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Rebranding the "Dark Ages"

ERIN CUNNINGHAM

I had a lot of momentum with the Marketing 101 activity from Era 2 so I used that framing with the Renaming the Dark Ages activity in Era 4. It's nothing wildly different from the original but it helped kids to talk about what it means for an organization or person to rebrand themselves before we got started. 

Rebranding the "Dark Ages"

The assignment is due Friday so I'll update with examples as they come in.

  • I'm thinking about the celebrity that got canceled for saying something thoughtless and offensive or the athlete that got caught taking performance-enhancing drugs, and how they need to go about repairing their reputation. 

  • in reply to Curtis Greeley

     that's exactly what we talked about when I introduced the assignment. Like how can we repair the image of the so-called "Dark Ages" with a rebranding campaign? What could we call it and what features could we highlight to change people's mind about the era?

  • This reminded me of an experience I had this week when when the guidance counselor explained how to deal with students who failed a class she used World History as an example.  When she was finished I spoke up and said to protect my brand I wanted everyone to know that was a hypothetical situation and that no students had failed World History.  

  • You've done it again,   I always appreciate your innovative spin on activities. I'll have to bookmark this for a steal - I could even see a version of this being used as an assessment. 

    I do something that is (dare I say) somewhat similar - which is to run a gallery walk where kids get a snapshot of everyting that was going on outside of Europe at the time (created using OER Resources). And then students have to come up with a new name for the era as a whole. I call it Name This Era (Slides / Worksheet) 

  • in reply to Adam Esrig

    Hi Adam, I am adapting the OER World History materials, Eras 3,4,5 to a MS Medieval World course, and love your project. See it as a great opener as a way to get the lay of the land, and perhaps return to it later in the course as an opportunity to re-name/rebrand. Would you be willing to share the materials you include in your gallery walk?

  • in reply to Lisa Kapp

    Hi   This was a bit of an oversight on my part for sure! Here are the gallery walk "exhibits." This is definitely an activity that - now that i've done it quite a few times - I'm a smidge more ambivalent about. I wonder if it's all just too much - that it just washes over kids in a way? Or maybe it does enough to cut against the grain fo the "dark ages" narrative that it is helpful. Woudl love to hear how it goes for you so definitely report back! 

  • in reply to Adam Esrig

    This is a wonderful idea. Thank you for sharing it. I went ahead and copied this for when I get to this content!

  •   

    I love this idea, and I'm jumping back onto this post to consider how to approach this for my 9th grade world history class (medieval-early modern).

    Has anyone read Matthew Gabriele's Bright Ages? I used to follow him on Twitter/X when he was on there, and heard a couple of podcasts when he first published it.  I haven't read the book, but I'm wondering if we could draw on some of his work to add to this great project. 

  • in reply to Angela Lee

    It's a great read! Not super dense but still very informative. In excerpts, it could be an accessible read for 9th graders. I haven't explicitly used it with my classes but it has definitely informed my own understanding of that time period.