August 8-19

Great creativity was demanded from the three fourth grade classes, which
created civilizations from scratch.

Students crafted posters that addressed the key aspects of any civilization
(customs, religion, social structure, etc).

Subsequently, classes began their exam review, using the Concepts being
studied (progress, tolerance, faith, leadership, and conquest) as the lens
through which to reassess the material.

The point was stressed that never have we found such clear descriptions of
civilizations as they had demonstrated in their Projects. In other words,
that history--particularly ancient history--is speculative, and that
archaeologists and historians have to piece bits of information together to
create a narrative.

July 26-August 5

Students were welcomed back to class with a reminder about extra help (on
Fridays and ("by appointment") and the introduction of Bellworks, which
provide a chance to reflect on the previous day's lesson or a current events
issues.

Also introduced was a framework for analyzing history; a set of concepts
that would be used for the rest of the school year. These concepts
(Progress, Tolerance, Faith, Leadership, and Conquest) were discussed in
class, with students pressed for their perspective on what they meant to
them, currently.

On Progress, students were asked:

-Is Progress better or just further along?
-Is more technology Progress, using your definition?
-How can we measure Progress?

On Tolerance:

-In your words, what is Tolerance?
-Is Tolerance always good?
-Can people countries be too Tolerant?

On Faith:

-What do you have Faith in?
-Do some people misuse Faith?
-Is Faith something we believe or something we need to demonstrate?

On Leadership:

-What is Leadership?
-What makes a good leader good and a bad leader bad?
-Do individuals or small groups lead better?why?

On Conquest:

-Is Conquest good, bad, or does it depend?
-What does it mean to conquer another land?
-What parallel could be drawn between conquering a land and ?conquering? a
person, romantically?

Discussions evolved based on responses to these open-ended questions, with
students asked to elaborate and give examples, and with classmates urged to
put these responses in their own words feed off of them.

Students subsequently were introduced to and read the unit on Ancient
Greece?their last before the Exam--and analyzed the material using these
concepts (they also watched a brief History Channel clip on Sparta).

On Athens, Sparta, the Peloponnesian War, and Alexander the Great, 4th
graders discussed such questions as:

-Which civilization reflects more Progress/had more Tolerance/showed more
Faith, Athens or Sparta?
-What were the differences in Leadership between the two societies?
-What did Alexander have Faith in?
-What does the fact that Alexander's empire fell apart without him suggest
about his Leadership?

Finally, students were assigned groups for their Projects, in which they
will have to create ancient civilizations from scratch, garnering
inspiration from those we have studied.