This week our learning target is "I can locate selected features of Europe." Students have been working hard memorizing the locations of Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. In addition, students must know selected physical features of the continent: Iberian and Scandinavian Peninsulas, Rhine and Danube Rivers, European Plain, Pyrenees, the Alps and Ural Mountains, the English Channel, and the Mediterranean Sea.
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This year, as a getting to know the teacher activity, students analyzed personal primary sources of my life. In the social studies classroom, source analysis is a very important skill that teaches students to dig for answers and justify their reasoning. I brought in a variety of personal primary sources: my birth certificate, passport, photo albums, old grade reports, etc. I gave students a series of questions such as "Is Mrs. Ellis an American citizen? What kind of student was Mrs. Ellis?" Students had to answer the question and cite the source. For example: Is Mrs. Ellis an American citizen? Some students said yes, others no. According to my birth certificate and passport I was born in Jamaica. But I was born to an American mother which gave me American citizenship. The students didn't have the background or context to know that but some noticed my passport was American not Jamaican and figured I was a U.S. citizen. When answering the question what kind of student was Mrs. Ellis, students not only looked at my grade reports but also my yearbooks and scrapbooks to see what extra curricular activities I participated in, if I was a school leader and how social I was. I was VERY impressed with the students' first source analysis and they really enjoyed getting to know me as a person, not just their teacher...
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AuthorVanessa Ellis has been teaching middle grade social studies for 7 years. She is the 2017 Georgia Economics Teacher of the Year and a teacher leader in Muscogee County. She loves to teach and have FUN while doing it! Who says social studies has to be boring? Archives
March 2017
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