SUBJECT: US History

GRADE: High School

TECHNOLOGY: Illustrator

BY: Braden Gardner, Jennifer Snyder, Veronica Salcedo, David Fox

ILLUSTRATING THE CIVIL WAR

Target Grade/Subject

Twenty-four students make up an eleventh grade United States History class. These students are mainly sixteen and seventeen year-olds, in the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Their likes generate around their social atmosphere, and anything that does not actively involve them the students consider boring. Utilizing this knowledge, the students are separated into groups to work on a hands-on project creating a children’s picture book. They are in the concrete developmental stage, many times in order to easily learn information the students must have some activity that incorporates the material to be learned. This also provides a simplistic manner in which to reinforce historical events and people in the minds of the students. A project like the following caters to those individuals who prefer not to perform in front of their peers. It allows those students who do not speak up in class to be involved.

Objectives

The targeted Standards of Learning in Social Studies for this 11th grade U.S. History lesson plan is SOL 11:6, "students will analyze the causes and effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction."

Working in groups, students will use Adobe Illustrator to produce a creative and historically accurate picture book focusing on one of three issues: slavery, secession, or individual leaders.

Materials

Computer: Used so that the students may increase their skills in a computer program. It is optimal to make a neat copy of the children’s book.

Adobe Illustrator: This program allows users to draw pictures and write on the same page. It allows them to open several pages so that the users may make changes on previous pages if necessary.

Computer Disks: Disks are issued to the groups so that their work can be saved and turned in for evaluation.

Lesson Description

Day 1

• Provide a general explanation of the project
• Students will be making a children’s book depicting major events in the Civil War using adobe illustrator
• They will be expected to draw and explain major characters and events pertaining to their topic
• There is a five page requirement, one picture per page and captions
• Break the class up into six groups of about four people
• Assign one of the three topics (slavery, secession, or roles played by individual leaders) to each group
• Give them a copy of the rubric so they know what to incorporate in their drawings and in the text
• Ask them to brainstorm overnight about ideas for their topic

Day 2

• Regroups and allow 15 minutes to discuss their ideas
• Go over what is expected in the drawings
• Give them about 5 minutes to go to the computer lab
• Tell them to use Adobe Illustrator for drawing and writing
• They will have 45 minutes to work on the computer to make their book
• Have the students save their work on a disk and hand in the disk (5 minutes)
• Have the students return to class and do group evaluations for 15 minutes

Evaluation Procedure

Students will be graded for their creativity, use of relevant facts, use of relevant historic figures, cohesiveness of pictures and the story, logical order of the story, and their group evaluation.

This project will count as 5% of the students’ total grade.

See attached rubric for assessment:

Rubric

Creativity 10 pts	The pictures are full of color and original design. The story shows inventiveness, originality and is interesting to read. 10-5 pts	Pictures are drab and repetitious. The story is boring and unbelievable. The facts are not put into story form. 4-0 pts
Facts 25 pts	The story incorporates at least 4-5 facts pertaining specifically to the assigned topic. The facts are accurate and informative. 25-15 pts	The story contains less than 4 facts that pertain to the assigned topic. Some of the facts are inaccurate and non-informative. 14-0 pts
Historic Figure 25 pts	There is at least one historic figure who pertains to the assigned topic involved in the story. The figures’ purpose in the story is clearly identified. 25-15 pts	There is no historic figure or the figure selected does not pertain to the assigned topic. The purpose of the historic figure is not identified. 14-0 pts
Cohesiveness 10 pts	The pictures correspond to the written story. One can figure out what is going on in the pictures from reading the story. 10-5 pts	There is little or no cohesiveness between the story and the pictures. One has no clue what is going on in the pictures after reading the story. 4-0 pts
Logical 20 pts	The story makes complete sense. The characters and facts appear in chronological order. 20-10 pts	The story is hard to follow. Facts and characters appear out of chronological order. 9-0 pts
Group Evaluation 10 pts	The workload was distributed evenly between all group members. Every person in the group contributed to the design and creation of the project. 10-5 pts	One or more members of the group did most of the work and/or came up with the design and creativity. 4-0 pts

Peer Evaluation

For each member of your group please evaluate them according to the following questions.

Did every member of the group work diligently?

Was each member willing to help the group members when needed?

Did they contribute knowledge to the production?