I found the planning in actual class time to be less than what I actually implemented. As I went around in groups looking at what they had for the scripts, I decided to collect them and offer written suggestions on each. This would be more comprehensive than my casual suggestions as I talked with each group. I continued this practice for the storyboard creation, so I could monitor and correct any bad habits before the entire project was completed.

        In my lesson design, I thought the Revolutionary War topic would be an easy one for students to remember content. Not only had they studied it in depth just the year before, it had been a topic mentioned in elementary school. I was genuinely surprised at the lack of understanding and/or remembrance of basic topics. For example one group wanted to interview Paul Revere during his famous ride to warn of the British attack. I talked with them regarding details asking questions such as how was Revere told that the British would come by land or sea. The four young men, made up of students with average to above average grades, didn’t know. When I prodded a little further about the Old North Church, they were still unsure. I provided the line, “One if by land and two if by sea.” One student seemed to recall something about a lantern, but didn’t know why Revere needed the signal that he could see from a distance. To their credit as we continued the conversation, they did remember the detail that one of the men with Revere had to borrow his girlfriend’s petticoat to muffle the sound of the oars and that it was warm because she had just removed it.

        This observation makes me wonder if I should give a quick review regarding this period in history to get students thinking in the right direction. I did have 6^th grade history books in the room available for research, but most students had a hard time finding the information by use of glossary or index. The reflection in this lesson has more to do with my insight as I design my 6^th grade history lessons. It would seem less than 12 months later, students have forgotten many of the facts, much less the understanding, of this very significant topic.

        Another detail I chose to modify was the background photos. Honestly, I had not considered the problem of finding photographs when I changed the lesson topic from the 1900’s to the late 1700’s. When I did this lesson before, students reported on topics in the early 1900’s. In that time period, there were photographs available for the green screen background. As there were no photographs of Revolutionary figures, students had to exercise a little more creativity and imagination. Instead of just doing an internet search for the person or event they were presenting, students this year had to consider the surroundings for the event they were portraying and then choose a photo that would be appropriate. This could be as simple as a weather scene showing a snowy wood or a photo of the time period reconstructed such as those offered on the Williamsburg web site. As I talked through the photograph choice with students, I was glad for the lack of readymade photos. This put the responsibility on the student to design the background and gave them greater freedom in photo selection, not just choosing from the few photos available on their particular topic, as with the 1900’s.