Pedagogy Index

The following blog entries include my ideas for lesson plans and activities for my classes. I have settled into dedicating Monday and Friday to these entries. As is the case with every teacher, much of what I do I appropriated from others and adapted for my own purposes. Because I never had any intention of selling anything that I do for profit, I did a lousy job of tracking who I borrowed from. If I post something that is (in part) yours and you want some attribution, please email me and I will happily comply. And if it’s something that’s copyrighted, obviously let me know and I’ll remove it.

GENERAL EDUCATION

• Social Studies “Labs”: The Game Changer – How I reorganized my classes after learning about a teacher’s innovative approach at a summer workshop called You, Me & the PLC.
• Madison and the Federal Negative – An overview of my work with the Harvard Case Method for the first time.
• Group Grading – Adapted from Geri Hastings, this is how I grade group work as fairly as possible.
• Guidelines to Creating and Delivering Good Google Slides or Power Point Presentations – I think the title kind of speaks for itself, no? I fancy myself a good presenter who knows what works and what doesn’t…
• Bag of Tricks: Student-Generated Q&As – How I stumbled upon a great pedagogical tool through laziness and desperation.
• The Google Form Quiz – Post written about a discovery in my US History class, its applicability is really for any course.

US HISTORY

• The Election of 1824 – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 – An eight-part series that featured me working through my research in the summer of 2019 at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. There are five full-blown lesson plans contained therein.
• American Painting, Poetry, Prose, and “Progress” in the Nineteenth Century – I spent four weeks at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas doing research on the nexus between art, literature, and history in the 19th century. The product was the website that is described and linked to in the blog entry.
• The Visual Essay Project – Borne out of my experience at the National Endowment for the Humanities program Reconstruction: The Untold Story, I have developed a capstone project for my US History I Honors students.
• New Jersey and Slavery: Perfect Together? – In the summer of 2019, I spent a week in New York at a national Endowment for the Humanities program on slavery in the north. This entry provides an overview of my work there and the lesson that I created from it.
• George Roberts and the War of 1812 – This research and subsequent lesson plan came from my time spent at the Army Historical Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as part of the National Council for History Education’s program on Technology and War.
• A Historical Corrective: The Battle of Greasy Grass – In August 2019, I spent a week in Montana and Wyoming and developed this lesson plan on a seemingly familiar subject that I surprisingly knew precious little about.
• A Whole New World… gone without a trace! – I have been teaching a version of this lesson plan for virtually every year of my career, give or take one or two years.
• From History Alive to History Quest – The journey from a lame town hall simulation to a longer, possibly lamer series of simulations!
• Andrew Jackson Gallery Walk – Although I hate gallery walks, I did create one that I kinda, sorta like.
• Bringing the escape room into the classroom – An overview of my US History I Honors students’ favorite activity of the year.
• Mini-Constitutional Convention Simulation – A quick way to get across the most important compromises of the Constitutional Convention and set up the class for further understanding of the tensions that led to the Civil War.
• From the Articles to Shays’ Rebellion – Overview of my Google Slides presentation on the early part of the founding period.
• Bill of Rights Memes – Some student projects for a slight, but fun lesson plan.
• Reconstruction, Part 1 – an overview of my Google Slides presentation on the beginnings of Reconstruction.
• Stanford History Education Group: Reconstruction Structured Academic Controversy – How their lesson plan went over in my class.
• Triumphs of Reconstruction – To understand the tragic ending, students needs to see the heights and the possibilities.
• Teaching About Slavery in the North – My experience working with the Historic Hudson Valley’s outstanding website on slavery in the north.
• American Antebellum Art – Overview lecture of art in the United States prior to the Civil War.
• The Crystal Bridges Museum Lesson – Activity building off the Antebellum Art presentation and utilizing the work I did as Reese Fellow at the Crystal Bridges Museum.
• Manifest Destiny Nearpod – My adapted lesson for distance learning.
• Teaching Sectionalism During the Pandemic – Trying to figure out how to teach this weighty subject at home.
• James K. Polk, The Napoleon of the Stump – A favorite lesson about an underrated and simultaneously overvalued president.
• At-Home History Lab – How I’m adjusting to distance learning after too many weeks at home.
• The Google Form Quiz – Wrestling with the idea of giving an online quiz during the pandemic.
• The Online Quiz Revisited – A few weeks later I did another quiz. Truth be told I forgot I wrote the earlier entry, lol, but there are some new elements here.
• Glory – Great film that I use for my class (like every other teacher practically), but there is that one issue of the white savior at play…
• Canvas and Peer Review – A really promising online tool to help students learn from one another.
• Race and Racism in the United States – How I ended the school year and piloted some materials for the new course I’ll be teaching.
• Revisiting Columbus and the Socratic Seminar – I apparently wrote about this lesson previously, but had forgotten. Nonetheless, this was a better write-up!
• Eight Basic Features of Civilization – A classic feature of World History classes, I do my own spin on it here as a review and introduction to Native Americans.
• The Columbian Exchange – My spin on a fairly boring topic, although in writing it I realize that I probably could be doing a lot more to focus on the racism inherent in the activity.
• Spanish Rule in Mexico – Speaking of racism, this lesson works really well to talk not only about race, but colorism.
• The Roanoke Breakout – Spoilers abound in this explanation of my escape room-like activity.
• The Colonies Project – Another boring staple of US History classes, I tried to spruce it up a bit and give students some creative choices.

AP US GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

• The Federalism Goose Chase -An activity adapted from Kellye Sluder Self’s Amazing Race activity.
• A Study of Demographics – An overview of my “Identity Project” group activity.
• Political Party Project of 2040 – An overview of my AP Gov students’ favorite activity of the year.
• Civic Duty Project – The core component of teaching AP Gov students what their civic responsibility is.
• The Fake Polling Project – Fun, creative group project to teach the subject of political polling.
• Ideology – How I teach the basics of political ideologies.
• The Media Ethics Game – Fun game based on a Question of Scruples, best used to introduce the media unit.
• The New New Colossus – Assignment on meritocracy and upward mobility with student work examples.
• The Power Grab Game – My experience adapting an existing game.
• Harvard Case Method: Race and Redistricting – My third foray into the Harvard Case Method.
• Teaching Tort Reform – As much an overview of a video and my philosophy of teaching the subject as an actual lesson plan suggestion.
• Supreme Court Case Showdowns – Simulations of key cases currently before the Supreme Court.
• The Establishment Clause – Google Slides presentation that starts with Engel v. Vitale and delves deeper.
• The Free Exercise Clause – Google Slides presentation that eventually gets to Wisconsin v. Yoder.
• The Pledge of Allegiance – Hybrid specialty class that combines the two religious clauses (as well as speech) of the First Amendment and applies it to public schools.
• Search and Seizure – One of my students’ favorite lessons, a focus on the powers and limits of the police when it comes to search and seizure.
• Selective Incorporation – Never an easy subject for students to wholly grasp, I keep edging closer to a pretty solid lesson.
• AP Gov in the Age of Pandemic – Some rumination about how best to teach the subject during these unusual times.
• Equal Protection – A simple, but fairly effective means of distilling the key aspects of the concept to students in the waning days of the course with the AP Exam looming.
• The Coronavirus FRQ#4 – Two newly written free-response questions for the modified 2020 exam (with some editorial comments).
• FRQ Exemplars – Using student work to teach students how to better answer the questions on the AP Exam.
• Political Parties – Overview of my Google Slideshow on political parties.
• What to do After the Exam? – I’ve tried a few things, but the film project is here to stay.
• Bob Roberts – Film 2 of the Film Project.
• A Perfect Candidate – Film 3 of the Film Project.
• Street Fight – Film 4 of the Film Project.
• Balance of Powers – Fun activity designed to familiarize students with some key concepts in the U.S. Constitution.
• American Political Culture – Google Slideshow introducing important concepts early in the school year.
• Federalism Slideshow – An infographic-laden Google Slideshow to introduce key concepts of federalism.
• Brutus #1 and Federalist #10 – Knocking out two required documents early in the year with some graphic organizers and a Socratic seminar.
• Fun with Amendments – Enjoyable self-directed group activity.
• That Delicate Balance – I’ve been showing a video from the mid-1980s… and not planning to change it.
• Federalism in the Courts – Google Slideshow that incorporates two required cases and a lot more.