First Posting Experience!

With this being the first post of my blog...I would like to update everyone on what our students have been learning over the past week.

The students in 8th grade Social Studies at Davis County Middle School are currently learning about the French and Indian war.  I've spent a lot of time researching the best way to deliver this information to the students so that they would be empowered to express their learning in this unit.  After making a trip to the local Area Education Association, I quickly learned that this would be a challenge that would require a lot of creativity.
 
As a teacher, I know that creation is the most powerful tool when applying Bloom's Taxonomy to the classroom curriculum in a "gradual release" format.  I decided to stray away from the typical report assignment (which I hate) by having the students create a comic strip depicting specific events leading to or during the war.  To assist the students, I found an awesome website that I used as a focus lesson for modeling the activity:
http://www.fortat4.com/education/lessons/comics/comics.php  
The website also had an assessment rubric that I modified to work for our classroom:
http://www.fortat4.com/education/lessons/comics/Comic%20Assessment.pdf

I distributed this information to the students (by way of the promethean board/paper format) and had the students read through the comic orally while describing what they saw in each box.  We then enbarked on a journey to create our own comics with a blank comic strip that had nine blank sqares.  The students paired up for this project with one partner creating the comic (artsy-fartsy partner) and the other using the books available to create a one-page essay about their event.  Each partner used the rubric for their creative assignments. 

Once the project was complete (3 classes), each pair scanned their comic so that the class could view their work from the promethean board during their presentation!

I have to admit that the students came up with some really interesting comics for the class to learn from.  This was a great way for them to develop their presentation skills, creativy, and effectively teach their peers!  We will definitely make this project an annual event for the classroom.  I will be loading some of the projects that the students created over the next week or so!

I've found a program that allowed the students to create comics on the computers.  When have this project again, I believe that we might explore technology even further by having the students use the program.