Middle School Writing: History Projects facilitates the research and writing process necessary to complete a history writing project in the format of the historical timeline.
Students pick an invention to trace through history, examining primary and secondary sources to create a timeline of this artifact. Skills built include finding credible sources, doing digital research using academic portals, and determining causes and effects of people and events involved in the history of the invention.
Students use Brave Writer® tools including topic funneling, freewriting, and Snip and Pin to move from idea generation to research, note-taking, and drafting to a revised and edited final project in four weeks.
Syllabus
Week One
The Story of History Students set the stage for thinking about history, noting the interplay of personal experience and the larger topic of history.
Week Two
The Story of an Invention Students do research on an invention of their choice, honing digital search skills as they sift through information online to find varied, credible sources.
Week Three
How Did We Get Here? Students situate their invention in the context of people and events surrounding it. They determine causal relationships and positive/negative impact of events leading up to the invention.
Week Four
Timeline time! This is the week when the hard work pays off. Students draft, revise, and edit their final project, the invention timeline.
Common Core and Academic Standards Support
What follows is a word bank and set of skills associated with this class. Use them to craft your own learning narrative for use in year-end evaluations, charter school reports, or any other accountability source.
Word Bank
- Cause and effect
- Credible sources
- Editing
- Freewriting
- Idea generation
- Informational writing
- Nonfiction
- Note-taking
- Research
- Revision
- Sequence of ideas
- Vocabulary development
- Writing mechanics
- Writing voice
Core Skills
- Cite expert opinion or sources
- Determine causality for historical events
- Edit writing for standard English usage
- Generate topics for nonfiction writing
- Instruct others on a topic using informational writing
- Maintain distinct writer’s voice
- Observe multiple perspectives in historical documents
- Research and absorb material for writing
- Revise writing for clarity, flow, order, interest, and economy of language
- Sequence writing in logical steps
- Write detailed, organized, structured original narratives
- Write in emphatic order
- Write for a particular audience
