DBQ "Mini Q" Valley Forge

DBQ...Document-Based Questions.  I was trained on this over the course of the last year and have done two DBQ lessons.  One was on Jamestown (Early Jamestown: Why did so many die?) and this last one on Valley Forge (Valley Forge: Would you have quit?).  My fifth graders LOVE doing DBQ lessons.

There are 7 components of a DBQ unit:
1. The Hook: getting students to think about the topic
2. Background Essay: providing context and a purpose for learning
3. Pre-bucketing: organizing thoughts
4. Document Analysis: carefully examining documents (primary and secondary sources)
5. Bucketing/Chicken foot: deciding on main points and which documents support them
6. Thrash out: students are discussing the evidence found on each document and how it supports arguments
7. The Essay: a 5-paragraph essay, from graphic organizer to final copy

I do the hook, background essay and pre-bucketing with the whole class.  The students lead the discussions though and I guide when needed.  We do the first document together as well.  I like to set the tone here. The documents are charts, graphs, pictures, journal entries, excerpts from books or articles.  I thought my students might have difficulties locating the evidence in the documents.  Nope.  They are great detectives! I send the other documents home as homework and we discuss/analyze them in class the next day.  The copies of the documents are littered with their notes and questions and highlighting. There are questions to answer on the bottom of the page.  Text-dependent questions.  Another buzzword in education these days.  TDQs. The students must use the documents to answer questions (it's the evidence!).  Doesn't that just scream Common Core?!

After the document analysis, the class gets together to discuss the question and the categories that the documents create. For Valley Forge, our buckets were survival, Congressional support, and not wanting to be a "summer soldier."  The students decided which document supported each category. There were only four documents in this mini DBQ, but two of the documents were contested about how they supported a claim, so it was a good conversation.

Once we had our documents categorized, the students went through a graphic organizer with sentence starters that set them up to write their 5-paragraph essay.  I was so impressed with their writing!  They were impressed with their own writing!  Check out the website of the DBQ Project and be amazed.  Below are some photos of my students's essays.

The King's M&Ms

I was reading a blogger's Facebook page and saw that another teacher posted about The King's M&Ms and encouraged fifth grade teachers to Google it.  So I did.  Wow!  We had fun, fun, fun!!

Right when we came back from Winter Break, I had put my students into groups: England, New England Colonists, Middle Colonists, and Southern Colonists.  In my previous post, I was fomenting war in my room.  Then after lunch, they walked into a classroom that had 10 M&Ms in a coffee filter on each desk, and a set (non-latex) gloves on each tax collector's desk. Each member of Parliament, the Prime Minister, and King George III had index cards with dialogue on them.  They got up and spoke their lines about budgeting and how the French and Indian War had drained their accounts.  The PM suggested that they tax the colonists.

After that, the tax collectors stood up and addressed the colonists.  They read from cards and then went around and collected taxes.

The colonists played along and were properly outraged that they had to pay so much money.  After the King had his 40% and the PM had her 30%, and Parliament split their 20%, and the Tax Collectors got their 10%, I asked the students to write about their experiences as a colonist or an Englishman. While they were writing, I evened out the "income" so all students got a handful of M&Ms in their coffee filter.

Prelude to War

Oh my stars we are having fun this year in preparation for learning about the American Revolution!  I put my students into four groups: England (King George III, 3 members of Parliament, the Prime Minister, and 3 tax collectors), the New England Colonies (6 colonists), the Middle Colonies (6 colonists), and the Southern Colonies (6 colonists). I allowed England to decide who gets to leave for recess and lunch early.  They, of course, always choose themselves.

Three days ago two of my students were overheard debating whether England had the right to tax the colonists.  After school.  Yes, after school they were debating.  I LOVE THIS!!!

Yesterday after "England" left for recess early, one of my students said, "Mrs. Mitchell, in Social Studies, do the colonists ever do something?" I told her we'd have to wait to read about it, but I asked them how they were feeling about getting left behind.  They were good and mad.  So I asked them what they were going to do about it.  One of my boys wanted to declare war.  (I did tell him it was a bit early in the game)  One of the girls said she'd seen people holding signs and protesting and marching.  I gave her and two other students blank white paper and markers and permission to hide in the library to create signs.  I did not advise them on what to put on the signs.  The other students decided that they were going to block the door so that England could not leave early again.

The unfinished posters:

So at 12:15 I asked England what they wanted to do.  They decided to leave early.  The "colonists" jumped up, blocked the door and held up their signs.  Oh it was a great moment in history!!  I love that the students are coming up with these things themselves.  All I do is stir the pot! So, of course, I asked England what they were going to do about the colonists.  <twirling my dastardly mustache with glee>

On Monday we are going to do my own variation on the King's M&Ms.  Each colonists gets 10 or so M&Ms. The tax collectors will have gloves and will be the only ones to handle M&Ms!  I will give each colonists and Englishmen a coffee filter as a "wallet" for their "money" because I am not into activities that require massive amounts of prep! I have cards that I will give to my Parliament members: jewelry tax, jeans tax, sneakers tax, electronics tax, and something else.  Each tax is worth 2-3 M&Ms.  Members of Parliament, the Prime Minister, and King George III have speaking parts (on index cards) where I've taken information from our text books and made little snippets of dialogue. Then we'll really be ready for a revolution in our classroom!