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Bringing the (Origins) Course to a Close

Erin Cunningham

Hi WHP family,

After this week, we have 2 weeks until finals. I'm exactly where I was in the course last year, so my initial plan is to focus on decolonization and the Cold War next week and then discuss international institutions and the UN Sustainability Goals as well as the world in 2050 the following week. A few years ago I ended with a "DBQ" of sorts that I created about Mars exploration potentially being the "new" new imperialism but it already feels less relevant than it did at the time it was created.

However, it's been a rough couple of days with my 9th graders and their dang phones so I feel like I want to completely shake things up Upside down 

I did the Claim Testing: Global Conflict activity yesterday and while I had to beg many kids to get off their phones and participate, there was something good about the urgency of the activity and the accountability of having to publicly share answers. I also was able to provide instant feedback because, frankly, the idea of marking papers and giving written feedback doesn't appeal to me either!

So I think I'll have better luck with something that requires students to engage and participate "on demand" rather than things that they'll tell me they'll do later so they can be on their phones in class (can you tell my school doesn't have a unified cell phone policy.......).

I'm curious if anyone else is shaking things up in their classrooms to increase engagement as the school year comes to a close.

Parents

  • I wanted to follow up with what I ended up doing to end the year of Origins. Thank you all for your feedback! So helpful to have this community's support when you want to try something new.

    I adapted the resources  shared for my 9th graders and it was an excellent way to end the year. My students LOVED it! Just about every student actively participated and they had really positive things to say about the activity when it was over. I heard kids speak who are normally passive in class. I was also blown away by the vocabulary they used and the arguments they made.

    On the first day, students received this handout and we talked about the overall activity and it's objectives. I posted these documents (The Issues and Definitions) around the room and gave students an overall time limit of 40 minutes to get to all of the "stations". Frontloading the vocabulary and the general issues made a huge difference over the course of the next few days. So many times I was able to direct kids back to their Part 1 handout when they had questions later on. 

    Then, I randomly assigned countries--you could also more purposely assign depending on the group--and I gave students this Part 2 handout and their corresponding country profile (shared in this folder from Anne). I asked students to work independently for about 20-25 minutes and then they could meet with their country groups for the remainder of the 50 minute period to complete Part 2 together.

    This slideshow has the procedure we mostly followed after Part 2--I allowed the procedure to shift organically based on the class. For example, one group struggled to get the majority vote to choose a topic so I had them go into small group discussions ("unmoderated caucus" for the Model UN crowd) to try to get the votes to pass in a more informal setting. Once they settled on a topic and the debate began, they got Part 3 to organize their position and what happened in the negotiations. As proposals came in, I typed them into and projected this document. The yellow highlights were things we were voting on, red were things that didn't pass in voting, and green measures passed as resolutions. 

    On the final exam the following week, I included some of the debriefing questions that were included in Anne's folder.

    Overall, this was a really positive way to end the year. I was impressed by how active and willing to participate the students were. Very few kids were tempted by their phones, too. And I think the role playing aspect makes it easier for kids to speak publicly because it wasn't them speaking, it was the country speaking! That was definitely a lesson for me and is something I plan to incorporate more of next year--basically RAFT discussions rather than writing activities.

  • in reply to Erin Cunningham

     I am always so impressed by the way you organize materials to guide students through an assignment! I love your take on this activity and have made a note to revisit this post when I get to the Globalization unit next year so that I can make some adaptations inspired by you. Thanks for the share!

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