I am quite thrilled that we don't have to teach the minutia anymore and can focus on big questions and big ideas. The first unit was all designed to trace the state's rights vs. federal authority conflict that dates to the founding of our country, and is incredibly relevant today in light of the fight over Obamacare. We suddenly found ourselves teaching content not normally taught in a college prep US history course, and throwing out some things we always had taught because they were probably on the test. How liberating it is to no longer teach to a test!
One other thing I find myself doing is making visual representations for my students of what we are covering. It is on the wall of my classroom and I create it as we go along in the content. This second unit was focused on problems and responses at the turn of the century. Here is the visual I created.
As we approach the 1920s, I am excited to be able to allow the students time to investigate a topic of their interest and to choose a method for showing their learning. I am going to model it after History Day, only on a smaller scale. Sure there is a risk that my students won't know how to respond to this structure and will fall behind and get discouraged. After all most of their education thus far has been so structured and geared towards testing. But as I learned on one of my Twitter chats, FAIL = First Attempt, I'm Learning! So if I fail, well at least I will have learned something.
