Hello. Today I want to share one of the projects we did at the end of the school year. We were required to have our semester test finished a couple of days before the official last day of school so at South Valley Jr High we decided to have an "American History Idol" competition.
Erin Garvey, the other 8th grade American History teacher at SVJH, and I created a list of 160 famous Americans. We then printed them out on paper, cut them into strips and had our students pair up and draw a name. The students then had about an hour to research the individual they drew and create a poster that would be displayed in the commons. Students were instructed to vote for the person they felt had the greatest impact on American History in combination with the visual appeal of the poster and other factors (hey - American Idol isn't just about the quality of the singer or Melinda would have won this year!).
The first day students voted for three individuals and only 50 stayed. It was tough - Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson were sent home on the first day! After the second day of voting we cut it to 10 and then on the last day of school students were shown the results of the top 10 in a video that was shown as part of our student news broadcast. Want to find out who was in the Top 10 and who won - watch the video below (also available at Teacher Tube here)
Direct link to Podcast #87 - American History Idol Project - MP3 Format - 11:04 minutes
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If you have any suggestions or comments about the Speaking of History podcast please leave a comment to this post or send an e-mail to speakingofhistory@gmail.com
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