Monday, April 3, 2023

Playful History

 One of the things I love about co-teaching as part of my library assignment is getting the opportunity to really focus on making a few really excellent lessons on a topic. Right now, I'm lucky enough to work with Lisa Daley on a Grade 7 history unit. Our end goal is to have the students create inquiry projects, some of which will be entered in the TDSB Heritage Fair. There is a lot of content we need to expose the students to, so that they have enough foundational information to formulate the question that will guide their research. 

When Lisa and I were collaboratively planning this learning experience, she revealed that history was not her favourite subject to teach. I understand. History can be dry and boring. Lisa described approaches, such as reading historical fiction, that got her more engaged in the subject. That inspired me to ensure that the lessons I provided would be interesting and fun. We've divided the class in half and split some of the content between us to cover in the next few weeks.

My first lesson focused on this expectation:

A3.4 describe some significant aspects of daily life among different groups living in Canada during this period

We used a Jigsaw strategy and the consolidation portion of the task was a specialized version of the classic board game Guess Who. Instead of using clues solely based on physical appearance, the students used information gleaned from their information gathering on different groups that existed in the area we now call Canada from 1713-1800.


The second lesson will focus on this expectation:

A3.5 describe significant interactions between various individuals, groups, and institutions in Canada during this period

I pulled from a couple of other popular media texts (movies and anime/manga) to help illustrate the task I want them to do. My goal is to make it easy to comprehend and relatively fun to complete.

I'm not the only one trying to have fun with history lately. Even though Twitter is no longer a significant communication tool for me, I noticed a trend - having AI art programs reimagine Canadian prime ministers in various clothing styles. Here are a few ...

Canadian and American leaders as gladiators:

 

 

Canadian prime minister as 1970s era hockey players Canadian prime ministers as 1980s metal band rock stars Canadian premiers as 80s hair metal band members

Thank you Craig Baird for making Canadian history fun and funny! 

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