This lesson is for : Grade 7:
Summary
Ever wish you could get your students to care about the events of the past? What about the people involved in those events? Or even appreciate the gravity of their decisions? Through the course of this lesson, students will utilize a range of skills and perform tasks that will culminate in a deep, personal understanding of historic events and mindsets! Students begin by understanding historical events, consider a focused and historical perspective, react to situations from that historical perspective, and determine a response and even a course of action. “Actors and Answers” is a fantastic way to get your students to make a personal connection with the past that they will remember for years to come!
TIPC Ratings
Research & Information Fluency
Rating: Approaching – Explanation: Using the teacher directed lesson and the perspectives, students then constructed questions to ask every other perspective groups. Students had to think deeply and critically about their chosen perspective and those of others as they wrote open ended questions in the form of ‘tweets’. Students also had to evaluate and apply the information they learned when generating their responding “tweets’.
Communication & Collaboration
Rating: Approaching – Explanation: Students formed their own groups based on the perspectives in which they were the most interested. Students had to communicate their thoughts and opinions clearly and compromise when having differing ideas/opinions on questions to ask or answers to provide.
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
Rating: Approaching – Explanation: Through taking on the character’s identity, students had to predict how their character would feel about specific historical events and figures, as well as take responsibility and justify for their feelings and actions.
Creativity & Innovation
Rating: Ideal – Explanation: As a final culmination of the project, students wrote an original thought in the form of a postcard while still in character. In the composition, students had to write a letter to a loved one expressing how they felt about the impending decision to drop the atomic bond. On the second slide, students had to choose a picture for the front of the “postcard” showing where their character would have been days before the bomb was dropped. Students had to really synthesize all the information they learned from all perspectives in their original creation. At the project’s conclusions, students also reflected on the total experience of the project as well as the ethical questions that were addressed.
Lesson Materials
