READ ALL ABOUT IT! Nancy B. Plaxico, Ben Eielson Jr/Sr High School, Fairbanks, AK Grades:5-12. Overview: This activity can be adapted to any age group and can be a class research project or a homework project. It makes the study of history more fun. Purpose: Students often dislike history because they do not see it as relevant to their lives or necessary to know. This activity personalizes history for them. Objectives: Students will construct a newspaper that describes local, state, national and international events on the day they were born. Activities: Students will write one editorial concerning an event of their birth year. Students will research an issue and find a political cartoon on that issue and include it in the newspaper. Students will construct a visual from their birth year. This can be a drawing, a poster, etc. (You may choose to allow them to make a tape of music that was popular during that year. Students will interview a person concerning the year they (the student) were born. Students must prepare the questions in advance and write out the answers or use a tape recorder for oral history. (Allow students class time to "show off" their work.) Resources/Materials: All resources are available in most libraries. Tying It All Together: My students enjoy this activity. It gives them a sense of perspective and identifies this place in history. Since most students in the same grade were born about the same year, an in depth study of a single year shows how history must be condensed in history books.

*This lesson plan was found and adapted from the web site Lesson Plans and Resources for Social Studies [http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/plans.html]

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