Tag: assignment

Assignment Ideas, Civil War, Civil War & Reconstruction, Reconstruction, Videos

Virtual Tour of Ford’s Theatre, Assignment, and Video About Lincoln’s Assassination

Check out this virtual tour of Ford’s Theatre! Use the white arrows to move around the theatre and click/drag your mouse on the screen to turn around. The first part shows the main theater view from the stage, but if you scroll down the page, you will see other parts of the theater. Show your students exactly where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated! What better way to teach about what happened when Lincoln was assassinated than to take them inside the presidential box where it happened. See the stage on which John Wilkes Booth jumped when he yelled “Sic semper tyrranis!” Students can really visualize the events of that night using this tour.

How to Use This in Your Classroom
  • Note: This may not take an entire class period, especially if you are on block schedule or have high level students.
  • I suggest telling your students what happened the night of the assassination (take notes if necessary, etc.). Then, pull up the tour and show them around the theatre, explaining what happened where (or ask them to tell you what happened where).
  • Tell your students that the poem “O Captain, My Captain” was written about the death of Lincoln. Optional assignment: Break students into pairs and give them a copy of the poem worksheet. Have them answer the questions. This should not take more than about 5 minutes. This may be a little challenging for lower level students, but it’s a good cross-curricular tie in with literature and a great way to practice critical thinking and analysis. (Fun fact for poetry lovers: Lincoln’s favorite poem was Mortality by William Knox. There’s a video about it here.)
  • Go over the poem and/or worksheet.
  • Give them this assignment to work on: Write 10 tweets that might have been posted about Lincoln’s assassination. (More instructions are given on my download.) Students can post tweets by certain famous figures or random people, but the tweets must demonstrate facts and emotions associated with Lincoln’s assassination.
  • You can also show this video if you have time:

One final note: Have you ever seen The Conspirator? It’s a great movie about Mary Surratt, the only female charged in Lincoln’s assassination. It’s too long to show it in class, but it’s a really interesting movie that scratches that history itch!

Assignment Ideas, Miscellaneous, Teaching Tips

Biography Book Cover Assignment

If a book was written about your life what would it look like? What picture would be on the cover? What tag line would be used? What would the summary on the back say?

While working on my lesson for Benjamin Franklin, I decided to have my students create a book cover for a biography about him. This would be a great idea to use with any historical figure that you wanted your students to know a lot about.

 

You could use this book cover idea to reinforce the importance of people such as:
  • Christopher Columbus
  • George Washington
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Andrew Jackson
  • Civil War generals
  • Abraham Lincoln
  • Teddy Roosevelt
  • Franklin Roosevelt
  • Dwight Eisenhower
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
My students have to include the following things:
  • A catchy title that reflects the life of the person
  • A picture that represents that person’s life
  • A tag line under the title that gives a little more information (A phrase or one-line summary of this person)
  • A paragraph on the back of the book that gives a summary of the book, which includes some details of this person’s life/interests/importance.  (You may want to give a specific number of details required if you think your students might skimp on the information.)
  • You could also include an optional book endorsement quote by someone who would have known the person. (If the book was about Ben Franklin, you could have something like this… “A great book about a great man.” – Thomas Jefferson)
I whipped up a quick book cover template that I thought I’d share with you.  It would be a good idea to also show your students several copies of real book covers, so they get an idea of what you want.  (Just run down to the media center before class and grab a few.)