Blog+Lesson+Plan

Topic: The Effects of Imperialism on society in the 21st century

Overview: This will be a yearlong assignment in which students will maintain a blog where they analyze the effects of imperialism on different regions of the world. As we study different regions, students will research different modern day issues in that region. They will need to update their blog as they find new articles. In their blog they will analyze and explain the modern day issue and then show how it is a result and lasting effect of European Imperialism.

Before: a) Students will identify and explain what they believe to be the biggest problems that our world is facing today. Students will need to identify 3 to 5 issues and explain why the issues are a so detrimental to people and culture. The students will then explain what they believe to be the causes of these issues in the world. b) Students will post their answers on my Moodle forum. They will needed to respond to at least one of their classmates responses. c) Students will then participate in a large group discussion where all the issues are listed from most serious, to least serious. Students will then look over all the issues, and try to come up with one cause of these problems in the world.

During: a) Students will be given the task of identify a critical issues in the East Asia Region ( China, Korea’s, Japan, South Asia). b) They will then need to research an article about the issue. c) Students will blog a summary of their article and also describe the events in history that may have caused this issue today in the 21st century. d) In their blogs, students will need to link other articles to their main post, so that people who read the blog can see the link of past events to present issues. e) Students will then need to view and comment on the BBF’s (Blog Best Friends). These BBF’s will be assigned at the beginning of each unit. They will change each unit as well. This allows for students to more easily monitor classmates blogs. They can comment on more if they wish to. After: a) Students will share their research and blogs with the class. This will start with small group discussion. Then this will proceed on to large group discussion. b) A list will be compiled of the issues in the region and then all students will needed to draw conclusions about what caused a majority of the current issues in East Asia today. c) Students will blog their final conclusion and also comment on at least one other of their BBFs postings.

Assessment: A) students will be assessed by weekly. I will have each student connected to me through Google’s RSS feed. Each time the students update, I will check their post for the following: a. Article identify an issue in the region of study b. Sufficient summary of the issue c. Sufficient analysis of possible causes of this issue based on past events we studied d. Students link at least one other article to their blog that shows connection of the past to the present. e. Students comment on at least on of the BBFs postings. B) Students will not be given a grade on this weekly. It will be one unit grade. The in class discussion will take place at the end of each unit. Students will be monitored weekly for updates, but they have the entire unit to keep up their blog. C) This blog assignment will go on for each Unit throughout the year: (East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America) D) The goal is for students to continually evaluate events of the past and show their effects on current issues plaguing our world today. What most students will find is that many of the issues today and directly linked to European Imperialism of the 1700 and 1800s.