My Place in History
Unit Authors
This unit was developed by Irma Jones and Randy Conry and delivered to 7th and 8th graders at O'Farrell Community School in several forms over the last three years.
Content Areas
This unit is anchored in language arts and social sciences but involves science and computers to a lesser extent.
Organizing Theme
The title pretty much says it all. The students are to trace their geneology and family history and connect past events to their lives today.
Implementation
The unit was more of a recurring theme throughout the semester than a detailed project with a definite time frame. Each discipline incorporated at least one project from the unit but not simultaneously.
Outline of Activities and Student Products
Language Arts:
In lanuage arts students completed five writing assignments which took approximately one week of class time each.
1. Interview your grandparent or another adult fifty years of age or older. Ask them questions about their life growing up such as: What did they to for fun and recreation when they were your age? What historical events occured in their lifetime? How old were they when they got their first job? Turn in a written account of the interview (a video or audio tape recording may be included for extra credit). Then write an essay titled " My __________'s Place in History." Base your essay on the previous interview.
2. Interview someone who has lived in your community for twenty-five years. Ask questions about the changes they have seen in the community over the years and what they think has contributed to those changes. Also, ask them what they see happening in the next ten years. Turn in a written account of the interview. Don't forget to introduce the person you interviewed.
3. Interview your parents. Ask them what kind of a kid you were and ask them to tell some anecdotes that represent your personality as a child. Turn in a written account of the interview. Next, write an essay titled "I Was a _________ Kind of Kid." Choose one word to describe yourself as a child and support your statements with examples from your interview with your parents. In your concluding paragraph, state whether or not you are still the same way and support your statement with examples from your life today.
4. Write a poem about a relative modeled after Sandra Cisneros' poem "Abuelito Who?"
5. Write a script of a conversation between your great-grandchild and your grandchild discussing you. As a prewrite make a list of things you would like to be remembered for. Include everything you hope to do in your life.
6. Write an essay about your family's heritage. Include answers to the questions: What have you discovered that you didn't know before? What does your family's heritage mean to you?
Social Sciences
1. Read athe newspaper from the day you were born and record specific information from it.
2. Make a timeline of your life that paralles a timeline that shows significant historical events.
3. Trace your family's immigration and/or migration on a map.
4. Create a triptych collage to represent three aspects of yourself.
Science
Students will become involved in the "My Place in Hisory" project by exploring heredity and genetics. They will answer the following investigative questions using Science 2000 software.
1. How can we determine whether two people are biologically related?
2. How do you inherit traits from your parents and grandparents?
3. Why are chromosomes important?
4. What are the recent scientific methods for determining relatedness?
5. Can genetic ingineering create new organisms?
Computers
Students will create a computer generated family tree.
Thinking Skills Engaged
In the process of completing this project students used critical thinking skills to look at their life and its place in the course of history. They made inferences about what would happen in the future and exhibited creativity in their writing and collage projects. In social sciences, they learned the difference between the concepts of race and nationality, showing experience in comparison and observation. The genetic project they did in science offered experience in categorization and observation techniques. Problem solving techniques were not incorporated much in this unit, possibly because math was not included.
Lessons Learned
The teachers involved were all pleased with the outcome. I, however, think it would be more effective if it was done simultaneously in all courses and planned out as a week- by- week project. I think that stringing it out throughout the semester is not as effective as a continuous effort in all courses. Often, students forgot about things they did in the early part of the year.
Christina Gilmore