With my other teachable being history, and having studied history throughout high school, I was thrilled to discover that I would be teaching Ancient Civilizations during my first practicum. I arrived as the Egyptian unit was coming to a close, meaning I was going to teach the entire Greek unit: daunting and exciting. I tried to bring in as much media and DI as possible, since the topic of studying civilizations that existed thousands and thousands of years ago is very abstract for high school students. BUT! If only I knew then what I know now...
As I racked my brain for a way to include the concept of multiliteracies in my history lesson plans, I went through all of the topics I covered and landed on the Persian Wars. More specifically, the Battle of Thermopylae (this is the one where King Leonidas and a group of Greek city-states faced off against pretty much the entire Persian empire, under the rule of Xerxes, took place at a narrow coastal pass...made into a bulging-muscles, scandalously-clad movie recently). I gave my lecture, which was broken down into various sections (what each force did to prepare, what the topography of the battlefield was like) then asked the students to come to certain conclusions based on the information provided. We then got into the details of the battle, the aftermath, and the significance. I showed pictures, maps, movie clips, etc but I could have done it completely different - and now I'm left wondering if they would have preferred my new version (probably!).
The movie, in case you haven't figured it out yet, is 300, and it was actually based on a graphic novel of the same name written by Frank Miller in 1998. Although I do not have a hard copy of this text, you can purchase one for relatively cheap, or view it online. Simply book the computer lab, and have your students teach themselves while being entertained (or you could show it in class for all to see and read through it together). The graphics are amazing, and the text is very powerful. I propose doing a short lecture on the battle prior to doing this reading, just to make sure the facts are taken in and the students do not get too caught up in the visual appeal of the text; alternatively, you could have the students take notes from it or have them look for certain things and then mark for accuracy. This is also a great way to (hopefully) stop them from begging you to show the movie!
As mentioned previously, considering the students are often disconnected from the information in this class, simply because it is hard to relate to, utilizing a text like this in the lesson or as a supplementary teaching aid would definitely be useful in my opinion. This would have also shifted the focus of the lesson from what I can
teach them to what they can teach themselves. I am coming to the
realization that students seem to get more out of their lessons if they
are guided towards the expectations and outcomes desired, as opposed to having the information handed to them. In conjunction with the graphic novel, I feel it may be useful to provide the students with a graphic organizer that would assist them in their self-directed learning; perhaps a Time-Order Chart, or a Spider Map. This would make it easier for students to collect, organize, and record their thoughts and the information as they study the graphic novel for historical information. This method would also make it easier for the teacher to check for accuracy. Next time, this text will definitely be making an appearance in my classroom!
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