1950s Day

Yesterday was Fifties Day in my classroom. I went to Party City where I was able to get some decorations including a wall poster. I also used pictures from the decade around the room. Using Pandora Radio, I had fifties music playing while students entered the classroom. I let several songs play before beginning the lesson. On each table was a graphic organizer with 1950s slang words on the back.

Together we read through an article called Take Me Back to the 1950s, which highlights major cultural events of the decade. I paused along the way to share photographs, short stories, video clips and even my dad's letterman sweater. The video clips I used were three commercials (Coca Cola, Ford and Kool Aid), Elvis Presley (the 1st Ed Sullivan appearance to show his swinging hips and a later Ed Sullivan appearance), the chocolate scene from I Love Lucy and a short clip of Leave it to Beaver. Students were asked to write down things in six boxes (social conformity, women, automobiles/suburbia, teen culture, consumerism and entertainment). I encouraged students to dress fifties style and I did have several students who did. For the last five minutes of our class period, I held a hula hoop contest since the hula hoop was first popular in the fifties.

It was definitely a fun way to make history more alive and my students are very excited about our upcoming hippie day as we study the Vietnam War.

Truman Trial

For the past five years, I have been including a mock trial in my curriculum. For one week (or sometimes longer), my classroom is transformed into a courtroom in 1953. The defendant is former President Harry S. Truman and he is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Students assume the roles of lawyers, witnesses, judges, court reporters, and jurors. The assignment becomes tiered with lawyers and witnesses eligible to earn A grades, judges and court reporters B grades and jurors C grades. Due to increased interest in witness level roles, I have created several new witness roles this past year. Originally there were 14 total, but I now can include 21 total.

The trial takes between 5-7 days depending on the number of witnesses, preparedness of the lawyers and number of times lawyers need to take breaks to meet with their witnesses. We start on day one with opening statements from the lawyers and then move right into prosecution witnesses. The witnesses for the prosecution include Premier Joseph Stalin, President Dwight Eisenhower, Ambassador Joseph Grew, Scientist Leo Szilard and Japanese Cabinet Member Hitsasune Sakomizu. Once all witnesses for the prosecution have gone, then the defense presents its case. Witnesses for the defense include Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and Japanese Minister Shigenori Togo. The final day includes closing statements and then the jury deliberates and votes.Throughout the trial, lawyers are encouraged to present primary sources related to the trial as evidence. This includes photos, maps, letters, etc.

The final assignment for the trial is an essay where students are asked to evaluate President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I take photos and video throughout the trial and make a video each year that I present to the next year's students as a teaser for the trial.

Loving LiveBinders

While I like One Tab for collecting various websites that I open up, it is not something that I can transfer from computer to computer. I was tired of finding a great website at home and having to email the link to myself so I could access it at school. Now I don't have to thanks to LiveBinders. What a wonderful tool for someone with hundreds of bookmarks like me!

The beauty of LiveBinders is that you can visit a website that you like and instead of bookmarking it, you can "LiveBinder It" and into an online briefcase it goes. Then when you are ready to access it again, simply go to your LiveBinder and click the link. It opens the website in the folder so that you can navigate without having to open any new windows. 

At first I was using it to bookmark websites for my students to use for research, such as this one for our Truman Trial or this one for our Cold War March Madness. Now I am even using it as a resource for unit planning with the US History Team at my school. I feel so much more organized and know I can easily find resources instead of wondering where I bookmarked them or what the website was called.

March Madness Cold War Style

I recently attended a seminar by Dave Burgess on how to Teach Like a Pirate. One of the ideas that was mentioned in this seminar was how to take sporting events and current issues and bring them into your classroom. The idea was presented about repurposing March Madness and that is exactly what I have done! My students are going to compete in regions to determine the most influential event of the the Cold War.

I started with 64 Cold War events and programs, grouped them into categories and created the tournament brackets. Students were then divided into four regions and are responsible for researching the 16 events in their region. Each student has two events to research in most classes due to my class sizes. They are working collaboratively using Google Docs to create summaries to share with the whole class and are also completing a paper with "talking points" that they can use while discussing/debating in each round.

To make their research easier, I have used a great program called Livebinders to store websites on all 64 events. If you haven't yet checked out Livebinders, visit my Cold War Binder to see how it can be used.

After their research is complete, regions will work together to choose which events make it to the Sweet 16 and then it will become a whole class discussion. Each round adds new tasks and regions will be making presentations, posters and promoting their events. I also plan on inviting in guests to question students in the Final Four and Championship rounds.

Here is the link to my Weebly site with the instructions and documents. After the activity is complete I will be sure to update!

Teach Like a PIRATE

Do you have a lesson that you could sell tickets to? If students did not have to come to your class, would you be teaching to an empty classroom? These two questions were presented to me at a recent seminar by US History teacher and author Dave Burgess. Dave's book, Teach Like a Pirate, has become a highly recommended book in the educational world and there is even a Monday night chat on Twitter called #tlap. The focus of Teach Like a Pirate is student engagement. Pirate is an acronym that stands for Passion, Immersion, Rapport, Ask & Analyze, Transformation and Enthusiasm.

The strategies and ideas presented in Teach Like a Pirate help teachers of all subjects and grade levels become more creative and find new ways to engage their students in content. Since joining the Twitter Monday night chats and attending two of Dave's seminars, I have been working to add more creativity into my lessons. Thanks to inspiration of Teach Like a Pirate, I have turned my classroom into a 1920s Speakeasy, created a Cold War March Madness tournament and am planning a couple of Decade Days. My students are responding with increased enthusiasm as they are tired of the same old lectures, worksheets, document analysis of their educational careers. Students are not only engaged, but are thinking critically and are more likely to remember the content years from now.

Yesterday's Enemies: A Story About Pearl Harbor

On or around December 7th of each year, I like to take a detour from whatever I am teaching and share a story with my students. It is about two individuals, Richard Fiske and Zenji Abe, who were at Pearl Harbor that fateful day in 1941...on opposite sides of the war. The story comes from a book by Dorinda Nicholson called Pearl Harbor Warriors.

Richard Fiske was a bugler on the USS West Virginia on December 7, 1941. He was on the deck of the ship when the Japanese planes arrived at Pearl Harbor. Before having to abandon ship, Richard saw the face of a Japanese pilot. For years he woke up with nightmares of that face. After ending up in the hospital with ulcers, his doctor told him it was time to let go of the anger that he felt. He and other veterans reached out to the Japanese to invite their veterans to the Pearl Harbor Anniversary festivities.

Zenji Abe was a Japanese pilot that had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He read about the invitation in a Japanese newspaper and came to the 50th anniversary in 1991. There he met Richard Fiske and the two became lifelong friends.

Every month, Zenji would send money to Richard to buy two roses. Richard would take those two roses and his bugle to the USS Arizona Memorial on the last Sunday of every month. He would play taps and place the two roses, one for the Americans and one for the Japanese. He did this every month until his death.

In the story, there is a quote from Richard that I always like to share with my students. He said, "Please remember that you don't have to hate forever.....you can say to your enemy. We fought each other. Okay. But today we are friends and let's build on that."

Student Created Websites

As part of our studies on the Roaring 20s, I gave students a choice for a final project. They could choose almost any topic from the 1920s and had several options for the style of project including a children's book, museum exhibit, video or website. I certainly have some creative students and I am very impressed with the quality of projects. This post will highlight one of the types of projects, a website. I spent one day introducing Weebly to those students who wished to do a website and they found it easy and fun to collaborate for the finished project. Here are links to some of the best:

• 1920s Entertainment
• Impact of the Automobile
• 1920s Fashion
• Prohibition