Display a selected essential question for the class and allow students to write about it or discuss it in pairs or small groups to build background knowledge.How do different political, cultural, or economic perspectives affect the view, interpretation, and communication of current and historical events? What, if anything, justifies armed conflict? How do you define justice and, given this definition, is ours a just society? What are contemporary social, judicial, economic and political factors that influence how we live? What do citizenship and living in a civil society mean and where do you fit in? Why are conflicting values inherent in diverse groups, and how do societies deal with resulting challenges? How has the world changed in 100 years: socially, technologically, economically and politically? How do economic, historic, environmental, social, and technological forces cause change? How does knowledge of the past influence us and help us understand the present and the future? How are the beliefs and practices of various cultures related to time, location, and events? How do different cultures express their own values and traditions? Is history told by the "winners"? Is history inevitably biased? How do beliefs and practices of various cultures evolve over time? What cycles and patterns seem to recur throughout history? What methods do people/historians use to interpret and communicate current and historical events? How do we know what really happened in the past? How can we know if we weren't there? Then, select an essential question you'd like students to explore (or choose several and give students choices). Develop the project guidelines you'd like students to follow and make them available for the class. You may want to only include topics students have previously studied, or use loosely related topics to extend their learning. Preview the World History unit of BrainPOP and select the topics that are relevant for your students and compile them in a list. Ask students: What do you think now? How has your thinking changed? What makes you think that? Here is an example of one student's answer to the Essential Question at the end of an ecosystems unit.This activity can be used at the end of a unit of study or at the end of a semester/school year to help students make connections between different aspects of history. Return to the question at the end of the unit as well. Mid-way through the unit, invite students to return to their answers and revise them. Give them a chance to record these initial thoughts. Depending on the question, students may have an answer before the unit even begins. The notebooks are a great place for them to keep track of their answers and how they change over time. WHEN: We recommend giving your students more than one opportunity to answer the essential question. It’s also an opportunity for you to assess the depth of their understanding. When students answer the question, they will have the satisfaction of recognizing what they’ve learned. Figuring out the answer to the essential question is usually the goal of all the learning activities. Learn more about how to choose a question here. WHY: The Essential Question frames the learning for the unit.
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