Students use digital tools for communication (discussion forum). They also collaborate digitally on an interactive timeline. Students worked in groups during the pricing activity. Students work to create a timeline on the web, sharing it with the entire community of internet users. The only reason this lesson does not score higher in this category is that groups were not forming norms or dividing roles.
0 – Not observed: In this lesson, students were not attempting to solve a real world problem.
3 – Developing: Students created a portion of a timeline by summarizing. They had independence in selecting multimedia sources to include in the event. The lesson task includes connections between other subject areas and issues.
