Intern Experience Week #12

This past week at my PDS I wrapped up a 5 week unit on the Civil War. We spent a great deal of time on the battles that played a very important part in the ending of the war and focused on the important individuals during this final stretch of war. The first half of the week the students learned about the battles at Vicksburg and Chancellorsville. Each battle was covered because of their significant to the side the victory was for. The students spent equal time researching each battle and then were given the option to choose one or the other to complete a battle summary on. The students were also provided with additional books to use as resources for their summary. The books had a lot of paintings and real like pictures of the battles that students could use in order to recreate their battle picture.
After this we went straight into the battle of Gettysburg which was the first battle in our entire unit where students had some prior knowledge about. I took advantage of this and held a lot of large group discussions where students could share information they knew and if they had ever visited Gettysburg. I used a teaching style of lecture mixed with technology. I felt that if I lectured about a particular topic or event then showed a brief video clip the students may comprehend more compared to watching one large video where they would loose focus. The students seemed to do well this this and were able to recall a lot of information about the battle.
Finally on Friday we came to an end of our Civil War study with a section on Appomattox. For this section I lectured and held discussion on the topic and then showed an 11 minute video clip that lead up to the next section we will cover after Christmas, which was the assassination of Lincoln. After this students were given 4 options which were to be their final grade in this unit. Students were given directions and explained that this project needed to represent their best work possible. They could either write a Gettysburg battle summary, Gettysburg newspaper, Sherman's march newspaper, or Appomattox newspaper. After receiving the assignments turned in today I was presently surprised to see a variety in topics were chosen.