Over the years, my students have taught me how much lecture they can tolerate and what holds their attention the best.

1. Keep it short. My goal is to lecture for 15 minutes, tops. I try very hard to stick to one topic. If I need more time to cover more topics, I’ll spread out the lectures. When I taught on the block schedule with 84-minute class periods, I might have two 15-minute lectures in a class period, spaced out with out-of-the seat activities or small group discussions. The shorter the lecture was, the more I was able to keep my students’ attention. Some people might look at students’ short attention spans as a shortcoming, but I know that when I’m in a meeting, 15 minutes seems long to me, too.
2. Keep it focused. One of my lectures might be about how the Globe Theatre differed structurally from modern theaters. I don’t branch out into the Elizabethan world view or Shakespeare’s sources. Those are topics for another lecture. Have a clear plan for the lecture and let your students know what that plan is early on. It’s effective to use a graphic organizer as both the lecture’s outline and a student handout with blanks for guided note taking. Vary the shapes and configurations of graphic organizers for each lecture. Some students will remember the material on the organizer with arrows or the organizer with bubbles. Of course, using an outline with blanks helps reinforce outlining as a concept, too.
3. Make it personal. Even if the lecture is about polynomials, finding a connection between your students’ interests and your curriculum will make the lecture more relevant to their lives. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to make the learning personal, but the more you help your students connect the content to their prior knowledge, experience, or interests, the more they’ll retain.
4. Allow for interaction. It’s tough for a kid to nod off while you’re talking about the Civil War if you’re always asking your students for feedback or asking them quick questions. You can have them predict what the answer might be, ask them to hold fingers up in front of their shirts to vote on a response, or throw out a quick review question from a previous lesson. It’s also useful to ask students to turn to a partner and offer a 15-second (timed) summary of an important fact. If you don’t have a question to ask, just mention students by name as you lecture to increase and maintain. While you talk about eukaryotes, address a student. You might say, “So, Tyra, a eukaryote cell has complex structures within it. Those structures, Matt, are enclosed with membranes.”
5. Use visuals. People love to look at something while they listen. It’s normal and it gives the brain another pathway to remember the lecture’s information. When I lectured about Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” I brought in my photos of Paris’ catacombs for students to view. When we read Eugenia Collier’s short story “Sweet Potato Pie,” I brought some in for my students who had never tried it. If I were lecturing about the Scottsboro Boys and the trial’s influence on To Kill a Mockingbird, I brought in transparencies of political cartoons and photos of the men on trial. An obvious visual is the PowerPoint presentation, which can be over used. If the PowerPoint is used as a visual aid, with many photos and illustrations, but few words, students will find the slides more engaging and listen to the lecture rather than tune it out.
6. Wander the room. Free yourself from the lectern, the projector, and the front of the classroom and allow yourself to conduct your lecture while circulating among your students. If you need to write on the overhead, the chalkboard, or the interactive whiteboard, ask a student volunteer to write for you. Circulating among the students encourages them to remain on task and it makes redirection easy. Stand beside the desk of a student who wants to chat to a neighbor, silently offer a loaner pencil to a student who isn’t taking notes, and scan the crowd for covert texting. Students will become used to the idea that you can be next to them at any moment and will be more likely to pay attention to the lecture. They’re also more likely to ask you a question when you’re nearby rather than further away.

These aren’t the only ways to make a classroom lecture more interesting for students, but it’s a start. I’d love for you to share your lecture methods in the comments.

Camp 1: Homework is for home. When our high school moved to the block schedule, my colleagues grumbled about the lost instructional time. Even though the classes were longer, the actual minutes for instruction decreased by two weeks. Teachers who taught three novels each semester found themselves choosing between the Odyssey and Animal Farm. Instead of spending three weeks on Shakespeare, they crammed five acts into two weeks. Teachers were concerned about how reducing the curriculum would affect students’ test scores. After all, the tests’ scope hadn’t decreased just because the high school’s bell schedule changed.

The longer block schedule classes are deceiving. Each block seems long and gives a teacher the impression that he can fit in more material, but the reality is that he has fewer blocks overall. Teachers didn’t want to waste a minute of precious instructional time on homework. After all, the point of homework was for students to carry the learning home. Instead of completing assignments in class, teachers used the time for discussion, group activities, or lecture. It’s a smart decision in the name of keeping the curriculum intact and making sure that the students were as well educated as previous classes.

I joined this camp initially because I wanted to preserve the curriculum and use the extended block time to explore how John Steinbeck never wrote a description or a setting without loading it with meaning, how a poem’s structure can enhance its themes, and how a literary motif can be an archetype. Let’s face it: this was my idea of fun. Students completing homework in class? Not nearly as fun for me. Homework in class also didn’t further my curriculum goals.

Camp 2: Begin homework in class. Another option for coping with less class time is to pare down the curriculum to match. Although it’s tough to cut Homer’s classic epic, students can read excerpts from the Odyssey instead of reading it cover-to-cover. No one wants to have to choose between The Bluest Eye and Black Boy, but we want to make room for The House on Mango Street.

Students in my classes led busy lives outside of school. They played ball, they ran track, they held jobs, and they paid their own car insurance. Did they remember to take A Raisin in the Sun with them on the bus ride to the basketball game Tuesday night? Could they create a first draft of their essay about overcoming obstacles while making sandwiches at the sub shop? When they sat at their kitchen tables with the rubric in front of them, would they remember the discussion we’d had in class about thesis statements?

I switched from my homework at home model to beginning homework in class because I found that my students completed more assignments and did better on them when I gave them some class time to work. Was I happy to shorten my beautiful lecture series on Shakespeare’s life, the sources for Romeo and Juliet, and the Elizabethan mindset so my students could begin reading Act I? Not really. It’s a very, very interesting lecture. However, when I left out the bits about Shakespeare’s will and his estranged wife and children and gave the students time to read with a partner instead, they actually read the assignment instead of mumbling some excuse about working at the fast food restaurant.

I circulated among the students and helped them with discovering the meaning of the text. They left class with a better understanding of the play and the next day our discussion was informed instead of awkward.

The bottom line. I became a Camp 2 Begin Homework in Class convert and used class time for my students to begin their homework. I didn’t use my whole class as a study hall, but I gave the kids enough time to get a solid start on their assignments. I saw daily grades go up and improved participation in class.

That’s not to say that teachers who are solid Camp 1 Homework is for Home people are terrible educators because they don’t give students time in class to work. These teachers care deeply for their students and want to expose them to as much of the curriculum as possible.

Still other teachers are in Camp 3 No Homework at All. I’ve not spent any time in this camp, but I understand that these teachers want their students to be successful without the homework component. Maybe their students don’t have time for homework or don’t live in an environment where they can study on a regular basis.  Camp 3 No Homework at All is a tough camp to be in because the teacher must make sure the students learn everything between the bells, which means a high degree of efficiency and organization.

Which homework camp are you in? Why have you chosen that camp? How do you encourage your students to complete homework? Do you grade homework with a completion grade or do you grade every question? Please share your experiences in the comments.

Photo credits:
M does homework in the april sun: Jolante / Jolante van Hemert on Flickr.com Creative Commons
computer lab [two teen boys]: English 106 on Flickr.com Creative Commons
Hard Studies: PhotoDu.de / Thomas Anderson on Flickr.com Creative Commons
Homework [boy in blue shirt]: johnb2008 / John Bolland on Flickr.com Creative Commons

May is also project month. We have just weeks left of school; no one wants to lecture students who squirm in their seats and watch the clock. Better to keep them engaged with the content and let them direct their own learning with a project.

Many students rely on Google’s Image search to find photos for their PowerPoints, PhotoStories, or iMovies. However, better visuals exist for school projects and what’s more – most of these are copyright friendly.

Flickr.com’s Creative Commons. This site requires a Yahoo! login, but if you’re comfortable allowing your students to register with the site, it’s a great opportunity to find photos to illustrate presentations. The Flickr’s Creative Commons uses CreativeCommons.org’s guidelines for copyright. There are six categories of copyright and they’re all explained on the right-hand side of Flickr’s site. If your students give credit to the photographer, let the photographer know that they’re using the image in a school presentation, don’t alter the image, and don’t sell the photo on T-shirts, they should be within the copyright guidelines. However, it’s a great idea to discuss the copyright guidelines with them before they use the photos. You and I both know that our students will visit the site outside of class and we want them to respect the photographer’s rights. For the most part, the images are classroom appropriate. Occasionally I’ll find something objectionable, but then I flag the photo. When your students search, make sure they click on See More to the bottom right of each copyright collection. Do not use the search at the top of the page – those photos may or may not be a part of the Creative Commons. One of the best things about using Flickr.com’s Creative Commons is that students can download the photos in the size that will work best in their project. The photos also respond well to resizing and won’t become too blurry if a student increases the photo’s size.

MorgueFile.com The term Morgue File comes from the print world where editors put the paper to bed and then review the past issue in a postmortem meeting. After the review, someone files the old issue in the morgue file. Online, this is a spot where searchers can use any photo they find in any way they choose – without regard to altering, selling, or providing attribution for the image. MorgueFile.com doesn’t have the huge number of photos that Flickr.com’s Creative Commons does, but it’s a place where you know your students won’t be stomping on anyone’s copyrights. Despite the free nature of the site, having the copyright discussion and providing attribution and feedback for the photographer is just good manners. No one has officially culled these photos for inappropriate content, so occasionally I’ll find something objectionable. MorgueFile.com has a reporting link for objectionable images at the bottom right of each photo. Be sure your students are using the free photo search at the top of each web page, not the sponsored, paid photo search they’ll find at the bottom of the page. These photos respond well to resizing, so you don’t need to worry about blurry images in projects.

LoveVectorFree.com Students will find illustrations for use in projects on this site. Vector means that the images can be resized without blurry effects. Free means that your students can use the images without opening your wallet. LoveVectorFree.com’s legal page allows people to use any image on the site for any purpose, without attribution. However, a good discussion about attribution is never wrong. Encourage students to leave a comment for the artist, give them feedback about their work, and let them know they’re using the images in a school project. It’s good manners. LoveVectorFree.com is a new site, so the collection doesn’t have tons of illustrations, but new images come in all the time. Unlike the other sites in this post, LoveVectorFree.com doesn’t have a feature for guests to report inappropriate content. At the moment, the images on the site lean towards fluffy bunnies and brightly colored flowers, so I think sending students to the site would be safe.

The Big Picture. This site is part of The Boston Globe’s Boston.com site. A web editor chooses a timely topic like the anniversary of the Vietnam war, the oil spill in the Gulf, or Earth Day and gathers up the best photos from around the world about the topic. Of course, Boston.com has the right to post these photos, but your students shouldn’t use these in presentations. Rather, this site is for you and your lesson planning. The dramatic photos are a terrific way to bring up current topics in many disciplines or illustrate the impact of the world’s big events. I strongly recommend that you preview the photos first before class. It’s good practice anyway, but a few photos on the site are graphic. For example, some photos in the Vietnam war collection have been blacked out for graphic content. To access the photo, a user has to click on the screen to view the image. That’s great – it makes lesson planning easier for me. However, some of the photos in the Vietnam series haven’t been blacked out and they made me squirm. I wouldn’t want to show some of those images in my classroom, not just because they’re graphic, but I wouldn’t want to cement my reputation as a total wimp.

Do you have any online image resources where you send your students? Please share these in the comments and let us all know about the copyright restrictions and content. Even better: how do you make sure that students don’t spend their entire computer lab time hunting down images instead of creating content?

It’s an interesting discussion and probably something you and your teaching colleagues have discussed before: do rubrics guide both teacher and student or do they limit student creativity and independent thinking?

I love rubrics. My first year teaching English taught me more than I taught my students. I learned very early that if I didn’t provide students with a rubric, the essays I would receive would be so diverse as to make grading impossible. Without a rubric, it’s tough to justify to students and parents why Justin’s three-page tongue-in-cheek career profile of a U.F.O. tracker received an A (incredible voice) and Aaron’s poorly proofread and generic career profile on the same subject received a C .

Assigning without a rubric means that as a teacher, you really don’t have a clear vision of the product you want and how you will assess it. In the real world, if I asked a designer to craft a logo for me, I would choose options like color, size, and digital reproducibility. It’s a rare thing in the world of work for a boss to give a project to a worker and say, “Do what feels right. Be creative.” In that sense, I think that rubrics mirror real-world expectations.

Those expectations are important to students who are struggling to finish the project at 8 p.m. the night before it’s due. The expectations are even more important to the parent who is trying to assist the student. Furthermore, when it’s 8 p.m. on a Sunday night and I’m wading through my stack of papers, I don’t have to spend time wondering what to do with Matt’s essay on crop circles, which contains more illustrations than words.

The rubric helps me at 9 p.m. Sunday night when I’m drafting my week’s lesson plans, too. The state standards drive my lesson’s objectives and my assessments had better measure students’ understanding of those objectives. If students don’t know what product they should turn in and I don’t know how to grade the random essays I receive, how can I assess whether or not a student understood the material?

Rubrics have their limitations. It’s true, though, that a song about a songwriter would be a fitting way to meet the project’s objectives. However, the song doesn’t fit into my rubric. It’s not an essay, it’s a song. Now what do I do?

Maybe I have the wrong rubric. The kid who writes the song meets the research expectation, but the content’s not in the format I expected. The mistake teachers sometimes make in using rubrics is that they don’t include the class on the conversation.

The compromise between conformity and creativity. To make sure everyone understands the project’s expectations, it’s a great idea to have a two-pronged approach to the rubric. Make your own rubric while you’re planning the unit. Figure out what students need to demonstrate to master the objectives.
In class, explain the project. Place students in think-pair-share groups to discuss what criteria they would use to judge the project. Ask for a volunteer to take notes for the class on the whiteboard and take criteria suggestions from the crowd. Circle those items that have more than one vote. Underline those that you have in your own rubric. Talk about the products and how each criterion will be evaluated. Show the class your rubric and add suggestions from the class’s discussion.

By having this pre-work discussion, students can show their creativity on the front end of the project. They have a say in what distinguishes a successful project from one that doesn’t meet expectations. The students have ownership and have begun the thought process that will lead to the project development. This isn’t a waste of class time; it’s think time.

Best of all, when you receive the students’ projects, you’ll have a rubric to guide you. You won’t be surprised with a clay sculpture when you expected a lab write up. And you’ll be assured that your lesson’s objectives, the students’ work, and everyone’s expectations all line up.

He had a big presentation planned with several LCD projectors and multimedia slides. The man even had puppets. Made out of plastic milk jugs. No, really.

I’m sure you’ve guessed the superintendent’s problem. We teachers sat in the auditorium for over half an hour while he, the panicked media director, the computer guy, and the theater director all tried to make the technology work.

Once they had the equipment working, the superintendent played a clip from the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Apparently the movie’s perils of technology theme was lost on him.

All I could think was, “Plan B. You gotta have a Plan B.”

Sure, you expect technology to work or for the lesson to continue for its 45 minutes, but equipment failures happen and so do fire drills.

In the face of the unpredictable, what should teachers do?

Set up procedures. Yes, the unpredictable happens, but we can at least predict which types of events might occur. Fire drills, lock downs, drug dogs, power failures, tornado drills, bomb threats, hallway incidents, and an out-of-control student all unpredictable disruptions to your class. Even predictable disruptions like Homecoming events, assemblies, and club photo days can cause classroom chaos. How are you expected to teach when the power is out or half the class is in the yearbook room mugging for the camera?

On a peaceful week, maybe the week after the start of a new semester, draft a list of all of the possible interruptions that could happen and how you’d like for your students to behave.

During a fire drill, I’d like my students to huddle together and not mingle with other classes. I want the kids to make eye contact with me when I call their name on my roll sheet. In an ideal world, they’ll be discussing a question from class with one another to earn a participation or extra credit point.

Train your students. We’re teachers. We teach. That’s our strength. So, once you’ve listed the interruptions and your behavior expectations, select one interruption per day and teach your students how you’d like them to behave. Spring the interruption on them, run through the procedure, and offer feedback. Reward good behavior. Correct stragglers.

Develop a Plan B. If you’re a veteran teacher, or a new teacher who is quick on her feet, you might be able to give your students a quick discussion question as they leave the class or develop a Plan B on the fly.

However, it’s nice to have a couple tucked away for unplanned interruptions. When you’re mapping out your unit, develop a Plan B and include it with your lessons. You could try the following approaches:

• High-interest question – an ethical matter, a central debate in your discipline, or a hot topic are good choices
• A puzzle – for some quiet seatwork while you have to stand out in the hallway for a visitor, consider an extra credit puzzle or problem for students to solve
• Stations – During Spirit Week or yearbook photo day, you might consider setting up stations in your room with short activities at each one. Require students to complete three of the five stations. Each additional station is worth extra credit. Students can leave for their photo ops, return, and pick up where they left off with ease and the whole class isn’t disrupted.
• Quiet full-class work – During a lock down, students in my school had to sit quietly along my interior wall, away from the windows and doors. This is a great time to pull out small, personal whiteboards, markers, and review questions. Quiz students and ask them to write their answers on the whiteboards. Reward with participation points.
• Time sponges – when drug dogs came through my school, the class period extended beyond what I’d had planned, so I needed to soak up that time. Fun time sponges include: develop a clean joke about the material we’re studying. Punch lines must contain one vocabulary word; create a tweet (like www.historicaltweets.com) that a person in your discipline might have typed; charades with clues from the unit of study; and or a game of vote with your feet will get kids out of their seats, but still learning. (Vote with your feet: pose a question like, “Would you rather have wind power or would you rather save the birds?” Students move to the bird side of the room or the windmill side of the room and volunteer to answer the question with their opinion.)

Rein ’em in. When the power comes back on or the fire drill is over, you still have to settle your students back into the lesson. When you jot down your unit’s Plan B, write down how you’ll transition from the chaos to the class. A good idea for this is to have students report about the discussions they’ve had and the conclusions they’ve reached. Accountability for the learning activity helps to focus students on the discussion and discourages speculation about who pulled the fire alarm or what happened to the lights.

Do you have a Plan B that works well for you? Please share it with everyone in the comments.

Students as technology guides. The latest research proves what you already know: our students are digital experts. Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up National Research Project has interviewed 281,000 K12 students in all 50 states for its latest report “Speak Up 2008 for Students, Teachers, Parents and Administrators.” The researchers call our students the Digital Advance Team. These students are an asset to adults, especially those whose job is to plan these kids’ education and prepare them for 21st century jobs.

Our students use technology for four purposes: communication, collaboration, creation, and contribution. The researchers write that educators need to rely on students demonstrate how to use technology and adapt it to educational purposes. Students are early adopters of new technology and they become the technology trendsetters for their peers, adults, and teachers.

Students feel unprepared for the future. In their survey of students in grades 6 – 12, the researchers found that only one-third of our students think teachers are preparing them for future jobs. However, 56 percent of principals think that their students are prepared for the technological world of work.

Why is there such a disconnect between what principals perceive and what students think? These trendsetters, our students, are frustrated with us and our schools. When they open up the double-doors and cross from the real world into the educational world, students know that they must power down their electronic devices and sit in classrooms more adapted for the 20th century than the 21st century.

Forty-three percent of the students surveyed reported that their school’s firewalls or content filters block their access to online materials and impede their learning. Over one-third of students report that teachers block their access to technology for learning. School rules frustrate one-quarter of our students and their access to technology. Outside of the school walls, students communicate freely with e-mail, text messages, and instant messages, but inside the school one-third of these students can’t communicate about learning with any electronic means.

Clear the way for technology. When the researchers asked students how schools could make it easier for them to work electronically, the number one response was: Let me use my own devices and tools during the school day.

As educators, we know that the problem with letting students use their own electronic devices during the school day is that not every student will have equal access to the learning tools. Some kids might have a smart phone that allows them to search for answers on the Internet, others might not have any electronic devices at all.

If given the chance, though, 53 percent of middle and high school students report that they would use their mobile devices to communicate with their peers about school work. Thirty-four percent would use e-mail, text messages, or instant messages to communicate with their teachers.

Both administrators and teachers believe that incorporating mobile electronic devices into the classroom would benefit students and increase student engagement, even beyond the school day.

Recommendations. The researchers recommend that schools find a way to allow students to use their own technology during the school day and to meet learners in the digital world where they live. Their research indicates that teachers should move more of their curriculum online and incorporate learning tools like simulations and games into their lesson plans. Students use Web 2.0 tools and collaborate with one another outside of the classroom; our lessons should take advantage of this and allow students to work with one another online to create new content. Schools need more digital resources available in the classroom so students can use the technology in a learning context. Teachers and students should take advantage of the instructional technology to connect with experts and bring their experiences into the classroom.

Above all, though, the researchers recommend that we let our students be our technological guides.

“We recommend that as policy makers move forward, we listen to the stakeholders with the most skin in the game – the students themselves,” the researchers wrote. “To listen, observe and learn about how they are approaching learning and living every day, their frustration points with their schools, the challenges they face in learning in the 21st century and their aspirations for how schools can be improved so all students will be successful.”

Reference:

“Selected National Findings: Speak Up 2008 for Students, Teachers, Parents and Administrators.” (2009.) Project Tomorrow. http://www.tomorrow.org Accessed December 8, 2009.

The game has fun, colorful graphics and sound effects. Each portion of the budget (Defense and Diplomacy, Schools and Kids, etc.) has cards that users can play. A card is a portion of the budget that a player can either add or subtract to the budget. Each card lists the pros and cons of funding the project as well as the likely impact of playing the card.

Players choose three badges, or issues, to support. I chose competitive advantage (education), economic stimulus, and energy. Players can choose badges for the environment, defense, and health, too. Also listed are John McCain and Barack Obama. Since the election results are in, students who choose these candidates to support are really choosing Republican or Democrat agendas.

Play this game to introduce the idea of federal spending or as a culmination for the federal budget unit. Playing it twice to get a better score is a worthwhile goal. The game introduces budgetary silos and fiscal spending issues, so students will have a hands-on learning experience.

The game admits that its scheme does not take into account the recent Wall Street bailout, but the makers write that they will adjust the game when new data becomes available.

The game has sound and interactive graphics; sound is important to this interactive game, so plan on asking students to bring headphones to the computer lab if you use this lesson.

Objective: Explain how federal budget choices impact the nation’s policies and national debt.

Materials:

• A computer with sound and the latest version of Flash for each student or each pair of students.
• Headphones for each student.

Procedure:

1. As a whole class, run the introduction and click Get Briefed for the introduction. Click on the Help tab above the game to help students understand the importance of the badges, policy cards, and budget bust points. Be sure to review the When am I done? section and the What do I do when I’m done with my budget? Section.
2. Assign students computers and allow them the rest of the class period to play the game.
3. On a separate sheet of paper, ask students to record their three badges, their top three budget cuts and their top three spending priorities. Students should come to class the following day prepared to defend their choices.
4. At the end of class, ask students to submit their budgets and record the debt in 2018, the budget bust year, and the size of the government in 2018 (in dollars). Students should circle the badges they achieved with their budgets. If time and resources permit, ask students to print their budget results.
5. Second day: List the possible badges on the board. As students enter the classroom, ask them to make a hash mark for each badge they selected.
6. Discussion: Which badges are the most popular? Do you agree with these priorities? Which parties lean toward these priorities? Did you have many opportunities to make budget cuts in these areas?
7. On an overhead transparency, list the budget areas: Defense and Diplomacy, Schools and Kids, Science and Nature, Housing and Living, Miscellaneous, Infra-structure, Health Care, Social Security, and Taxes. By a show of hands, write the number of students who had cuts in each of those areas. Again, by a show of hands, record the number of students who had budget increases in those areas.
8. Discussion: What did you find the easiest area to cut? Where is the easiest area to spend?
9. Line-up. Ask students to arrange themselves in the order of most debt to least debt. Re-arrange according to who delayed the budget bust the longest, and who shrank the government the most. Ask the crowd to raise hands if they achieved one badge, two badges, or all three.
10. Assignment:
• Create a poll. Using the data we recorded in class about our budgetary preferences, create a poll designed to discover the class’s ideas about personal fiscal responsibility. Is there a connection between the class’s personal fiscal responsibility and their federal choices? Prepare a visual and a brief speech (3 minutes) to explain your results.
• Support your cause. No one is for out-of-control government spending, but lots of us support ideas like universal health care and aid for the poor. Choose the badge that you support the most and justify your spending in three key areas. Write a letter to the editor supporting your cause and the extra spending for it in the budget.
• Gravy for all. This game doesn’t take into account the recent financial bail-outs for Wall Street and others. Were these bail-outs smart or are we racing toward the budget bust date? Find out and explain it to the rest of us.
• Town hall meeting. With a partner, pick a representative or senator from both sides of the aisle and an issue you and your politician feel strongly about. Prepare the debate and stun us with your persuasive skills. Be prepared to answer questions from the citizens in the audience.

National Geographic has captured Pearl Harbor’s events in a multi-media timeline and map that would work well as a history mini-unit, stretching over one or two class periods. http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/ax/map.html The site’s interactive timeline pulls up maps of the Hawaiian Islands with ship and aircraft movements. Clicking on Full Story reveals a paragraph about each event on the timeline, photos from the moment, and sometimes first-person testimonials about the event.

To view this site, it’s best to have sound and the ability to watch video on your computer. Before using this unit, make sure that you have a projector to show the site to your class and that the sound carries to all students. Allow one 90-minute block or two 45-minute classes for this lesson, plus additional time on a third day if students need to present work to the class

Objectives:

1. Students will view the events at Pearl Harbor from the perspective of U.S. citizens and Japanese military personnel.
2. Students will explain the role technology and communication played in both the U.S. and Japanese militaries.
3. Students will compare the events of Pearl Harbor to a pivotal event in their own lifetime.

Materials:

• Computer
• LCD projector
• Sound for the computer (optional)

Method:

Day one/first 45 minutes

1. Define a pivotal event. Write on the board the words “pivotal event.” Underneath these words, pose this question: what is a pivotal event and what are historical examples and personal examples? As students enter the room, encourage them to think about what’s on the board.
2. List pivotal events. Sort students in to small groups and give them five minutes to discuss and create a list of pivotal events, either historical or personal (personal pivotal events might be a divorce or a death). Record the definitions and events on the board for all to reference.
3. Discuss Pearl Harbor in brief. It was a surprise attack, it occurred December 7, 1941, and 2,403 people died. (For comparison, the number of deaths from the 9/11 attacks was 2,819.)
4. Assign readers. You’ll need 28 students to, read the blurbs when you click on Full Story. You’ll need 12 additional students to read first-hand accounts that have no accompanying recordings. Each student can expect to read a paragraph, maybe two. You can assign these reading roles by time, location, and duty.

   Narrators:
   0342 Minesweeper spots submarine periscope
   0610 Six carriers are north of Oahu
   0645 Destroyer spots submarine
   0653 U.S. Destroyer Ward reports attack on submarine
   0702 Radar operators spot unidentified aircraft
   0715 Report about U.S. attack on submarine delayed
   0720 Officer dismisses radar report
   0733 Warning from Washington arrives in Honolulu
   0740 Attack force heads for Pearl Harbor
   0749 Japanese aerial commander orders attack
   0755 Japanese planes strike
   0800 Bombers from the U.S. mainland fly to Oahu
   0810 Battleship Arizona explodes
   0817 U.S. destroyer fires at a Japanese submarine
   0839 Destroyer sinks Japanese sub in the harbor
   0850 U.S.S. Nevada makes a dash to the sea
   0854 Second wave of Japanese planes reach Oahu
   0930 U.S. destroyer Shaw explodes
   1000 Japanese planes head back to carriers
   1300 Casualties mount, filling hospitals
   1300 Japanese ships return home

   First-hand accounts, according to the timeline:
   0610 Six carriers are north of Oahu, Japanese pilot
   0645 Destroyer spots submarine, U.S. soldier
   0740 Attack force heads for Pearl Harbor, Japanese pilot, another Japanese pilot
   0749 Japanese aerial commander orders attack Japanese attack commander, Japanese pilot
   0755 Japanese planes strike
   U.S.S. Arizona, U.S. sailor
   Command Center, female citizen
   U.S.S. Oklahoma, U.S. sailor, another U.S. sailor
   0817 U.S. destroyer fires at Japanese submarine, Japanese sub commander
   1300 Casualties mount, filling hospitals, nurse

   Each reader is responsible for taking notes about his or her time spot on the timeline. Students should pay close attention to what qualities Pearl Harbor has that makes it a pivotal event, the role that technology and communication played, and parallels to pivotal events listed on the board.

5. Begin the timeline. Listen and watch as events unfold. Students should be prepared to read their assigned paragraph and take notes for their sections.
6. Homework/reflection question: what role did communication play in this tragedy? One paragraph answers to share in class.

Day two/second 45 minutes

1. Role of communication. Students meet in small groups to discuss how communication played a part in Pearl Harbor. After five minutes, record the groups’ findings on the board.
2. Revisit the definition of pivotal moment. Discuss: how is this a pivotal moment?
3. Small group discussion: parallels between Pearl Harbor and current pivotal moments. List similarities on the board.
4. Small group discussion: was Pearl Harbor a matter of superior technology or communication? What role has technology and communication played in the class’s current pivotal event?
5. Project possibilities. Students can choose from one of the following projects:

   a. Real world. Collect artifacts (photos, news clippings, and statistics) that reveal the personal element in both Pearl Harbor and the class’s current pivotal event. Projects should be in poster format. Posters should explain why people remember pivotal moments in history and how these moments shape our culture.
   b. Radar Technology. Outline the use of radar in both the Japanese and American militaries in WWII. Create a visual or write a two-page essay about whether radar technology was important in the battle of Pearl Harbor.
   c. Communications Technology. Find out how telegraphs work and explain the lag time between sending messages and receiving messages. Identify the areas where communication went awry in the Pearl Harbor event and compare it to the class’s current pivotal event. This can be either a written paper or a visual product.
   d. Parallel events. Re-enact the events from an area of the Pearl Harbor timeline. Write a script, cast characters, and make the scene come alive. Either write the same scene from the opposite side’s point of view or write the same type of script for the class’s current pivotal event. In a brief introduction, explain to the audience what the two scenes will be. For your conclusion, explain the parallels between the two scenes.