French Revolution Twitter War

Some of you have heard me talk about ideas Gladys Tate and Donovan McPhatter were using at Westover Middle School involving using #hashtags to summarize learning. Well, Emily Werner and Hannah Bain at Gray's Creek Middle School came up with a way to take this one step further: historical "twitter wars." Here's what Emily had to say about their lesson:

Both Hannah and I experienced great student success and enthusiasm with this activity-we were pleasantly surprised! We explained the activity slightly differently, but we both recognized that it was key to use a Twitter-focused Jump Start. I asked my students: Do you use Twitter? What is the purpose of Twitter? What happens when people disagree on Twitter? I took a quick show-of-hands poll to see how many of my kids use it. Not many do, but that didn't matter. Those who used it help explain its function to the class. I provided examples, such as our Koala Twitter feed, and Hannah found an example on Pinterest. 

Now, it's important to point out that students were not using actual twitter accounts online, but instead creating paper "tweets" in the roles of various historical perspectives.

I told the students that we would be doing "Intellectual" or "Academic Roasting." Students were divided into groups of 6 or 7, and each student had to take one of the following roles: 

• Marie Antoinette
• King Louis XVI
• Member of the 1st Estate 
• Member of the 2nd Estate
• 1-3 Members of the 3rd Estate

Students used their notes and readings on the causes of the Revolution to help create their persona. I hung several "boards" around the room ( bulletin board paper) and gave students sentence strips and markers.  They had to create handles. The idea was to start responding quickly to each other's posts (within their groups) to engage in a Twitter war.

I know what you're thinking -- neat idea, but surely this would be beyond some students. And of course, there would be some significant behavior issues, right? Well, that wasn't Emily's experience. Certainly, the teachers had to remain active participants in the activity, but students really seem to have embraced the intention of this activity.

I always had to guide each group to make more factual, intellectual posts, and they did really well with this. In fact, I had to go get more supplies after 2nd period. I didn't think they would get as far as they did! I also used this as a quiz grade, because it was very easy to see who was working and who was not. What really surprised me was how well my co-op group did. I was afraid it might be too abstract, but the entire class received an A. I only had a few groups where members weren't pulling their weight. In those cases, I asked all members to put their actual names on their posts. This works well for students who like working alone OR prefer groups because it can be as social or individual as you like. 

 Great work, team!

I think Hannah and I have really turned a corner in trying to plan engaging, student-centered lessons with less notes and lectures. We have many exciting things planned for our WWI/WWII unit that we'll share. 

Can't wait!