i need help with a history lesson plan?

Question

i just started student teaching a 10th grade world history class and i need some help teaching this lesson. during this chapter i have 4 sections to go over and i was going to do one per day. i can't figure out the best way to teach it to the students without lecturing the whole time. each class is 50 minutes long.

topic 1: the growth of european towns
-the rights of townspeople
-guilds
-medieval towns
-the black death (last week they watch a 45 minute video on the black death)

topic 2: life and culture in the middle ages
-language and literature
-education
-philosophy and science
-architecture

topic 3: wars and the growth of nations
-england
-france
-spain
-holy roman empire

topic 4: challenges to church power
-church power weakens
-problems in the church

the teacher that i am student teaches for ONLY lectures to the students and they do not respond well with it. is there any kind of activity or guided way to teach it to them??

this is one of the first times i am teaching the class so i can't really do any big projects. i just need a creative way to teach it to the class.

Answer 1

those are some tough, broad topics you have to address on a daily basis! and you're right--students hate lecturing, and who can blame them?

here are some ideas:
topic 1: have them perform a mock "town meeting," where all segments of society are represented. have a "guild" group, a couple of other groups (landowners, etc.), and have them discuss the topic of "the black death," and what should be done to help protect their town and its people. give each group an info sheet explaining who they are, what they believe, and where they are in the social structure of the town. give the students time to familiarize themselves with the material, then you, as moderator, conduct the "town meeting" about the black death. we did this in a history class once, and it was great!

topic 2: when you discuss each of these topics, provide an example. e.g., language & lit--teach them how to say something in middle english, maybe from the canterbury tales. education--do a compare/contrast chart on the board b/t education then and now. architecture--if you can, bring in slides or a projector that has an internet connection to show them some buildings from this era. point out the specific features with a pointer. leave philosophy & science for last--discuss in general, then pick a major philosopher and a major scientist (often they were both, so if you could find one of those, even better!), and have them sit in a circle and have a philosophical debate about what that person taught, whether they agree/disagree, why/why not, etc.

topic 3: go with the small groups again. assign each of them a country and they have to create a brief presentation (5 minutes) about the major points of their country. provide them with a guideline sheet (e.g., what information their presentations should include) and provide them with whatever resources they need to do this. when they're done, provide them with an "official" info sheet for future reference.

topic 4: put all of the major talking points about these issues on individual sheets of paper or note cards. randomly distribute the sheets/cards to each student, have each student read their card and then have a brief discussion re: its contents.

hope this helps, if even a little, and best of luck in your teaching career (from a fellow teacher)! :)

Answer 2

Separate the students into 4 groups. You choose the groups.
Each group does a skit illustrating one of the topics. They present the skit to the rest of the class.
They peer grade each other.
Make a simple checklist for the grading. Example:
On a scale of 1 to 5 did the group:
1 show enthusiasm?
2 speak cleary?
3 Make a valid point?
4 share the load?
5 listen attentively to other presentations?

Give them a few simple guidelines on correct behavior during presentations.
Don't get up during the presentation
Don't talk until it is time to ask questions
Body should be facing the presenters.

The kids will love it. Imagine what they can do to illustrate the plague,wars, etc! Use a lamp to set a theater mood and dim the classroom lights. Best of all, since they grade each other, you don't have to grade papers!

Answer 3

Girl, I can totally relate. I just started teaching this year, but I'm elementary. I'll give you some ideas. Maybe you can find something useful/

Topic 1: Have them create their own European town. They will need to draft the rights of their town.

Topic 4: Have them talk about why the chuch power weakens and if they were in the situation, get them to explain what they could have done to strength it. If they understand why it weakened, then they will know what could have made it stronger.

Good luck with the other 2. Also, Scholastic.com has great interactive websites.

Answer 4

Listening to a long lecture can be very boring, and can also be beyond the attention span of some students. There are many good educational videos or DVDs that can be used to break the monotony. Also, why not ask the students to do some library research and find out the information for themselves. They could be responsible for researching one particular topic and then present the information to the rest of the class. I think it is better to involve the students in the whole process of discovery, rather than "feeding" them all the information.

Answer 5

properly it relies upon. Lesson plans look distinct for each instructor. some instructors are delicate with very few notes and they understand what to do. different instructors want rather some element. I doubt there become ever a time the position educators confirmed as a lot as college no longer having any idea what they were going to coach. In that regard, planning for classes has been occurring because prepared preparation has existed.

Answer 6

Once our teacher had us do a long term project where we had to set up a fief complete with economicproblems and individual lords names. We had to incorperate almost all of the things you mentioned. It was in 10th grade and everyone in the class liked it.