2nd+Lesson+Analysis

While I was in the process of writing my second lesson I thought of what I could teach my students that would line up with what they would be learning about. One thing that crossed my mind as I was flipping through their textbook was the Louisiana Purchase. I knew it could be a section ahead of what they were going to be learning soon, but I really wanted to be able to teach it. I presented my idea to my supervisor Mr. Whitesell who thought about it for a second and decided that I had a good idea. He agreed I would be a section ahead, but since repetition was a good thing he told me I had a good idea to work with and I should go for it. I planned on starting the lesson itself with a video. The idea of a video made sense because it would help draw them in and prepare them for what we would be learning for the day. As I dug through Youtube to find a clip I thought suitable I happened upon an old School House Rock video called Elbow Room. It was the story of the Louisiana Purchase as well as the Lewis and Clark Expedition in a three minute video clip. I decided this was just what I needed to show. I emailed myself the link and moved on with my planning. My next step was to begin a PowerPoint that would go over the main points I wanted them to get as well as the guided notes I wanted them to have. The idea of guided notes was a good one because they could take it with them and study it since we couldn't let people bring textbooks home. I also searched for an activity to do while doing the presentation. I decided upon a map because visuals are good and a little bit of coloring in would not only show kids what I wanted to show them, but also let them do some artwork, which I had seen many doing on the backs of their quizzes when they were done with them. After all of my planning for the Louisiana Purchase was complete I began to work on my presentation of Lewis and Clark. While working on my presentation of Lewis and Clark I began to wonder how to introduce them. I decided a clip from the National Geographic special about their journey was the perfect way to show this. This video was just the intro and was best for introducing their journey. After the clip I showed the students a map of the country and showed them the route they took across the territory all the way across the continent. This was to show them really how much land the expedition traversed. In hindsight I could have placed another map activity in here as well or anything to keep their interest up, but for sake of getting through the material I had prepared to talk to the students about I decided to forgo another activity. The lesson would have gone better with another activity. I also prepared something to read to the students. I decided to read journal entries from Lewis and Clark to show the students what was going through these guys heads and what they had to go through to get across the land. One other reason for reading the journals was to educate on primary sources. Primary sources are going to be important for these kids in the next few years and figured out this was a great way to show them the difference between primary and secondary sources. When it came time to present I followed my plan to the letter and only deviated slightly by not reading as many entries as I wanted to read. The students were responsive, after a while, but not at first. I opened with a question about what they knew about the Louisiana Purchase. I got varying answers and when I thought we had enough ideas out in the open I started the presentation. I proceeded to show the video about the Louisiana Purchase and we moved on to the presentation. After a slide and some talking I brought up a map of the country from the time of the purchase. I got each student a map and had them color in the country in two colors. The colors were whatever we had on hand, but I wanted them to see the scope and scale of the land. After this they were filing in their guided notes I provided. After we finished the purchase we moved to Lewis and Clark who were introduced with a video clip. I then showed them a map of the journey they took and explained the basics of the journey. After I finished the expedition I proceeded to read an account of the journey by William Clark. I closed each lesson with what the journal was. I would have to say the strongest part of the lesson was the first half. I needed to get another activity or video during the Lewis and Clark part. I could tell students were getting restless and I regretted not thinking of something else for them to do. Overall though they did learn a lot from the presentation I think. I even had students volunteering to tell me about Lewis and Clark and what they did. Not all accounts were right, but I was getting them to participate and this was important to me. Overall I think my lesson went well and the students not only had fun, but also learned about Lewis and Clark and the Louisiana Purchase. I also showed them primary sources and showed them how interesting they could be as a way to prepare them for future projects. They left the lesson better for the experience.