This artifact is my week lesson plan for teaching imperialism. It covers the causes and effects of American and European imperialism on a surface level with a dive into the implications of imperialism today. This week overview is my standard lesson planning system and reflects both the good, grounded historical discussion, and bad, easily overlooked essential questions, parts of planning a cyclically focused unit.
Essential Question: As the year progressed, I noticed that I would often neglect the Essential Questions of my unit or lesson in favor of a central historical question. This is very much the case for the essential questions from this week of lessons. The essential questions focused mostly on the historical aspects of the unit and have no translation to other subject. The one thing that saved this section from getting a zero was the question, “What long term effects in South America and Asia can we trace to western imperialism?” This question asks students to engage in modern day discussions of the implications of imperialism. I asked students to think about how imperialism at the turn of the 20th century caused ripple effects into modern day. Because I teach such a diverse group of students, this question was perfect because it connected many of them to their cultural roots to look at how imperialism has affect their lives individually.
Historical Lesson: The historical piece of this week was well developed and so I gave it 10/10. Students were asked to think about multiple aspects of imperialism—from the effects of imperialism on students today to the causes of imperialism to the depictions of imperialism both contemporary to the age and in modern day. Students were asked a central historical question, CHQ, every single day and whether they were hearing a lecture, drawing political cartoons, or dissecting an article about modern imperialism, they were focusing on that day’s CHQ. My amendment to Reiman's concept of a CHQ, which is meant to focus on document-based lessons, allowed my students and me to hone in on the topic of the day through a CHQ (Reisman, 2012).
Modern Connection: The reason this section only gets a 6/10 is because I focused too much on what I wanted my students to know and not enough on what kind of students they were and what their capabilities were. I wanted to present students with an article that big picture of the impact of imperialism on modern day. The lesson I designed and the article I choose did discuss the big picture. However it was too much of a mental stretch to ask students to grapple with the big ideas the author was saying. I lost a lot of students throughout the discussion and only a handful of students seemed to be able to keep up with the authors claim.
Historical Lesson: The historical piece of this week was well developed and so I gave it 10/10. Students were asked to think about multiple aspects of imperialism—from the effects of imperialism on students today to the causes of imperialism to the depictions of imperialism both contemporary to the age and in modern day. Students were asked a central historical question, CHQ, every single day and whether they were hearing a lecture, drawing political cartoons, or dissecting an article about modern imperialism, they were focusing on that day’s CHQ. My amendment to Reiman's concept of a CHQ, which is meant to focus on document-based lessons, allowed my students and me to hone in on the topic of the day through a CHQ (Reisman, 2012).
Modern Connection: The reason this section only gets a 6/10 is because I focused too much on what I wanted my students to know and not enough on what kind of students they were and what their capabilities were. I wanted to present students with an article that big picture of the impact of imperialism on modern day. The lesson I designed and the article I choose did discuss the big picture. However it was too much of a mental stretch to ask students to grapple with the big ideas the author was saying. I lost a lot of students throughout the discussion and only a handful of students seemed to be able to keep up with the authors claim.