SEC HIT: Eng/History Research Idea

[Sandra Parks <sparks@rica.net>]

I've had a lot of people request this information, so I'm posting as a
hit...sorry it's taken so long but the teacher and I have had a rash of
personal and family illnesses and haven't seen each other for 3 weeks!

Here's how we set up the initial assignment. I think it could be adapted
to a lot of different subject areas in which a comprehensive "cultural
literacy" type list could be found.

We took a list "101 things every college graduate should know about
American history" from the December 1986 issue of American Heritage.
There's a followup article "101 things every college graduate should
know about American history". The teacher photocopied the articles, cut
them up and put them on index cards. The students then chose at random a
topic. The American Heritage article has a mix of people, quotations,
artwork, Supreme Court decisions, speeches, that the author, John A.
Garraty, felt an American-educated person might reasonably be expected
to know.

The article has a brief paragraph of explanation for each item. The
students needed to find out the who what when where why of their item,
any background information, an explanation of the context, and why it
was important and why an American educated person should know about this
event or person.

5 years ago when we did this, the students turned in a written report.
This year when we do it we may allow more choices in the format since we
have more options now. But that's something that can be decided on a
school by school basis, depending on available resources.

Hope this helps those who were interested. We will do this assignment
again this year and will probably modify  it more, but have had to
postpone it until spring.

--
Sandra Parks
Harrisonburg High School
395 S. High St.
Harrisonburg, VA 22801
(540) 433-2651 FAX (540) 433-3595
sparks@rica.net

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