Yesterday was one of the best days in teaching that I've had in a while! We're starting our exploration unit in World 2 so I had students find out where their families are from and then they got small post-it notes and placed them all over my huge world map so you can visually see how the majority of Americans (at least in this area) are from European ancestry, with a few other places represented as well. If they found out any cool stories while researching, I invited to tell them as well, and shared the story of how my Irish family almost didn't stay in America, and only stayed due to Great-Great-Aunt Mary not sending a letter. Family history is definitely a part of history that I love!
My second class of World 2 shared their family histories as well and then I passed back the Children's Book project where they wrote a story to introduce the Renaissance and one of my boys asked to read his, so he got my stool, set it in the center of the room and started to read, skipping over the content about Michelangelo and Raphael, and doing a quite dramatic reading of "Doracello saves the Renaissance." It was hysterical and had the entire class laughing, including myself. I wish we had videotaped it (or just podcasted it) so that it could be recorded because I think it would get hits on Youtube!
My last block of the day was APUSH and after a short writing seminar to prep them for their first real essay next week, we moved into our Constitutional Convention Simulation. I've never done a sim before and was nervous about it, but it was incredible and now I want to flip a lesson or two so that we can do more. Each kid was assigned a state delegation and then had to pick a delegate from their state to research their positions, and then research their general state position by the time they came to class. We moved the desks into one big circle, they had state namecards, and we began with Presenting the Virginia Plan, debating it, voting on it (6-6, one abstention), then presenting the New Jersey Plan, debating it, voting (5-6, 2 abstentions), and then the Connecticut delegation presented his plan. Students were supposed to vote how they think their delegation should have voted, not necessarily how they actually did (otherwise it would have been a re-enactment, boring!). After a bit of debate and a failed vote, they had time to negotiate and the topic of slavery and representation came up, which to make it funny they weren't allowed to say slavery, but had to use "that peculiar institution" and slaves had to be "persons of property" or just "property." I cleared my voice and glared when they slipped up, and then they caught me slipping up. The crazy thing was that by the end of the period, they actually managed to pass the CT plan, but with the 3/5ths compromise sans importation ban. The best part was listening to them try to convince each other during negotiation to vote one way or another and why, and delegations discussing votes as they were getting into it. I was sitting next to the South Carolina delegation and they kept discussing between themselves how to have slaves count so they could get more representatives in Congress. Totally awesome!
These are the days that make me love what I do!
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