19th Century Reform Movement Posters

Recently in social studies we've been looking at various reform movements of the 19th century.  Our friend John Green from Crash Course gave us a really nice introduction to these reform movements before we dove into our chapter in History Alive! about the movements we would specifically look at.

We focused our lens on 5 particular reform movements of the 1800s: prison reform, education reform, women's rights, abolition movement, and the spirit of reform.  After we spent some time in class reading about these and doing a few activities with them, the students picked out of a hat one of these five reform movement that they'd focus on for their poster research project.

Using the directions below (or here), students set out to create a detailed poster on their reform movement.  We had spent some time looking at past posters that were advocating for a particular movement so students could get an idea of what a good poster looked like (although theirs would have more words and text on it, since I was requiring them to include more than most posters include :).

Directions: Using your Lesson 17 reading and notes, create a poster (using Pages, Google Drawing, Keynote, Prezi, Glogster, or another app) that includes ALL of the following requirements about the 19th century reform movement you’ve been given.

Your Poster MUST INCLUDE:

1. What your reform movement is (title)
2. When your reform movement took place (date)
3. What your reform movement did, and the impact it had
4. At least 2 people who supported your movement
5. At least 2 pictures
6. At least 2 things that your reform movement did well
7. At least 2 things that your reform movement could have improved upon
8. Your reform movement’s legacy (what impact did it leave on the US?)
9. How your reform movement has impacted TODAY’s society (you need a specific example for this one...you may need to do some outside research!)
10. CREATIVE, ENGAGING, and INFORMATIVE!

What I really liked about this project is that students got to choose from a variety of mediums in which they could use to create their poster. One of my own professional goals this year is to give more student choice when it comes to demonstrating their knowledge and what they know; so I felt that this project really opened up some freedom to create a poster in various different formats--Glogster, Prezi, google docs, Keynote, Pages, Murally, etc...

Below are a few examples and links to the posters students created. Once again, I am super impressed with what the students created! They are so creative and really embraced the medium they picked to highlight their reform movement and detail all of the important information about it and the impact that it has had on today's world as well. Enjoy!

Education Reform (Prezi)

Education Reform 2 (Prezi)

The Spirit of Reform (Glogster)

Prison Reform (Glogster)

Abolition Movement (Google Drawing)

3 Branches of Government Project

In social studies we are currently waist-deep in our Early American Government Unit.  We have just learned about the separation of powers, checks and balances, and 3 branches of government system we have here in the US and where it came from (Articles I, II, & III of the US Constitution!).

Students were challenged to create their own project that detailed our government system in a medium that they felt would best showcase their learning and understanding of this concept.  They could choose from an iMovie, cartoon, song/rap, news article, or an infographic (check out the full project details here).  Once students decided on what project they were going to do, they set out to create their project that showcased all about the 3 branches of government.

First off, the variety and creativity of the projects that were turned in was astounding; not one project was like another (I love this!!), yet they all included the same information, material, and concepts!  I really love project-based learning, and I feel like this project definitely hit on that concept.  Students were able to choose a project medium that they could present their information and knowledge in the best possible way.

Anywho, check out a few of the various projects from below!  I hope you'll enjoy them--and find them as informative!--I sure did!

3 Branches Prezi

3 Branches iMovie

3 Branches News Article

3 Branches Infographic

3 Branches Song

Hero Project

In tech we have just completed another project--this one was all about a hero!  The students really had a great time with this project: it pulled together different tech elements (wordle, Google presentation/Keynote, Hero Machine, dafont, and many others) in a creative fashion to have students create a presentation detailing all about their hero!

Check out the entire directions/project requirements here.

The students got to present their heroes to the class when they were finished...and each and every hero was unique and different and awesome!  Check out some of the presentations below from our hero project!  Enjoy!

HERO PROJECT 1

HERO PROJECT 2

HERO PROJECT 3

HERO PROJECT 4

Google: The Collaborative Tool

So I'm sure my students already know this, but Google Apps are one of my favorite things to use in the classroom!  We've used them to take notes before, do presentations, store files, communicate with each other, and now, most recently we've used Google Docs as a peer editing tool.

For our last essay, examining John Gast's 1872 painting called American Progress, students had to get at least 2 of their peers to edit their rough drafts before I would edit it.  When you edit on paper it can be really hard to tell who's writing what, who's comments are who's, and so on.  With Google Docs it becomes so remarkably simple to "edit" and collaborate on an essay (or any document!).  All that needs to happens is this:

1. Students create a new doc to type their essay on
2. After typing their rough draft, students "share" (blue box, upper right corner) their doc with as many people as they want to view/edit it
3. Other students then open the docs that were shared with them and they can now "edit" directly on the doc.  They do this by highlight words or sentences and then selecting "insert --> comment" and adding a "sticky note" comment that will highlight the word/sentence and appear on the right hand side of the screen.  Students can comment on misspellings, sentence structure, ideas, anything!  And (best part), it time and name stamps the comment!  There can be as many comments as is shared out; others can comment on the same word/sentence or other ones.  There's no limit!
4. The original student's document that now has been "commented" on (i.e. edited), that student can go make changes and "check" (approve) the comments once they've made the change to that document so they know that "issue" has been addressed.

Overall I am so happy and in love with this process.  I have never seen my students more engaged and wanting to edit each others' work than with this process.  I encourage you to give it a try in your classroom!  It can work for major essays or simple, short writing assignments!  Plus, Google Docs is also a great collaborative tool for group work where multiple people can be working on the same assignment in one place--one Google Doc.

Below are some screenshots from my students recent collaboration with their essays and Google Docs.  Enjoy!