 Sponsored since 2001 by the Northern Nevada Writing Project -- http://nnwp.org |
home | about writingfix | email |
 |
 WritingFix highly recommends these educational websites, all hosted by Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultants:  Dena Harrison's Website  Holly Young's Website Learning Is Messy Be sure to visit our sponsors: |
Writing Across the Curriculum: HistoryFix
learning to write and writing to learn in social studies and history class
I have found the importance of bringing history alive in my classroom by engaging my students through investigation, research, literature, and writing. Literacy has become the foundation on which I teach the social studies standards. Teaching students to write to learn is probably the most important skill we can give our students once they have become readers. We must write to share our thoughts and ideas, and this is something a multiple choice, true-false, and matching assessment cannot do. If you want a true assessment of your student’s learning, your students must write! HistoryFix is a website that shares rich lessons created by Washoe County teachers where Social Studies is taught through mentor texts, primary source documents, and writing. All lessons are meant to be adapted to whatever level your students are working. Inspiring students to be inquisitive learners and creative writers is the goal of HistoryFix. We are currently asking for student samples for each lesson from Elementary, Middle, and High School students. Join our HistoryFix Family! Propose your own lesson to be posted at WritingFix! Below are our two templates for picture book-inspired lessons. Here is the template that teachers may use when submitting lessons for consideration. If we end up using your lesson at WritingFix, we will send you any two of the NNWP's Print Resources as our way of saying thank-you for sharing your ideas with the thousands of teachers who use this website. Lessons can be sent to webmaster@writingfix.com. |
|
Four Lessons from Denise Boswell, HistoryFix Coordinator |
|
Mentor text: Washoe Seasons of Life: A Native American Story by Karen Wallis, Diane Domiteaux, and Lea Saling Lesson objectives: Students will analyze primary source documents, pictures, and artifacts using describe, analyze, and interpret method; students will compare and contrast Tahoe City using a sketch from 1865 and a photograph of Tahoe City Today, and show understanding of cause and effect of the comparisons; students will compare and contrast Lake Tahoe from its past to its present. |
Mentor texts: The Story Of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles & The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson Lesson objectives: Civil Rights Warriors is a fun way to incorporate the teaching of research and biographies. Students will research a person connected to the civil rights movement and create a trading card on their researched person. Students will identify through research the qualities of a person from history and their connection to the Civil Rights Movement. |
Click on the lesson's title or the book thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
|
|
Mentor text: We Dream Of A World... by various authors Lesson objectives: Looking for a way for students to find the passion in the Civil Rights Movement and “I Have a Dream” speech? After listening to the audio of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” students will locate words in the speech that connect to the Civil Rights Movement and create a diamond-shaped poem of their own. Through the poem students will express their own thoughts of the meaning of the poem and the movement. |
Mentor text: Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails by Verla Kay Lesson objectives: Students will research an immigrant trail, write down descriptive and interesting concepts, and turn it into a concept poem. This lesson can be extended from a poem into a picture book. Moving West is a fun way to integrate research skills and poetry writing. |
Eight Lessons from the Classroom of Christy Hodge, HistoryFix Contributor |
|||
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: The students will learn the meaning of the words within the Preamble to the Constitution in order to give them a better understanding of its content and of the constitution. The students will write a Found Poem to represent their personal learning from the Preamble. |
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: Students will study a historical era of interest to them, and they will plan an original story inspired by Elvira Woodruff's story about the Revolutionary War. Each student will compose a story, complete with beginning, middle, and end, where they travel back in time with a companion, witness historically accurate events, then return to their own time with an artifact from the past. |
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: Many students have a misconception about the Donner Party. The Donner Party was more than just a group of people that were faced with tragedy, bad luck and death. They changed the future for those traveling the West and disproved the Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California. This lesson will help students experience the entire journey of the Donner Party. |
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: The students will come up with a theory of their own based on the mentor text. This lesson will give students an opportunity to become a detective and evaluate historic events on a timeline and clues given throughout a children’s story. The students will evaluate clues to determine their own theory about what happened to the Lost Colony at Roanoke. |
Click on the lesson's title or the book thumbnail to read an overview and to access the entire lesson and its resources, including student samples and graphic organizers.
|
|||
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: This lesson will help students memorize all fifty states and the capitals through classroom visual representation. The students will make a train car representing an assigned state. The teacher will make a train of states on the class bulletin to help students remember the states and capitals. The train will be used by the students to study the population, mottos, flags, and interesting historical facts about each state including important aspects of each of the fifty states. |
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: Students will gain a better understanding of the hard labor necessary to make the Statue of Liberty through the use of primary source documents. The students will associate primary source documents to those pictures represented in the story. The students will write a journal entry reflecting on how seeing the statue of liberty would make them feel as an immigrant coming to America for the first time. |
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: Students will study heroes of the Revolution through a read aloud and the making of a foldable book. The students will make a foldable book representing each of these twelve heroes of the American Revolution. The students will be able to locate a primary source documents about the heroes. The students will be able to fully recognize what each of the twelve heroes accomplished during the Revolution through a Who am I writing lesson. |
Lesson:
Lesson objectives: The students will come up with a theory of their own based on the story Roanoke The Lost Colony, An Unsolved Mystery From History. This lesson will give students an opportunity to become a detective and evaluate historic events on a timeline and clues given throughout a children’s story. The students will evaluate clues to determine their own theory about what happened to the Lost Colony at Roanoke. |
Two History-inspired Lessons from the Classroom of Dayna Ayers, WritingFix Contributor |
|
Lesson: Giving Credit Where Credit Might Be Due
Lesson objectives: Students will research and then plan an organized and creative story where an animal or an object claims credit for something historically credited with someone else. Each story must contain, at least, five historical facts that are sequentially correct. Students will attempt to realistically capture the point-of-view of another entity that has witnessed history. |
Lesson: Historical Journal Entries
Objectives: Students will study a historical event of interest to them, using classroom text books and library resouces; students will create a fictional character who would have been alive and present during their researched historical event; students will create a diary entry from the voice of their historical character, trying to combine emotions and historical facts. |
Two Lessons from Corbett Harrison, WritingFix's Webmaster |
|
Lesson: The Presidential Quotation Report
Lesson objectives: Students will choose any president (other than Teddy Roosevelt) by researching famous quotes said by him; students will choose five favorite quotes, and they will research events and facts that might have led their chosen president to speak the words found in the quote dictionary; finally, students will organize a five-part report on their president that exclusively focuses on the historical events that inspired their president to utter those words. |
Lesson: A Primary Source Picture Book
Lesson objectives: Students will choose any president (other than Teddy Roosevelt) and research this president's boyhood history; using the lesson's mentor text as a model, students will imagine that their researched president kept a boyhood journal too, and they will create a fictional but fact-based 15- or 20-day journal about their president's typical daily boyhood life or an extraordinary event (like a trip to Europe) that they discover happened to their president. |
RAFT Writing Prompt Resources from WritingFix |
|
Unfamiliar with RAFT prompts?
|
Building a R.A.F.T. prompt for history class?
|
History-inspired Lessons created at our iPods Across the Curriculum Workshop for Teachers |
|||
Lesson: Lesson Author: Rob Stone, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: Using The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, sung by Gordon Lightfoot, as a model, students will write poems that tell a detailed story of a historical event. The poem will be brought to life using a combination of researched facts and descriptive assumptions. Student writers will convey strong details by including great verbs and adjectives, so their poetry can pick up where history left off and complete the story. |
Lesson: Lesson Author: Yvette Deighton, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: This writing assignments asks students to assume the voice of a person from history they have researched. Focusing on a topic or belief the person showed passion about as history unfolded, the students write an essay modeled after NPR's "this i believe..." podcasts. Ideally, students publish their essays by recording them onto the classroom iPod, so they can be played back for the class. |
Lesson: Lesson Author: Marie Johnson, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: Using a famous World War II propaganda song, students will explore alliteration by changing the lyrics to create a new version of the song. After discussing what alliteration is and why this particular song was used and enjoyed by the people at home to promote patriotic spirit, the students will play with the lyrics to create their own alliterative patriotic songs. The students will then perform or present to the class their version of the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. |
Lesson: Lesson Author: Vallarie Larson, Nevada teacher
Lesson objectives: This lesson focuses on this Essential Question, “After WWII, it was said that never again shall we--the international community--allow an act of genocide to occur in the world. What events in the world today would prove this statement false?” Students will look at the current situation in Darfur and, utilizing persuasive writing techniques, create a persuasive poster campaign either about Darfur or another international situation that has occurred since WWII. |
History-inspired Lessons Created during our Writing Across the Curriculum Workshop for Teachers |
|||
Lesson: Lesson Author: Janet Lundy, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: Students will learn about the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. and learn to describe the scene. Students will learn about the devastating effects, brainstorm descriptive words and phrases, and create an I See Poem based upon Pompeii. |
Lesson: Lesson Author: Kristin Setty, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: Students will create a class A to Z book about their home state. The students will research information about the state and create a page for the class alphabet book using the information they found. Students will review facts about the state through their research. |
Lesson: Lesson Author: Lisa Larson, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: Students will create a class A to Z book about their home state. The students will research information about the state and create a page for the class alphabet book using the information they found. Students will review facts about the state through their research. |
Lesson: Lesson Author: Paula Larson, Nevada teacher
Lesson overview: This is a follow-up lesson to check comprehension of facts learned about the American flag, where students create a trading card inspired by facts and thoughts about this national symbol. The same assignment can be done with other important American symbols and historical items, so that a class deck of cards can be created and used later. |
Proposing a Lesson for HistoryFix |
Join our HistoryFix Family! Propose your own lesson to be posted at WritingFix! Below are our two templates for picture book-inspired lessons. Here is the template that teachers may use when submitting lessons for consideration. If we end up using your lesson at WritingFix, we will send you any two of the NNWP's Print Resources as our way of saying thank-you for sharing your ideas with the thousands of teachers who use this website. Lessons can be sent to webmaster@writingfix.com. Proposal Form for a HistoryFix Lesson |
Copyright 2009 - The Northern Nevada Writing Project and WritingFix- All Rights Reserved |
