This week in 103, we built on our work with Greek geography, city-states, and governments by taking a closer look at Athens and Sparta. Monday and Tuesday focused on how life differed between the two, with students moving from maps and partner readings to scenarios and writing about a day in the life of an Athenian, a Spartan, and themselves.
From there, exploring Athenian democracy felt like the natural next step. On Wednesday and Thursday, we worked through what democratic means, sketched the parts of Athens’s government, and began examining primary sources. Those activities gave students a foundation for considering the question that would guide our next few lessons: Was Ancient Athens truly democratic?
Monday: How Different Were Athens and Sparta?
After exploring Greek city-states and their governments, we turned our attention to Athens and Sparta. Both were Greek city-states, but daily life looked different depending on which one you called home.
Fast & Curious and Map & Tell
We started with Fast & Curious on Gimkit, followed by a Map & Tell to locate Athens and Sparta. Students used the map to predict which city-state relied more on sea trade and which relied more on farming. This brought us back to our earlier work with geography and how location could shape the way people lived.
CyberSandwich: Two Readings, One Comparison
Then we moved into CyberSandwich. I handed out two different readings, with one partner reading about Athens and the other reading about Sparta. Students read and took notes on their assigned city-state, looking at geography, government, education, and social life.
Partners then compared their notes. Each student brought different information to the conversation, so they needed to share what they had learned while gathering information about the other city-state. The categories helped organize that discussion and gave them specific points to compare.
Writing About Both City-States
From there, students wrote a summary using a compare-and-contrast text structure. Their notes and partner conversations gave them information about both places. Now they needed to organize those details into an explanation of how Athens and Sparta were alike and different.
I like giving the partner discussion a clear purpose. Students needed information from each other to complete the writing, and the comparison gave them a reason to look closely at both readings.
Tuesday: Putting the Details to Work
Monday gave students a foundation for comparing Athens and Sparta. On Tuesday, we returned to that information and asked students to apply it, first through scenarios and then through writing from different perspectives.
Fast & Curious and City-State Scenarios
We started with another round of Fast & Curious on Gimkit. Then, I used ChatGPT to create scenarios about life in each city-state. Students had to decide whether each scenario applied to Athens or Sparta and explain their reasoning.
The explanation mattered here. Students needed to connect details in the scenario to something they had learned about the city-state. That gave us another opportunity to revisit the differences in education, government, geography, and daily life.
3xPOV: A Day in the Life
We finished with a 3xPOV: a day in the life of an Athenian, a Spartan, and themselves. Students used details from their learning to describe life from each perspective.
Including themselves gave students a familiar point of comparison. They could consider their own schooling and daily routines alongside what they had learned about Athens and Sparta.
Across the two days, students kept working with the same information in different ways. They located the city-states, read about one, learned about the other from a partner, and wrote a comparison. The scenarios and 3xPOV then asked them to use those details to explain where a situation belonged and how someone’s daily life could change depending on where they lived.
Wednesday: Was Ancient Athens Truly Democratic?
After comparing Athens and Sparta, exploring Athenian democracy felt like the natural next step. I found a lesson from the Digital Inquiry Group (DIG) and drew some inspiration from Drew Skeeler. The question that would guide our next few days was: Was Ancient Athens truly democratic?
Before students could answer that, we needed to spend some time with the word democratic and learn more about how Athens’s government worked.
Fast & Curious and a Frayer
We started with Fast & Curious on Gimkit to build background knowledge about Athens and introduce vocabulary. Then, we “Frayered” the word democratic.
Students read a brief passage and used it to create a definition, identify examples and non-examples, and predict what a true democracy would look like. That last part gave us something to return to as we examined Athens. What would students expect to see in a democratic government, and how would Athens compare?
Building a Visual
Next, I showed a TED-Ed video about Athenian democracy. I wanted students to begin building a picture of the Assembly, the Council of 500, and the courts before we took a closer look at each one.
The Frayer gave us a starting point for thinking about democracy, and the video introduced the structures we would work with on Thursday.
Thursday: How Did Athenian Democracy Work?
On Thursday, we picked up with the parts of Athenian government students had seen in the video. Now they would read about each one and make decisions about how to represent it.
Sketch & Tell-O: What They Did and How They Were Chosen
We started with a Sketch & Tell-O focused on the Assembly. Students read about it, sketched what it did, and added a caption. Underneath that, they sketched how citizens became part of the Assembly and captioned that drawing, too. I put three minutes on the timer for the round.
Then we repeated the process with the Council of 500 and the courts. Each round asked students to consider the same two things: what that part of government did and how citizens became involved.
I like separating those questions because knowing a group’s job only tells us part of how a government works. Looking at how people become part of that group brings us back to who has access to power.
Two Documents, Two Views of Democracy
We finished class by reading two documents: one from Pericles and one from Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution. Students highlighted details that stood out to them and used the documents to create a Thick Slide.
The slide asked for two facts from each document related to democracy, a quote that stood out, and a comparison of how the two documents portrayed Athenian democracy. Students had to choose details from both sources and consider how those details fit together.
Our question carried through both days. We started by considering what democratic means, looked at how Athens’s government operated, and then began examining documents. Each step gave students more information to work with as they considered whether Ancient Athens was truly democratic.
This week in 103, we built on our work with Greek geography to explore city-states and the governments that shaped them. Students moved from reading and discussing to whiteboards, writing, and gummy bear governments. MAP testing made the schedule a little unusual, but we kept connecting our learning around who held power and what it meant to be part of a Greek city-state.
Tuesday: What Makes a City-State More Than Just a City?
Tuesday picked up where we left off with Greek geography. Mountains and seas separated communities and helped lead to the growth of independent city-states. Now we needed to build on that with a question: What makes a city-state more than just a city?
Fast & Curious and a Frayer
We started with Fast & Curious on Gimkit to revisit previous learning, followed by a Frayer on citizen. This gave us a chance to look at both rights and responsibilities. Being a citizen meant belonging to a community, having a role in it, and being expected to contribute. We also looked at who had those political rights in Ancient Greece and who was left out.
CyberSandwich: Read and Take Notes
Then we moved into CyberSandwich. Students had 10 minutes to read and take notes, choosing five important facts that could help them answer our question. The reading went beyond the buildings and places within a polis to explore its government, laws, citizen-soldiers, and shared identity.
To the Boards: Choose the Top Three
For the partner discussion, students found whiteboard space, compared their notes, and ranked their top three facts before writing them on the board. I like giving that conversation a specific job. Partners had to decide which facts mattered most for answering the question and agree on what deserved a spot on their board.
Writing and a Battle Royale
From there, students used Scriblit to write their responses, and we ran a Battle Royale with their writing. The same question carried us through the lesson, from reading to partner discussion to writing. Each step gave students another opportunity to explain how a city-state functioned as an independent community and what held that community together.
Wednesday: Who Holds the Power?
Tuesday’s work on city-states gave us a place to start on Wednesday. Each polis had its own government, but those governments did not all operate the same way. We began with Fast & Curious on the four types we would be working with: democracy, oligarchy, tyranny, and monarchy.
Iron Chef on the Whiteboards
I handed out one of the four government readings to students, and they partnered up to create an Iron Chef whiteboard. Each pair had to explain who held power, how they gained it, how much influence ordinary citizens had, and one possible strength and weakness of that government. They also included a picture to represent it.
The secret ingredient was to explain how power worked in their government in exactly five words. That little constraint gave partners another decision to make. They had to choose words that captured the idea while staying within the limit.
Read the Room
Once the boards were ready, students received a Frayer divided into the four government types. They walked around the room, read each other’s boards, and recorded three important facts about each one. Partners had focused on one government for their Iron Chef, and the walk gave them a chance to learn about the other three.
The same ideas carried across all four: who gets to make decisions, how they get that power, and how much say everyone else has. Those questions would follow us into the next activity.
Thursday and Friday: Gummy Bear Governments
MAP testing made Thursday and Friday’s schedule a little weird, so we spread our next activity across both days. Students had read about the governments, created their boards, and gathered notes. Now I handed out gummy bears and asked them to show how each government worked.
Making Power Visible
Students arranged their gummy bears into scenes representing democracy, oligarchy, tyranny, and monarchy. They could use construction paper and props to help show who held power and how the other bears fit into the system.
This is where the differences mattered. Monarchy and tyranny both involve one ruler, so showing one bear in charge only tells part of the story. The scene and explanation needed to communicate how that ruler gained power. Democracy and oligarchy also needed to show a clear difference in who had a voice.
Explain the Scene
For each government, students were asked to include a photo, explain how the government worked, and identify one positive and one negative. They also explained what was happening in their gummy bear scene so the arrangement connected to the content.
I like this progression because students keep working with the same information in different ways. They read it, choose what matters, learn from each other’s boards, and then make decisions about how to represent it. The gummy bears give them something to build with, but the explanation is where they have to connect that construction to their understanding of government.
Most weeks, this space leans heavily into what is happening in 8th-grade American History. This week, I’m heading down a grade level to share what has been happening in 7th-grade World History.
In Ohio, 7th grade covers a lot of ground—from Ancient Greece to the First Global Age. Before jumping into all of that history, though, I wanted students to spend some time thinking about the kind of classroom we want to build together. Instead of handing them a list of expectations, we built our own.
Monday: From Sketches to Statements
We started with a Sketch and Tell-O. I asked students to visualize what they felt was most important in a classroom environment. They had four minutes to sketch their ideas, followed by a quick explanation. Then, each student narrowed everything they had drawn down to a single word.
They shared their words with a partner and began looking for common threads. What ideas kept showing up? What did people seem to value? What kind of classroom were they describing?
Next came an index-card version of a Thin Slide. On one side, students wrote three or four words they believed were essential to a successful classroom. On the back, they used those words to draft a personal classroom mission statement. I modeled one first, but many students had already written personal mission statements before, so the transition to a classroom mission came naturally.
Then came my favorite part.
Students entered their mission statements into Scriblit, and we held a battle royale. They read the statements, discussed them, and narrowed the field round by round until one remained at the top. I could have written a classroom mission statement myself and put it on the wall, but that would have missed the point. The discussion, debate, and collective ownership were what mattered.
We closed with a Frayer Model of the winning mission statement. Students considered what the mission should look like in four different relationships:
Student to student
Teacher to student
Student to teacher
Student to classroom
By the end of class, the words were theirs. The mission was theirs. Most importantly, the expectations were theirs.
Tuesday and Wednesday: Building Better Paraphrasers
Tuesday and Wednesday were connected by one goal. I wanted students to practice taking information, putting it into their own words, and recognizing what makes a strong summary.
Cyber Sandwich: Ancient Greek Olympians
On Tuesday, I introduced students to the process of a Cyber Sandwich. We used a half-page article about athletes in the ancient Greek Olympics. It explained how hard the athletes trained, how winners were celebrated, and how their prize was a wreath made from leaves.
Since this was our first Cyber Sandwich, the focus was more on learning the process than mastering the content. Students had 10 minutes to read and take notes. Then, they had five minutes to compare and discuss their notes with a partner. Finally, they used their notes and conversation to write a summary.
Battle Royale: The Strongest Summary
Students entered their summaries into Scriblit, and we finished with a battle royale. They read the different summaries and voted round by round until one was left. This gave students a chance to see what other people wrote and think about what made one summary stronger than another.
Parafly: Weird Facts Edition
On Wednesday, we focused entirely on practicing Parafly, but I added a small twist. I used ChatGPT to generate weird facts that were one, two, or three sentences long. I copied the facts into Socrative, and students had one or two minutes to paraphrase each one.
ChatGPT Feedback
After each round, I copied all the anonymous student responses into ChatGPT along with the original fact. I asked ChatGPT to choose the strongest paraphrase and explain why it was effective. Students immediately saw a strong example and heard feedback they could use during the next round. Then, we tried it again with a new fact.
Hi-Chews and Cheesy Bracelets
Of course, we needed prizes. Each winner could choose a Hi-Chew or a cheesy bracelet. The prizes were small and a little ridiculous, but the practice was real. Students paraphrased, looked at a strong example, received immediate feedback, and tried again. Each round gave them another chance to improve.
Thursday: How Did Geography Shape Ancient Greece?
On Thursday, we officially started our Ancient Greece unit. Our compelling question for the unit is: How does Ancient Greece still impact our world today? Before students can answer that question, they need to understand the land where Greek civilization developed. Our supporting question for the day was: How did geography shape life in Ancient Greece?
Fast and Curious: Greek Geography
We started with a Fast and Curious using Gimkit. Students had four to five minutes to answer 30 questions correctly. This gave students an early introduction to the vocabulary and ideas they would encounter throughout the lesson. They did not need to know everything yet. This was simply their first exposure.
Frayer: Peninsula and City-State
Next, students completed Frayer Models for peninsula and city-state. For peninsula, students paraphrased the definition, identified two examples, and created an image. For city-state, they created their own definition, paraphrased the provided definition, identified two examples, and added an image. This took about 10 minutes and gave students the vocabulary they needed to understand the reading that came next.
Parafly: Mountains and Seas
Students then completed a six-minute Parafly about the geography of Ancient Greece. The first paragraph explained how mountains made travel difficult, separated communities, and contributed to the development of independent city-states.
The second paragraph explained how the seas connected the Greeks through travel and trade. Sea trade was especially important because Greece lacked resources such as timber, precious metals, and good farmland.
Students paraphrased each paragraph and then wrote a three-sentence summary answering this question: How did Greece’s geography both separate and connect the ancient Greeks?
Map and Tell: Finding the Evidence
We finished with a Map and Tell. Students studied a map of Ancient Greece and found two pieces of evidence that supported what they had learned during the Parafly.
For each piece of evidence, they completed this statement:
I notice __________. This supports the idea that __________ because __________.
This final step pushed students beyond simply identifying mountains, islands, or bodies of water on a map. They had to connect what they could see on the map to what they had just read and paraphrased.
The lesson moved from vocabulary, to reading, to paraphrasing, and finally to applying the information to a map. Each activity prepared students for the next one while keeping the focus on a single question: How did geography shape life in Ancient Greece?
Friday: Seeing Geography Through Different Perspectives
Friday was about taking what students learned on Thursday and doing something with it. We stayed with the same supporting question: How did geography shape life in Ancient Greece?
Fast and Curious: One More Round
We started with another round of the Greek geography Gimkit. Students had already seen the vocabulary and basic ideas on Thursday, so this gave them another chance to build their background knowledge and improve their scores.
Reading: Geography Shapes Greek Life
Next, students read Geography Shapes Greek Life. The reading added more detail about how the mountains, seas, islands, and limited farmland affected where Greeks lived, how they traveled, and how they made a living.
Sketch and Tell-O: Four Effects of Geography
After reading, students completed a Sketch and Tell-O on paper. For the sketch, they showed four ways geography shaped life in Ancient Greece. For the tell, they wrote at least four sentences explaining how those parts of Greece’s geography affected the ancient Greeks. This gave students a chance to process the same information in two ways. First, they had to visualize it. Then, they had to explain it in writing.
3xPOV: Life in Ancient Greece
We finished with a 3xPOV. Students used what they learned from the reading to imagine how three different people might have experienced life in Ancient Greece. First, they wrote from the perspective of a Greek farmer. They considered what the farmer could grow, the challenges the land created, and the choices a farming family might have to make. Next, they became a Greek merchant. They thought about where the merchant would travel, how they would get there, and which resources they might need to trade for. Finally, they wrote from the perspective of someone who was extremely loyal to their city-state. They explained how Greece’s geography might have shaped that person’s community, daily life, and connection to other Greeks.
The 3xPOV moved students beyond listing geographic features. They had to think about how the same mountains, seas, and limited farmland could affect people differently depending on how they lived. Students turned in both their Sketch and Tell-O and their 3xPOV at the end of class. It was a solid way to close our first look at Ancient Greece and move from simply learning the geography to understanding how people experienced it.
A new year begins. This week was a lot of reflecting on some new practices I wanted to implement in my classroom. One of those practices was a new approach to classroom rules and procedures. Oftentimes, teachers talk about preparing students for the “real world.” We say things like we are teaching students a life lesson by not giving them a pencil or helping them when they forget something. I don’t know. That rarely works. Sorry.
Instead, I started thinking about my own life and what the “real world” actually looks like. I have a lot of different roles in my life. I’m a dad, husband, teacher, coach, and a bunch of other things. I have routines that help me get through my day. I have rights and I have responsibilities. The more I thought about these things, the more I realized they naturally belong in a classroom too. The result was four things: roles, routines, rights, and responsibilities.
I literally wrote each word on a piece of paper and taped them up in my classroom. Under roles, students are learners, leaders, teachers, writers, thinkers, listeners, mistake makers, and more. We also have our learning routines. For us, those routines are EduProtocols. The content will constantly change throughout the year, but students will become familiar with how we learn.
Students also have rights in my classroom. They have the right to learn, the right to feel safe, the right to make mistakes, and the right to ask questions. With those rights come responsibilities. Students have a responsibility to manage themselves and their space, manage their Chromebook, show up on time, listen while others are speaking, and contribute to the learning of others. None of these things are groundbreaking, but I like how they naturally connect back to how I structure my classroom with EduProtocols and learning.
Wednesday
The Marker Game
For the first day of school, I stole a Dominic Helmstetter classic. I wanted to begin class with a Fast and Curious, but we didn’t have working Chromebooks yet. Instead, Fast and Curious became the Marker Game. The Marker Game is pretty simple. Students partner up, face their desks toward each other, and stand a dry erase marker between them. I read a statement about myself or the classroom that is either true or false. If students think the statement is true, they try to grab the marker before their partner. If they think it’s false, they don’t touch it.
It’s fun, active, loud, and there were a lot of laughs. It was also an easy way for students to learn some things about me and the classroom.
The 90s Thin Slide
Next, we moved into a Thin Slide, except we didn’t use a slide. Students used an index card. I used AI to create some pictures of myself in the 90s doing things that either don’t really exist anymore or might seem completely strange to kids today. I showed students the pictures and gave them three minutes to synthesize what they thought life was like in the 90s. Just like a Thin Slide, they could use one picture and one word.
I got words like “weird,” “slow,” “colorful,” and a bunch of others.
Sketch and Tell-O: Your Generation
From there, we went into a Sketch and Tell-O. I gave students a scenario: The year is 2056 and a historian is studying your generation. What four things would they think were weird? Students had to draw and label four things that they thought would stand out to someone studying their lives 30 years from now.
When they finished drawing, they discussed their ideas with a partner for one minute and then spent three minutes writing about their choices.
Overall, it was a solid first day. The students got to know a little about me, I got to see a little of their personalities, and we were able to get some early reps with learning routines we will use throughout the year. We didn’t spend the entire class going through a syllabus or talking about rules. Instead, the students were doing some of the things I want them doing all year. They looked at information, made some decisions, created something, talked to each other, and wrote.
Thursday
What Should Learning Look and Sound Like?
On Thursday, we began class with a Frayer. Instead of using the Frayer for content, I wanted students to think about what learning should actually look and sound like in our classroom. I divided the Frayer into four different situations: independent work, partner work, group work, and whole class work. Students had to describe what each should look like and sound like.
This was a good way to get students to see that there is more than just content to learn in class. There is also more than just me, the teacher, that makes a classroom work. We all have to work together to learn.
This also gave me a chance to connect back to the roles, routines, rights, and responsibilities I introduced earlier. Students have a role in their own learning, but they also have a role in helping others learn. There are going to be times this year when we work independently, with a partner, in a group, or as an entire class. Each of those situations looks and sounds a little different. If we understand our roles and responsibilities, I shouldn’t have to constantly tell students what they should be doing.
Hexagonal Thinking
Next, we transitioned into Hexagonal Thinking. I gave every student a hexagon divided into six sections and had them fill it with information about themselves. Once everyone finished their individual hexagon, the challenge became figuring out how everyone in the class connected.
Students had to find connections between their hexagons and tape them together within a confined space. The confined space added a little design thinking element because they couldn’t just spread the hexagons all over the floor. They had to think about where things went, make connections, move things around, and most importantly, talk to each other.
For this part, I sat back and watched. The students ran it. They had until the end of class to figure out how to connect everyone and fit all of the hexagons into the space. There were discussions, disagreements, moving hexagons around, finding new connections, and students trying to figure out where everyone belonged. I didn’t need to jump in and solve it for them.
They did awesome.
What I liked most about the lesson was that it went right back to what we had discussed earlier in the Frayer. The classroom doesn’t work because the teacher tells everyone what to do. Students have roles and responsibilities too. They had to listen to each other, communicate, solve a problem, and help the class accomplish something together. We weren’t really learning social studies content yet, but we were learning how our classroom is going to work.
Friday
Friday Check-In
On Friday, I started class by sharing a Google Form with a Friday check-in. The form had a combination of questions about engagement, including things like what types of lessons have engaged you in the past, along with some other questions that will hopefully help me become a better teacher for these students. I have never taught most of these kids before, so instead of assuming I know what works for them, I figured I should probably ask.
I also added one question that confused a lot of the students:
“Write about a snowman.”
That’s it. Write about a snowman.
Students thought it was a weird question, and I got all kinds of responses. Here are two examples:
They are made of snow, tall, have a carrot nose, sticks as arms, buttons, and are cold.
A snowman was lost in the woods. He had been lost for years and years and couldn’t find his way out of the thick forest, until he met another snowman. The other snowman led him out of the forest so he wouldn’t be so lost anymore.
Same directions. Two completely different ways of thinking.
You will have sensing students who tend to be more concrete and to the point. Then you have intuitive students whose minds may immediately go somewhere more creative. Neither student ignored the directions. Neither response was wrong. They just approached the exact same prompt differently.
I think that’s important to remember. The next time you start to feel like students aren’t listening to directions, or you find yourself saying, “I told them three times,” remember that perhaps they are listening. Their mind may just go somewhere different first. We all think differently. That’s why I asked students to write about a snowman.
Sketch and Tell-O the Syllabus
After the check-in, I finally handed out my syllabus. Instead of reading through the entire thing to the students, I paired it with a Sketch and Tell-O. Students read the syllabus and had to sketch and label four things that stood out to them or they thought were the most important.
When they finished, they discussed their choices with a partner for two minutes and then spent another two minutes writing about why they chose those things.
Once they finished, I spent around 5-10 minutes going over a few of the things from the syllabus that I actually needed to explain, including the grading system and a few other important pieces. I didn’t need to read every word to them. They had already read it, decided what they thought was important, discussed it, and wrote about it. I could fill in the gaps.
FlipSwitch
Time permitting, we finished class with a Mark Wallace special, FlipSwitch. FlipSwitch starts with a problem. From there, students identify the desired outcome using an action verb. I like this because oftentimes we know what we want the outcome to be, but we don’t think about what we actually need to do to get there. If we don’t figure out that first action, the problem usually doesn’t get solved.
The next part of FlipSwitch is identifying a next step, again using an action verb. Students can then sketch, write, or even add a GIF showing what solving and not solving the problem would look like.
For our first rep, I gave students a pretty common classroom problem: My Chromebook is dead.
Now what?
The students had to determine the desired outcome and, more importantly, what action they could actually take to begin solving the problem. We had some great conversations and some funny conversations, but underneath all of it students were practicing how to actually respond when a problem comes up instead of just sitting there with the problem.
I really like FlipSwitch for executive functioning skills, and I think there are a lot of places I could take it this year. It could be something we use when common classroom problems come up, but I could also see using it within social studies content. Problems happen. We usually know what we want to happen instead. The hard part is figuring out what we are actually going to do next.
Another year is in the books, and I found myself reflecting back on this school year and thinking about the patterns that kept showing up throughout Room 103. Some lessons fade immediately, while others still stick in your head because you remember the conversations students had, the moments where they struggled through an idea, or the days where the room just felt different.
The classroom slowly became more collaborative, more discussion-driven, and more focused on students making sense of ideas instead of just collecting information. Students spent more time talking through evidence, defending claims, revising thinking, and trying to organize complicated ideas together.
At the same time, reflecting on the year also made me realize there are still some things I need to improve moving forward. Some parts of this year worked really well. Other parts showed me where I still need to grow.
Building Thinking Classrooms Changed the Culture of the Room
If there was one thing that probably shaped Room 103 more than anything else this year, it was Building Thinking Classrooms.
The whiteboards completely changed the feel of the classroom. Students were constantly moving, discussing, comparing ideas, revising answers, and building thinking together. The room stopped feeling like a place where students waited for me to confirm whether something was right or wrong. Instead, students started looking at each other’s ideas and trying to figure things out collaboratively.
That shift showed up all year long. It happened during abolitionist comparisons when students debated who had the greatest impact and defended their reasoning with evidence. It happened during Number Mania activities where students used data and statistics to support bigger historical claims. It happened during hexagonal thinking when students argued over which events or ideas represented the biggest tests of the Constitution.
The biggest thing BTC did was make thinking public. Students could physically see ideas developing around the room. They could compare their reasoning with other groups, borrow evidence, challenge each other’s thinking, and refine their own ideas in real time. The conversations became better because students were surrounded by thinking instead of isolated from it.
I also think BTC naturally changed assessment. The classroom became less about quietly completing work and more about defending ideas publicly. Students had to explain themselves. They had to justify connections. They had to support arguments. Those are the kinds of skills that feel more important now than simply memorizing information for a test.
Ignite Talks and Snorkl Changed How I Think About Assessment
One of the biggest instructional shifts for me this year was thinking differently about assessment, especially in a world where AI can generate answers instantly.
The Ignite Talk over the Constitution and early republic unit really reinforced this for me. Students had to organize ideas, explain historical concepts verbally, connect evidence to claims, and communicate their understanding out loud. AI could support preparation and revision, but it could not do the actual thinking for them.
What I liked about using Snorkl alongside writing and discussion activities was how immediate the feedback became. Students no longer had to wait days to find out whether their reasoning made sense. They could revise while the learning was still fresh.
The goal was never to make work easier with AI. The goal was to make feedback faster and revision more meaningful. Students still had to defend ideas, explain evidence, and make sense of historical concepts themselves.
One of my favorite moments all year came during the Cincinnati inquiry when several students asked me to open a Snorkl because they wanted additional feedback on their writing and analysis. That stuck with me because students usually do not ask for more feedback unless they actually care about improving the work.
This year reinforced something I keep thinking about more and more. Assessment cannot just be about recall anymore. Students need opportunities to explain ideas, revise reasoning, communicate verbally, collaborate, and build arguments using evidence. Those skills are much harder to fake, and they also happen to matter far more outside of school.
The Cincinnati Inquiry Unit Became the Strongest Unit of the Year
Out of everything we did this year, the Cincinnati inquiry unit probably became the most meaningful.
Part of that was because it was local history. Students recognized roads, places, and landmarks they had actually seen before. History stopped feeling like something that only happened somewhere else. But the bigger reason the unit worked was because students had to wrestle with contradiction the entire time.
The compelling question asked: “How was Cincinnati a city caught between two worlds before the Civil War?”
That question carried the entire unit because there was never a clean or simple answer. Students explored how Cincinnati represented freedom for some people while still being deeply tied to racism, violence, and systems connected to slavery. They examined the Ohio River as both a symbol of hope and a very real dividing line between free and slave states. They studied Porkopolis, economic growth, abolitionists, anti-abolitionists, and the Cincinnati riots while constantly revisiting the idea that free did not automatically mean equal.
The unit also slowed students down intellectually in a way I really liked. Instead of racing through content, students spent time analyzing evidence, comparing perspectives, discussing tensions, revising ideas, and building understanding piece by piece. The one-pager summative assessments ended up being some of the best work students produced all year because students were not simply repeating information back to me. They were organizing meaning visually and verbally while trying to explain the contradictions within the city itself.
That unit reminded me that inquiry works best when students are trying to make sense of something complicated instead of hunting for a single correct answer.
What I Need to Improve Next Year
As much as I liked many parts of this year, reflecting back also made several things stand out that I need to improve moving forward.
The first is pacing.
Throughout the year, I constantly found myself fighting against time. Shortened classes. Assemblies. Constant schedule changes. Chromebook sign-ins taking forever. Transitions getting interrupted. Some days it felt like half the battle was simply getting everybody logged in and ready to go before losing another chunk of class time.
At the same time, if I am being real about it, I also wish I could have stacked even more EduProtocols together throughout the year. I like tempo in the classroom. I like momentum. I like students constantly shifting between reading, discussing, writing, analyzing, creating, and reflecting while staying connected to the same larger idea or question. Some of my favorite lessons this year were the ones where students moved through multiple structures within the same class period because the energy stayed high and the thinking kept evolving.
That balance is something I am still trying to figure out.
I do not think the answer is slowing everything down completely. I think the answer is being more intentional with where students need time to process and where the lesson benefits from keeping the pace moving. Some moments need discussion and reflection. Other moments benefit from quick transitions, fast reps, and momentum.
Next year, I want to get better at finding that balance between tempo and processing time. I still want the classroom to feel active and layered, but I also want students having enough time to wrestle with ideas instead of feeling like we always have to move to the next thing.
The second thing I need to improve is being more intentional with how I introduce EduProtocols throughout the year.
This year, students eventually became very comfortable with structures like Thick Slides, Thin Slides, Number Mania, CyberSandwich, Frayer Models, Hexagonal Thinking, and 2xCER. By the second half of the year, students understood the expectations, transitions became smoother, and the protocols started disappearing into the thinking itself instead of becoming the focus of the lesson.
But looking back, I think I could do a much better job intentionally sequencing and introducing those structures from the very beginning of the year.
At times, I introduced protocols because they fit the lesson instead of thinking long term about how they connected together across the entire school year. Next year, I want a clearer progression. I want students building confidence with certain structures early so more complicated thinking routines later in the year feel natural instead of brand new.
I also want students understanding why we are using the structures, not just how to complete them. The goal has never been to do EduProtocols just to say we used an EduProtocol. The goal is helping students organize thinking, communicate ideas, collaborate effectively, and reduce cognitive overload so they can focus on the actual learning.
When I look back at Room 103 this year, the best moments were almost never the moments where students were simply getting the right answer. The best moments were when students argued, revised, questioned, connected ideas, defended claims, and struggled through complicated thinking together.
This week looked a little different. Between interruptions, schedule changes, and all the end-of-year randomness that comes with May, this was not a clean “day-by-day” kind of week. Instead of forcing content forward, we slowed down and focused on a few things that deserved more time. One of the biggest was wrapping up our Cincinnati inquiry unit.
Cincinnati: Caught Between Two Worlds
Our essential question throughout the unit was: “How was Cincinnati a city caught between two worlds before the Civil War?”
Students learned about the Ohio River and how it symbolically divided free and slave states, but we also talked about the reality of the river itself. Before modern dams and river systems, the Ohio River was not always deep or difficult to cross. At certain times of the year, parts of it could be only one to three feet deep or frozen over completely. That small detail changed how many students viewed escape, movement, and the idea of freedom itself.
We also explored why pigs are everywhere in Cincinnati and why the city became known as Porkopolis. Students connected the river to trade, transportation, and economic growth. Cincinnati was booming because of its location, but students also began to realize how connected the city still was to the South economically and culturally.
That contradiction became the center of the inquiry. A free state did not mean free from racism, discrimination, or violence. Students examined the Cincinnati riots of 1829, 1836, and 1841 and discussed what those events revealed about the city. Many students walked into the unit assuming “North = good” and “South = bad.” Local history complicated that thinking in important ways.
Ending the Unit with One-Pagers
To finish the inquiry, students created one-pagers that visually explained the tensions and contradictions of Cincinnati before the Civil War. The structure of the assignment asked students to break the inquiry into sections:
Why Cincinnati became important before the Civil War
How Cincinnatians were divided over slavery
What the riots revealed about the city
Why Cincinnati was “caught between two worlds”
One of my favorite parts was the contradiction statements: “Cincinnati was ____________, but also ____________.”
Those statements forced students to move beyond simple answers. Cincinnati was a free city, but also deeply discriminatory. It was economically successful, but also divided. It was connected to freedom seekers, but also connected to pro-slavery beliefs and racial violence.
The one-pagers also gave students room to show understanding in different ways. Some students leaned heavily into symbolism with rivers, chains, bridges, and divided maps. Others focused more on evidence and written explanations. A few created visuals that connected Porkopolis, the Ohio River, and the riots all together on the same page.
That is the kind of work I want students doing at the end of a unit. Not just repeating information, but organizing ideas, wrestling with contradictions, and building meaning from evidence.
Turning Coloring Pages Into History
The other thing we did this week was much lighter. My 8th graders are graduating soon. At this point in the year, they still need structure and purpose, but they also need room to breathe a little. I wanted something creative, low stress, and genuinely fun. So I went down a rabbit hole.
I found coloring pages on Crayola’s website, used ChatGPT along with old pictures of myself, and made a collection of weirdly specific coloring pages connected to our class. Then students had to transform the coloring page into a historical scene or moment. That was it. Add at least five historical details or symbols and explain what you added.
Some students turned Bluey into historical figures. Others added scenes from westward expansion, the American Revolution, or industrialization. One student turned a coloring page into a tea protest scene complete with taxation references and a burning building. Another added a Mississippi River reference into a western expansion design. One student even turned me into a coloring page.
And honestly, it ended up being one of those assignments where students quietly worked longer than expected because they were invested in it.
There was something fun about watching middle schoolers take a simple coloring page and turn it into something historical, creative, and weirdly thoughtful. Some were funny. Some were surprisingly detailed. A few looked like absolute chaos in the best way possible.
Sometimes the timing of a unit matters just as much as the content itself.
As the school year winds down, it can be tempting to rush through major topics just to “cover” them before summer. I’ve never believed in that approach. I refuse to sprint through the causes of the Civil War just so I can say I taught it. Especially when I know I’ll have these same students again next year and can teach it the right way with the depth and time it deserves.
Instead, this became the perfect opportunity to slow down and teach something meaningful: local history.
This week in Room 103, we launched a brand new inquiry unit centered around the compelling question: “How was Cincinnati a city caught between two worlds before the Civil War?”
The unit built directly off our previous learning about slavery and abolition, but shifted the focus toward our own city. Too often, students learn history as something distant that happened somewhere else to someone else. I wanted students to understand that Cincinnati was deeply connected to the tensions surrounding slavery, freedom, economics, racism, and division before the Civil War.
I also wanted students to wrestle with an important truth that sometimes gets lost in simplified historical narratives: crossing the Ohio River did not automatically mean freedom in the way many people imagine it today.
Yes, the Ohio River represented hope. It represented possibility. But freedom from slavery did not mean freedom from racism, discrimination, segregation, or violence. Cincinnati had Black Laws designed to oppress African Americans. Slave catchers still roamed the riverbanks. Racial tensions exploded into riots in 1829, 1836, and 1841. The city itself was divided economically, politically, and morally over slavery.
That complexity became the heart of the unit. Instead of teaching Cincinnati as a simple “free city,” students explored the idea that it was a place caught between North and South, freedom and oppression, growth and division.
The entire unit was designed using an Inquiry Design Model structure with supporting questions that built toward that bigger understanding. We ended up focusing on Supporting Questions 1, 2, and 4 this week. I ultimately removed Supporting Question 3 because it started feeling repetitive once the inquiry evolved.
I also revised Supporting Question 2 to better fit the direction of the unit: “How were Cincinnatians divided over slavery?” Students needed to see that the conflict wasn’t just happening nationally. It was happening in neighborhoods, newspapers, businesses, churches, and homes right here in Cincinnati.
One thing I really liked about this week was how naturally local history increased engagement. Students recognized street names. They recognized locations. They recognized connections to places they’ve driven past their entire lives.
The inquiry structure also helped slow students down intellectually. Instead of memorizing disconnected facts, they spent the week analyzing evidence, discussing competing viewpoints, interpreting numbers, comparing perspectives, and building arguments about their own city.
Staging the Question
Number Mania: Cincinnati on the Rise
To begin the unit, we staged the question with a Number Mania paired with a Short Answer Battle Royale. The goal was to immediately establish Cincinnati as a growing and increasingly important city before the Civil War. I wanted students to see Cincinnati not just as a dot on a map, but as a rapidly expanding river city connected to trade, migration, movement, and opportunity because of its location along the Ohio River.
Students analyzed a Number Mania infographic built around the question: “What evidence shows Cincinnati was growing into an important city before the Civil War?”
The infographic included population growth, trade statistics, immigration numbers, housing growth, and other data tied to Cincinnati’s early development. Instead of simply reading about the city’s growth, students had to interpret the numbers and determine what they revealed about Cincinnati’s rise shortly after its founding.
Short Answer Battle Royale
After analyzing the infographic, students moved into Short Answer where they explained how the numbers proved Cincinnati was becoming an important city. Students attached screenshots of their Number Mania directly into their responses so the evidence and explanation were connected together.
One thing I liked about this lesson was that it naturally pushed students beyond just identifying numbers. They had to explain significance. A large population number by itself means nothing unless students can connect it to trade, opportunity, immigration, industry, or geographic importance. To wrap up the activity, we ran a Battle Royale focused on one simple goal: the clearest explanation of the content.
Students compared responses, evaluated clarity, and saw examples of strong historical reasoning from their classmates. It turned what could have been a basic writing response into something far more engaging and discussion-driven.
Student Ownership and Feedback
One thing that stood out to me was that several students actually requested that I set up a Snorkl afterward so they could get feedback on both their Number Mania analysis and their writing. That was a cool moment because it showed students were invested enough in the task that they wanted additional feedback and revision opportunities instead of simply turning something in and moving on. It also reinforced something I’ve talked about a lot this year: when students care about the work, feedback becomes valuable instead of feeling like punishment.
Building the Foundation for the Inquiry
More importantly, the lesson helped establish one of the major ideas for the entire inquiry unit: Cincinnati’s location and growth made it incredibly important before the Civil War, but that same growth also intensified many of the tensions that would divide the city.
Supporting Question #1
What Made Cincinnati an Important City Before the Civil War?
After staging the question with Number Mania, students moved into Supporting Question #1 where they began digging deeper into why Cincinnati became such an important city before the Civil War.
Students worked through a series of sources connected to trade, the Ohio River, Porkopolis, transportation, and Cincinnati’s economic growth.
One thing I wanted students to understand was that Cincinnati’s growth was not random. Geography mattered. The Ohio River mattered. Trade mattered. The city’s location connected it to both the North and the South, which helped Cincinnati grow rapidly into a major economic center.
At the same time, students also began seeing the complicated reality underneath that growth. Cincinnati benefited economically from trade connected to slavery even while existing in a free state. That idea became one of the foundational understandings for the rest of the inquiry unit.
Working Through the Sources
Students answered questions connected to each source before bringing all of their thinking together into a Thick Slide. I’ve found that this process helps students organize their thinking before asking them to synthesize larger ideas. The sources themselves also helped challenge some misconceptions students had about Cincinnati and the Ohio River.
One source focused on Porkopolis and how Cincinnati’s pork industry exploded because of Southern trade and plantation economies. Another examined the Ohio River itself and how different it looked before dams were built. Students were shocked to learn that the river was not always the giant barrier they imagine today and that, during dry periods, some areas became shallow enough to carefully cross on foot.
Too often, students hear simplified Underground Railroad stories that make the crossing sound like an automatic path to freedom. I wanted them to understand the danger, uncertainty, and complexity involved. Crossing the river mattered, but it did not magically erase racism, discrimination, or danger.
Thick Slides as Learning Artifacts
Once students worked through the sources and questions, they summarized their learning using a Thick Slide template.
Students created titles, identified five important facts, added visuals, wrote a summary explaining why Cincinnati was important before the Civil War, and finished with a three word summary that captured the overall idea of the lesson.
I want students leaving each supporting question with something meaningful they can revisit later during the summative assessment. Instead of isolated worksheets or notes that disappear into folders, students are building a collection of evidence and thinking throughout the inquiry.
By the end of the unit, students won’t just have “completed activities.” They’ll have artifacts showing how their understanding evolved across the inquiry itself.
Supporting Question #2
How Were Cincinnatians Divided Over Slavery Before the Civil War?
For Supporting Question #2, students shifted from studying Cincinnati’s growth to studying Cincinnati’s divisions. This part of the inquiry focused on a question that became more and more important as students moved through the sources: “How were Cincinnatians divided over slavery before the Civil War?”
To explore this question, students examined four very different Cincinnati voices and perspectives connected to slavery and abolition. Students analyzed Harriet Beecher Stowe and how her experiences living in Cincinnati helped shape Uncle Tom’s Cabin and spread anti-slavery ideas across the North. They examined Salmon P. Chase and how he defended freedom seekers and challenged slavery in court while living in Cincinnati. Students also studied Charles McMicken and how some wealthy Cincinnati businessmen benefited from systems connected to slavery even while living in a free state.
Finally, students analyzed an article from the Cincinnati Post and Anti-Abolitionist newspaper that argued abolitionists were creating division and threatening the future of the country. I thought this lesson really helped students understand that Cincinnati was not unified in its thinking about slavery. Some people actively fought against slavery. Others economically benefited from it. Others feared abolitionists would destroy the Union itself.
Too often students want history to fit into clear “good side vs. bad side” categories. This lesson forced students to wrestle with the uncomfortable reality that people living in the same city could view slavery in completely different ways.
Thick Slides and Consistency Across the Inquiry
To keep consistency across the inquiry unit, students once again created Thick Slides as their learning artifact for the supporting question. Students summarized four different views over slavery in Cincinnati, added visuals, wrote explanations about why Cincinnatians were divided, and created a three word summary capturing the overall tension within the city.
I’ve found that keeping a consistent structure across the inquiry helps students focus more on the thinking and less on figuring out a brand new activity every day. The consistency also allows students to clearly see how each supporting question connects back to the larger compelling question. By this point in the unit, students were beginning to recognize a major theme: Cincinnati was economically, politically, and morally caught between North and South.
Short Answer Battle Royale
We finished class with another Short Answer Battle Royale where students used evidence from their Thick Slides to answer the supporting question. What I liked about this part was that students already had organized evidence directly in front of them from the learning artifact they created. Instead of scrambling to remember information, students could focus on constructing stronger explanations and arguments.
The discussions were also stronger because students had analyzed multiple perspectives beforehand. They weren’t just repeating one side. They were comparing viewpoints, weighing evidence, and trying to explain why divisions existed in the first place. That’s the kind of historical thinking I want students doing at this point in the year.
Supporting Question #3
What Did the Cincinnati Riots Reveal About the City Before the Civil War?
For this supporting question, we used a CyberSandwich focused on the Cincinnati riots of 1829, 1836, and 1841.
Each student received a different article connected to one of the riots. Students individually read their assigned source, took notes, and prepared to teach their classmates about what happened during that specific riot.
The note taking focused on several major questions:
When did the riot take place? Who was involved? What happened during the riot? Why did the riot happen? How did leaders or the government respond? What did the riot reveal about Cincinnati?
The structure worked really well because students became responsible for becoming “experts” on their specific riot before collaborating with others.
Comparing the Riots
After students completed their notes, they worked together to compare all three riots using a Triple Venn Diagram. This led to some incredibly strong discussions. Students started noticing patterns across all three riots. Racism, economic competition, fear, discrimination, weak government responses, and violence appeared repeatedly. They also noticed that the riots evolved over time as tensions surrounding slavery and abolition grew stronger before the Civil War.
One of the most important understandings I wanted students to walk away with was this: Crossing the Ohio River did not mean escaping racism and discrimination. I think sometimes the Underground Railroad gets oversimplified into a happy ending story where freedom automatically meant equality and safety. The reality was much more complicated. African Americans in Cincinnati still faced discriminatory Black Laws, violent mobs, segregation, unequal protection under the law, and the constant threat of slave catchers and racial violence.
Short Answer Battle Royale
After the discussions and note taking, students moved back into Short Answer for another Battle Royale.
Students answered the question: “What did the Cincinnati riots reveal about the city before the Civil War?” I liked ending the lesson this way because students had to synthesize information across all three riots rather than simply summarizing one event. They had to identify larger patterns and explain what the riots revealed about Cincinnati as a whole.
The discussions during the Battle Royale were some of the strongest conversations of the week because students were no longer just talking about isolated events. They were talking about contradictions within the city itself. Cincinnati was free from slavery by law, but not free from racism, discrimination, segregation, or violence.
Summative Assessment
Bringing the Inquiry Together
The summative assessment for this unit will take place next week. One thing I’ve learned over time is that inquiry units like this work best when students create something meaningful with their learning instead of simply taking a traditional test. When students spend days analyzing sources, discussing perspectives, comparing evidence, and building understanding, I want the final assessment to reflect that process.
For this unit, the best assessment options will most likely be either a one pager centered around the compelling question or some type of creative project that allows students to synthesize their learning.
The compelling question students will answer is: “How was Cincinnati a city caught between two worlds before the Civil War?” What I like about this question is that there is no simple answer. Students have to wrestle with contradictions throughout the unit.
Cincinnati was a free city, yet deeply connected to slavery through trade and economics. The Ohio River represented freedom, yet crossing it did not guarantee safety or equality. Some Cincinnatians fought against slavery, while others defended systems connected to it. The city grew rapidly and became economically successful, yet racial tensions repeatedly exploded into violence.
Throughout the inquiry, students have been building learning artifacts tied to each supporting question. Instead of relying on memorization, students now have a collection of evidence, visuals, writing, notes, and summaries they can pull from when constructing their final product.
I think that’s one of the strengths of inquiry based learning. Students are not just “doing activities.” They are building understanding piece by piece over time.
I’m less interested in students memorizing every detail about Cincinnati before the Civil War and more interested in whether they can explain the larger tensions, contradictions, and realities that shaped the city.
If students can walk away understanding that history is often messy, complicated, and deeply connected to the communities around them, then the unit accomplished what it was supposed to do.
This week in Room 103, we wrapped up a mini-unit centered around one driving question:
How did slavery shape the lives of people in different ways in the United States?
Throughout the week, students explored the impact of the cotton gin, analyzed primary sources from formerly enslaved people, examined the lives and methods of abolitionists, debated historical impact at the whiteboards, and finished the week by building CER responses using evidence gathered across the unit.
As I reflected on the week, I also found myself thinking a lot about my co-author and friend, Dr. Scott Petri. This week marked one year since his passing.
So much of what happened in Room 103 this week connects back to things Scott taught many of us about social studies instruction. He pushed teachers to move beyond lectures and memorization and create classrooms where students discuss, connect, create, compare, and think deeply about history.
Scott helped many of us see social studies through a literacy lens. He emphasized vocabulary, background knowledge, listening, scaffolds, and helping students make connections between ideas. A lot of the structures from this week reflect those ideas. Students worked with primary sources, built connections between concepts, collaborated at the whiteboards, created visual representations of learning, and revisited evidence from multiple lessons to support historical claims.
One year later, his influence is still showing up in classrooms everywhere. It definitely showed up in Room 103 this week.
Monday – The Cotton Gin
This week in Room 103, we kicked off a mini-unit on slavery with a question that sat at the center of everything we did:
How did slavery shape and impact different people within the United States?
Instead of starting with a giant lecture or pages of notes, we started with an invention. One machine. One idea. One decision that changed the course of the country forever.
The cotton gin.
What made this lesson powerful was that students quickly realized this was never really just about a machine. It was about consequences, innovation, economics, human suffering, expansion, profit, power, and perspective. The cotton gin became the entry point into all of it.
Archetype Four Square: Eli Whitney Beyond “Inventor”
We opened class with an Archetype Four Square over Eli Whitney.
I wanted students thinking beyond the simple “inventor who made life easier” narrative they often hear. Archetypes force students to evaluate people instead of simply memorizing facts. Students debated whether Whitney represented a visionary, a creator, a disruptor, or someone whose invention unintentionally caused harm on a massive scale.
What I like about archetype work is that it pushes students into gray areas. History is rarely clean and simple. Students had to support their thinking with evidence instead of just throwing out opinions.
Some students compared Whitney to modern tech innovators, while others started wrestling with the idea that inventions can help some groups while hurting others. That tension became a theme throughout the lesson.
Annotate and Tell with Primary Sources
Next came Annotate and Tell using historical newspaper excerpts about the cotton gin.
Students examined how people in the early 1800s praised Whitney’s invention. The sources focused heavily on economic growth, increased cotton production, and Southern prosperity. One source even described Whitney as one of the “greatest benefactors of the age.”
This became a great opportunity to remind students that primary sources are not neutral. They reflect perspective, priorities, and values from a specific moment in time.
Students highlighted phrases showing the positive economic impact, but the deeper conversations started once we asked harder questions. Positive for who? Who benefited from this growth? Who paid the price?
That shift in thinking moved the lesson from surface-level recall into deeper historical analysis.
Graph and Tell: Numbers Tell a Story Too
After working through the sources, students moved into Graph and Tell where they analyzed the relationship between cotton production and slavery over time. The graphs and numbers completely changed the conversation. Students could visually see cotton production explode after the invention of the cotton gin while the enslaved population increased dramatically alongside it.
This mattered because many students initially assumed machines reduce labor needs. The cotton gin actually increased the demand for enslaved labor because cotton became so profitable. The graph gave students evidence to challenge the celebratory tone of the earlier sources. It created tension between economic success and human cost, which tied directly back to our unit question.
2xPOV: Seeing the Cotton Gin Through Different Eyes
To wrap up the lesson, students created their own 2xPOV narratives.
This may have been my favorite part of the day because students had to step into the perspectives of different people impacted by the cotton gin and write in first person. Some wrote from the perspective of plantation owners excited about profits, while others wrote from the perspective of enslaved people facing increased labor and harsher conditions. A few explored Northern factory workers, small farmers, or merchants connected to the cotton economy.
The activity forced students to move beyond saying “the cotton gin increased slavery” and instead think about how different groups experienced the same event in completely different ways. That is the heart of social studies. It is not simply learning what happened. It is understanding how events shaped real people in very different ways.
Why This Worked
This lesson reminded me why I love stacking EduProtocols together instead of treating them as isolated activities. Each part of the lesson built naturally into the next. Archetype Four Square pushed students to evaluate Eli Whitney. Annotate and Tell grounded students in historical evidence. Graph and Tell helped students interpret trends and data. Finally, 2xPOV moved students into empathy, perspective, and synthesis.
Students were constantly doing something different, but every activity connected back to the same central question. The lesson also balanced retrieval, collaboration, writing, visual analysis, and discussion without overwhelming students cognitively. Instead of front loading everything through lecture, students uncovered the story piece by piece.By the end of class, students were no longer talking about the cotton gin as “just an invention.” They were talking about consequences.
Tuesday: Shifting the Focus to the Lives of the Enslaved
On Tuesday, we shifted our focus from the invention of the cotton gin to the lived experiences of enslaved people themselves. After spending Monday examining the economic impact of slavery, students now had to confront the human side of it.
EdPuzzle: Building Context Through Video
We started class with an EdPuzzle focused on slavery and resistance to slavery. The video helped provide students with background knowledge before they worked directly with primary sources.
I like using EdPuzzle this way because it creates a shared foundation without requiring a long lecture. Students are still actively engaged through embedded questions and checkpoints while building the context they need for the deeper analysis later in class.
The video also introduced students to the idea that enslaved people constantly resisted slavery in both large and small ways. Resistance was not always dramatic. Sometimes it looked like slowing work, preserving culture, learning to read, escaping, or simply surviving another day.
Annotate and Tell: Solomon Northup and Harriet Jacobs
From there, we moved into Annotate and Tell using excerpts from Solomon Northup and Harriet Jacobs. Students worked through the sources carefully, highlighting evidence, annotating important details, and identifying moments that revealed the realities of slavery.
What made this lesson powerful was that students were not reading textbook summaries. They were reading the words of people who actually lived through slavery. Solomon Northup’s account helped students understand the brutality, fear, and dehumanization enslaved people faced daily. Harriet Jacobs added another layer entirely as students examined the unique dangers and struggles enslaved women experienced. Her writing sparked thoughtful conversations because students began realizing slavery impacted people differently depending on age, gender, and circumstance.
As students annotated the sources, they started noticing patterns between the two accounts while also recognizing important differences in experiences and perspectives. Some students focused on examples of resistance, while others highlighted family separation, emotional trauma, survival, or the loss of freedom and identity.
Thick Slide: Pulling the Learning Together
To finish class, students created a Thick Slide where they synthesized everything from the lesson. The Thick Slide pushed students beyond simply repeating details from the readings. Students had to think about the larger story the sources were telling and explain how those experiences connected back to our unit question about how slavery shaped different people within the United States.
The combination of video, primary sources, annotation, discussion, and synthesis created a lesson where students were constantly processing information in different ways without the class feeling repetitive. More importantly, students were engaging directly with human experiences instead of viewing slavery as just another topic in a textbook.
Wednesday and Thursday: Abolitionists, Perspective, and Historical Judgment
By Wednesday, students had spent the first part of the week examining the expansion of slavery and the realities enslaved people faced. The next step was exploring the people who challenged slavery and the different methods they used to push for change.
This lesson sequence became one of my favorite kinds of lessons because students were constantly learning, discussing, comparing, evaluating, and building ideas together without the class ever feeling repetitive.
Thin Slide: Framing the Lesson
We opened with a Thin Slide built around the quote: “Change begins when someone refuses to stay silent.” Students responded using one image and one word or phrase. It was quick, simple, and gave every student an immediate entry point into the lesson.
Before students ever discussed abolitionists, they were already thinking about courage, resistance, speaking out, and standing against injustice. Starting this way helped frame the larger human ideas connected to the lesson before we ever got into historical details.
EdPuzzle: Building Background Knowledge
From there, students completed a short EdPuzzle focused on abolitionism and reform movements.
The goal was not to overload students with information. It was simply to provide enough background knowledge so students could move into the deeper thinking activities confidently.
Sometimes students do not need a lengthy lecture. They need focused context, key vocabulary, and enough information to begin making sense of the topic.
That is exactly what this portion of the lesson accomplished.
Thick Slide: Becoming the Expert
The Thick Slide became the centerpiece of the lesson.
Each student selected an abolitionist and created a slide including:
Background information
Motivations for ending slavery
Methods they used
A quote or important moment connected to them
This is where the lesson shifted beyond simple fact collection. Students had to decide what information mattered most and organize it in a way that others could learn from.
Every student became responsible for bringing one abolitionist into the room’s shared understanding. Instead of passively receiving information, students became contributors to the lesson itself.
Sharing and Learning From Each Other
Once students completed their Thick Slides, they shared them with classmates.
This part of the lesson completely changed the dynamic of the room because students were now learning directly from one another. Students introduced classmates to figures like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Rankin, and James G. Birney. The sharing process also gave students repeated exposure to important ideas while hearing them explained in different ways by their peers.
Frayer Model: Organizing the Learning
After the presentations, students used a Frayer Model to collect notes on four additional abolitionists from their classmates.
Students focused on:
Background
Motivations
Methods
Impact
The Frayer Model helped students organize information while also forcing them to compare similarities and differences between abolitionists. By this point in the lesson, students were beginning to recognize patterns in how different people challenged slavery. Some used speeches. Others used writing, newspapers, political action, religion, or direct resistance.
BTC Whiteboards: Comparing Abolitionists
Once students had built enough background knowledge, we shifted into Building Thinking Classrooms style comparisons at the whiteboards.
Students worked in groups comparing two or three abolitionists while discussing questions connected to influence, courage, methods, effectiveness, and long-term impact. The whiteboards immediately raised the level of discussion.
Students debated:
Who took the biggest risks
Who changed the most minds
Which methods were most effective
Which abolitionist had the greatest long-term impact
Because students had already completed the Thick Slides and Frayer Models, they actually had evidence to support their arguments. The conversations became much deeper than simple opinions. The visible thinking at the boards also helped students build ideas collaboratively instead of waiting for the teacher to confirm whether they were right or wrong.
Superlatives: Ending With Historical Judgment
To finish the lesson sequence, students completed a Superlatives activity where they selected abolitionists for categories like:
Most Courageous
Most Determined
Strongest Voice for Change
Most Influential
This activity pushed students into historical judgment and evaluation. Students had to weigh evidence, compare people, defend their reasoning, and explain why certain abolitionists deserved specific categories. There were very few easy answers, which made the conversations even better.
The lesson naturally progressed from learning about abolitionists to evaluating them, comparing them, and defending claims with evidence. That progression is what made the sequence work so well. Students were not just memorizing names. They were thinking deeply about how different people attempted to create change and how those efforts shaped the country.
Friday: Pulling the Unit Together With 2xCER
Friday became our day to wrap up the unit and bring everything together.
Students first finished their Superlatives activity from Thursday. The conversations carried over naturally because students were still debating impact, courage, effectiveness, and influence. By this point in the week, students knew the abolitionists well enough to defend their thinking with actual evidence instead of surface-level responses.
After wrapping up Superlatives, we shifted into the unit assessment piece using Snorkl and a 2xCER activity.
2xCER: Revisiting the Entire Unit
For the 2xCER, I provided students with two claims connected directly to our unit question:
How did slavery shape the lives of people in different ways in the United States?
The first claim focused on the cruelty and realities of slavery: “Slavery was a cruel system that used violence, fear, and harsh labor to control enslaved people.”
The second claim focused on abolitionists: “Abolitionists used different methods to fight against slavery and convince Americans that it needed to end.”
Instead of giving students all the evidence, students had to revisit the week’s lessons and pull evidence from their own work, readings, annotations, Thick Slides, Frayer Models, primary sources, and discussions.
That part of the lesson was important because students were not simply answering questions from memory. They had to go back into their learning, locate evidence, determine what best supported the claims, and then create reasoning that connected the evidence back to the argument.
Snorkl: Organizing Evidence and Reasoning
Students completed the activity through Snorkl, where they typed their evidence and reasoning directly into the platform.
What I liked about this structure was how naturally it forced students to revisit the entire week instead of viewing each lesson as disconnected. Students pulled information from multiple activities and sources throughout the unit.
Some students referenced Solomon Northup and Harriet Jacobs when discussing the cruelty and realities of slavery. Others connected back to the cotton gin lesson and explained how the increase in cotton production expanded the demand for enslaved labor. For the abolitionist claim, students brought in evidence connected to Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other abolitionists we studied earlier in the week.
The activity also shifted the focus away from simple recall. Students had to think about which evidence best supported each claim and explain why that evidence mattered.
Ending the Week With Synthesis
By Friday, the classroom conversations sounded very different than they did on Monday.
Students were no longer discussing slavery as a single topic with one perspective. They were discussing systems, economics, resistance, perspective, cruelty, activism, and consequences. They were comparing experiences, evaluating impact, and supporting ideas with evidence from multiple lessons and sources.
That progression across the week is what made the unit feel successful.
Every lesson built into the next:
The cotton gin introduced consequences and economic expansion
Primary sources humanized the realities of slavery
Abolitionists showed how people resisted and fought for change
The CER brought everything together through evidence and reasoning
Instead of ending the week with a traditional test focused entirely on memorization, students finished the unit by revisiting evidence, connecting ideas, and building historical arguments across the entire week of learning.
This week was about pulling everything together. We moved from understanding why people went west to the risks they faced getting there. With shorter class periods, every lesson had to stay focused and connected. The goal was not just to learn about westward expansion, but to make sense of the decisions, risks, and outcomes that shaped it.
Monday: Pull Factors of Westward Migration
We started Monday by shifting from push factors to pull factors. The guiding question asked students: What factors pulled people out west? With limited time, the focus was on clarity. Students needed to move beyond general ideas and start identifying specific opportunities that drew people west.
EdPuzzle + Source Work (Cybersandwich) + Short Answer
We opened with an EdPuzzle on the Gold Rush, but this was not a separate activity. It was built directly into a Cybersandwich structure. As students watched and worked through sources, they recorded key ideas about opportunity, wealth, and why California became such a strong draw.
Students examined multiple documents that highlighted different pull factors. They looked at opportunities like land ownership through the Homestead Act, which offered 160 acres to settlers willing to move and farm the land. They also analyzed how gold discoveries, high wages, and advertisements like the California Clipper Ship encouraged people to take the risk of moving west.
Using whiteboards and visibly random groups, students compared their notes with a partner, added new ideas, and challenged each other’s thinking in real time. This made the Cybersandwich more than just note taking. It became a space where students refined their understanding of what actually pulled people west.
We closed with a short answer response to the guiding question. Students had to cite specific examples from the sources, which pushed them to be precise in their thinking. By the end of the lesson, most students were not just saying people moved for a better life. They were explaining exactly what that better life looked like and why it was worth the risk.
Tuesday: The Hero’s Journey
With shortened classes, the goal was not to push new content but to build a structure students could use later in the week. We focused on introducing the Hero’s Journey and helping students understand how stories are built.
TED-Ed + Commercial Analysis + Mapping
We opened with a TED-Ed video that introduced the stages of the Hero’s Journey. This gave students a basic framework, but the real focus was on applying it.
Instead of jumping into history right away, we used commercials. Students watched the Chef Boyardee commercial and the Melissa McCarthy Kia commercial and mapped each one using the Hero’s Journey structure.
Students were able to identify the call to adventure, challenges, and transformation in a setting that felt familiar. It lowered the barrier and helped them focus on the structure instead of getting lost in content.
By the end of class, students were not just watching videos. They were breaking them down, identifying patterns, and starting to see how stories follow a predictable path. That structure will carry into Wednesday.
Wednesday: Risks of Westward Migration
Wednesday turned into a bit of an EduProtocols smash. The goal was to take the Hero’s Journey from Tuesday and apply it to real historical situations.
Cybersandwich + Hero’s Journey + Short Answer
We focused the lesson around one question: What were the risks of migrating west?
Students worked with eight different stories of people and groups who went west, including the Donner Party, the Whitmans, the Latter-day Saints, and Lewis and Clark. Instead of reading everything, students chose two stories to focus on.
They mapped each story using the Hero’s Journey structure. This forced them to think about more than just what happened. They had to consider why people went, what challenges they faced, and what risks showed up along the way.
After mapping, students partnered up and compared their stories. This is where the Cybersandwich came in. Students shared, added to each other’s thinking, and looked for patterns across different groups.
The focus of those conversations stayed tight:
Why did people go west?
How did they get there?
What risks did they face?
Students started to see common threads. Harsh weather, lack of resources, difficult terrain, and unexpected challenges came up across multiple stories.
We closed with a short answer response to the guiding question. Students had to cite evidence from their stories, which pushed them to ground their thinking in specific examples instead of general statements.
By the end of the lesson, students were not just listing dangers. They were explaining the risks of westward migration through real experiences.
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Thursday: Oregon Trail Simulation
After spending the week focused on why people moved west and the risks involved, Thursday was about experiencing it. We played the original Oregon Trail game the entire class period. That was it. No extra layers. No added tasks. Just the game.
What made it work is that students already had the background. They understood pull factors, they had analyzed risks, and they had worked through real stories of people going west. The game gave them a chance to see those ideas play out.
Decisions mattered. Supplies ran out. People got sick. Progress was not guaranteed. Students started connecting back to what we had already done without being prompted. They recognized the challenges, the trade-offs, and the unpredictability of the journey.
It was simple, but it hit. Sometimes the best follow-up is letting students experience the content in a different way.
Friday: Netflix Summary Assessment
We wrapped up the unit by bringing everything together through a Netflix-style summary.
Netflix Template + Summative Assessment
Students created a three-episode series that answered the unit question: How did Manifest Destiny change America’s map and affect the lives of people?
They had the option to choose their format. Some went with a straightforward documentary, focusing on explaining events clearly. Others created a historical story, building a narrative around a character experiencing westward expansion.
Each episode had a clear focus:
Episode 1 centered on Manifest Destiny and why people believed in expansion
Episode 2 focused on territories and how the United States acquired land
Episode 3 highlighted the people who went west and the impact it had on their lives
This structure mattered. It forced students to organize their thinking across the entire unit instead of treating each topic separately.
What stood out was how much they were able to pull in from the week. Students referenced pull factors, risks, and real groups as they built their episodes. Some leaned into the opportunity side of expansion. Others focused more on conflict and consequences.
By the end, students were not just summarizing westward expansion. They were making sense of it.
Some weeks are about covering ground. Others are about slowing down and helping students see how events connect. With 30-minute classes all week, there was no room for wasted time. Every lesson had to be clear, focused, and built around thinking. Our goal this week was to take territorial acquisitions deeper and move beyond memorizing names, dates, and maps.
Monday: Texas Independence
We began Monday with Texas Independence. The guiding question asked students how Americans moving to Texas helped cause Texas to become independent and later join the United States. I handed students a Mini-Report that gave structure to the lesson. In a shortened class period, structure matters. Students knew what information to gather, where to place it, and what they would eventually do with it.
EdPuzzle + Mini-Report + Snorkl
We opened with an EdPuzzle on Texas Independence. As students watched, they recorded two key notes on their Mini-Report. This gave them a foundation before moving into a reading that added more context. Students explored why settlers moved to Texas, why tensions grew with Mexico, why independence happened, and why annexation followed.
Too often, students learn history as isolated events. Texas becomes independent. Texas joins the United States. Move on. This lesson pushed students to see cause and effect instead.
We finished with writing using the new beta writing platform on Snorkl. I added our source reading, created the prompt, and students typed directly into the response space. Snorkl provided immediate feedback that reminded me a lot of Class Companion. Students had a chance to think, write, revise, and improve while the learning was still fresh.
Tuesday: Mexican-American War
Tuesday usually would have been Oregon Territory because that is the next step chronologically. Instead, I changed the order on purpose. I wanted students to see how the annexation of Texas directly led to the Mexican-American War. Sometimes chronology matters less than helping students understand relationships between events.
Map and Tell + Annotate and Tell + Sketch and Tell + Snorkl
We opened with a Map and Tell focused on the border dispute between the United States and Mexico. Students examined the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and Nueces River and thought about how maps reflect conflict, claims, and power.
From there, students completed two Annotate and Tells focused on the causes of war. They examined failed diplomacy, Polk’s attempt to purchase land, Mexico’s refusal, and the decision to send troops into disputed territory. These activities helped students slow down and analyze motives, decisions, and perspective instead of just rushing to outcomes.
We closed the content portion of class with a Sketch and Tell on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Students showed what land the United States gained and explained why the treaty mattered. They recognized that the war helped the United States expand dramatically, but it also opened a new debate over whether slavery would spread into those territories.
If time allowed, students responded in Snorkl to the question: How did the Mexican-American War help the United States grow while also creating new disagreements over slavery and power?
Wednesday: Oregon Territory
Wednesday we moved into Oregon Territory and focused on how the United States gained this land. Students were beginning to see that westward expansion was not one single event. Different territories came through different paths, negotiations, and conflicts.
EduProtocol Smash + Map and Tell
I may have invented something new here.
Students read about Oregon and the Oregon Treaty, then we followed it up with a Building Thinking Classrooms style activity that smashed together SWBST Sketch and Tell with Number Mania.
Students had to retell the story using Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then. The twist was that every caption needed a number and every caption needed a picture.
That small change created a lot of thinking. Students had to ask themselves, “How can I use a number here?” Sometimes that meant using dates. Sometimes it meant latitude lines. Sometimes it meant quantities, years, or distances. Sometimes it meant reworking their sentence entirely.
That is productive struggle. When students have to adapt knowledge instead of copy knowledge, the thinking gets better.
We followed that with a Map and Tell focused on the slogan 54°40′ or Fight and what it meant. Students had to locate the 54°40′ line and wrestle with the idea of minutes within lines of latitude. Then they had to locate the 49th parallel, and parallel itself was a new academic term for several students.
Thursday: A Strong Start and a New Inquiry
Thursday began with a Quizizz over westward expansion territories and Manifest Destiny. The class averages were 90%, 95%, 97%, 95%, and 98%. Well done.
Those scores showed me students were retaining the content from earlier in the week, but more importantly, they were starting to connect the bigger ideas behind expansion.
Mini Inquiry Launch
After the Quizizz, we began a mini inquiry unit built around a compelling question: What drives people to move, and is the risk worth the reward? We started with Day 1 and focused on push factors, or the reasons people felt they needed to leave home.
CyberSandwich + Primary Sources + BTC Whiteboards
I turned the sources into a CyberSandwich using five different pieces of evidence. Students worked through sources connected to Mormon persecution, expensive farmland, overcrowding, poor factory conditions, and economic hardship.
Their task was to answer one question: What pushed people to leave home and head west? Many students struggled at first because they wanted answers stated directly in the source. They were hunting for exact words instead of reading between the lines. One example came from the Lowell Mill Girls protest song. Some students said people would not want to move west because they were treated like slaves. I pushed them further. What do you think working conditions were like? What do you think pay was like? What do you think quality of life was like?
After reading and note taking, students moved to the whiteboards Building Thinking Classrooms style. Groups compared notes, added ideas, and talked through evidence together. After five or six minutes, students returned to their seats and wrote a brief summary.
I really liked this structure because students were surrounded by the thinking of the room. As they wrote, they looked around at the boards, borrowed evidence, reconsidered ideas, and strengthened their responses.
That is what a classroom should feel like. Ideas visible. Thinking shared. Learning active.
Moler's Musings 