Progress of Writing Assignment

So far, my students have been involved in researching for their persuasive writing assignment.  They have read about and taken notes on the New England, Middle and Southern Colonies.  I have divided my class into groups of 3 or 4, and I have assigned a colony to each group.  Each group has students with a range of reading levels and language proficiencies.  Some of the research will be done with a partner.  When they begin to identify their reasons and supporting details, I will have them discuss these in their research groups.  This will provide more support to my students who are not performing at grade level.  When they begin their writing, I will work with my EL and RSP students in small group to help support them in completing their graphic organizers for their persuasive essay.  They have already written a number of persuasive essays, but as a class, we will review the content and organization of a persuasive essay.

The Historical Method

The historical thinking method that I think would be one of the more practical to implement at the 5th grade level given the time constraints that I am faced with would be Seeing the Larger View of History.  I think that when the emphasis of history instruction is on disconnected events and dates, students do not get the relevance of why they need to learn about history.  Eventhough our textbooks don't really do a good job of helping students see the larger view of history, it would be possible to use the textbooks we have and emphasize the big picture rather than the details.  As for establishing time, scope, and sequence in which the events of an era take place, this could be done with a large classroom timeline, and important events could be placed on the line as covered.  It would also be interesting to have a parallel timeline and place important events in world history on that timeline.