Author: Gabe Bruneau

Reflection on Lesson

XCV. A CHASED GOLD CUP.
Although I am formed of the most beautiful and ruddy Callaic gold, I glory far more in my workmanship; for it is that of Mys.

Alas, this is the last epigram we shall see. My mistake with this lesson was that I was caught up within the workmanship of the epigrams and lost sight of my learning target. This was most certainly my folly. Though I went into this lesson with a clear intent, I spent the majority of my prep time learning about Martial, his works, and the Rome he lived in. I think for me this illustrates one of my greatest struggles in teaching history, balancing my own passion and excitement for the materials with digestible and effective lessons.

Overall, I would say that the lesson is workable. I think more clarity and focus would be required in the future via fewer more focused epigrams, this would be the order of the day if I taught the lesson as it is once more. In truth, I think the ideal utilization of Martial, and Juvenal, would be as vignettes set within a larger lesson. I believe they do provide humanization, which was my professed goal, but that flooding students with these works tends to obscure this. Further, attempting to impose SOAPSTone on these works added an unnecessary layer, to an already unwieldy amount of information. This also obfuscates the general idea behind the lesson and asks the students to perform too many tasks at once.

On the other hand, Martial and Juvenal do provide more lively sources than the majority of these we see about the classical world. I believe that utilizing comedic sources does have value, and think that they could be successfully integrated into the lesson. Overall, I am pleased, I have learned about a new set of sources and now spent enough time among them I can navigate them with confidence, and know they shall serve me well in my Rome unit.

Life and thought in Imperial Rome:
10th Grade Social Studies

Essential Question:
Did classical Romans approach life and thought in a different or similar manner to our contemporary culture?

Past Knowledge:
Students have been studying the geography and general historical sweep of Rome from the Republic to the Empire. A broad knowledge of daily life, social classes, and material culture shall also be included within this survey.

Process:
Class will begin with a series of bad jokes. This shall set the stage to talk about context, and how humor can be utilized to pull back the curtain on thought within an age. Student shall be asked to give a one sentence description of what they think when they think of classical Rome. Following this, we shall go over a brief power point this shall be a survey to introduce the material, and build further context for learners. Following this, students shall be placed in groups of two. Each group shall be given a different set of primary sources and be asked to analyze the documents focusing on a certain aspect of SOAPSTone while considering guiding questions. The groups will reconvene in a circle, each group shall present their favorite epigram and report back what they learned of Roman daily life and their general conclusions. We will have each student as an exit ticket write and epigram of their own, either as an Ancient Roman, or from their own stand point.

Sources

Wealth

Slavery

Patronage

Going into this assignment I was fairly wary. Though I felt reasonably comfortable with historical inquiry the crafting of a broad question to guide the lesson was an intimidating task. Overall, I am pleased with the end result. I feel have taken some of the first steps towards building a coherent and engaging lesson. I remain mindful that I am still a novice, but enjoyed how the lesson rolled out in practice. I enjoyed using a variety of sources, and felt as if our class really engaged with them. Having experienced the occasional struggle with SHEG style lessons in classrooms accustomed to lecture, I believe the true challenge shall be in hooking the students. For as was mentioned following my lesson, high school age students may not be as willing to initially share and question without directed prompting.

In retrospect, rather than printing out an annotation guide I should have created and distributed a SOAPSTone worksheet. I was very lucky to have aid in using the technology, and in the future I shall strive to be more fluent in its use. I really loved the graphic organizer used during the Vietnam unit, and wish I had thought to create one for my class. I know from my time in my student teacher placement, and from this lesson, that when I write with a document camera I need to slow down, for I have a tendency to get nervous and scrawl which helps no one when teaching.

Gathering the sources and getting to work on a Modern World History lesson was a great deal of fun. For though I love the classical world, I find sourcing for the modern era not only a tad more accessible but also a joy to read. Since I would like to explore teaching SOAPStone more I am going to try to focus my next lesson upon this. I am hoping to use sources from the early modern era and hope that I can use the feedback I have received to make it a more successful lesson.

Class: High School Modern World History

Lesson: Students will begin to examine European motivations in the ‘Scramble for Africa’, this would be set as an introductory glimpse of colonialism.

Question: What were the attitudes of Europeans towards the acquisition of Africa?

Process: The teacher shall present a very short power point. The students will respond briefly to one of the political cartoons with minimal context. Following this students will read and annotate primary source documents materials and analyze the documents with an elbow partner. Students will answer the following questions with their elbow partners. Students will then discuss their answers to the following questions as a class.

Product: Students will annotate the primary source documents, these can be used later when asked to write an essay as a ‘unit capstone’.

Question 1: What were overall European attitudes to the Scramble for Africa?

Question 2: Look closer as the documents arguments, do they differ? If, so how? Do different countries approach African colonization in different ways?

Question 3: Do these documents support the political cartoon? How so? If not, how do these documents differ from the image presented in the cartoon?

Materials:

Source Handout:
ScrambleSources