Interactive History Lessons for the Classroom

Our history curriculum for seventh grade in California is medieval history. While medieval history is super interesting, it is very hard to find primary sources from the Middle Ages that are engaging and appropriate for our specific standards. While Scholastic does a great job of explaining how to examine primary sources, and the Smithsonian has a pretty comprehensive guide as well, we found that our own history textbook was lacking in higher order thinking skills, like evaluating and creating, when it came to our students showing their learning in regards to the history curriculum.

We wanted to move past the standard graphic organizers and/ or comprehension questions that you can find in the back of any textbook. We wanted students to critically analyze the information being presented to them and have them share their understanding of the history text in a way that was significant and meaningful to them.

Over the past decade, we have been creating and expanding our history curriculum to include some fun and interactive lessons that are engaging and require higher order thinking skills to complete. While students do benefit from note taking, they also benefit from being able to explore their learning and show their understanding of the history curriculum in a creative way.

With the popularity of social media comes so many unique opportunities for students to showcase their learning in ways that are engaging and meaningful to them. We love having our students create Memes to showcase their learning. Simple Memes can be used to quickly assess if a student is understanding the historical concept you are teaching, and the students LOVE THEM! We like to have our students create memes for medieval or Renaissance figures like Charlemagne, King John, King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and Martin Luther. You can use them as an exit ticket or have students share their memes in groups.

A quick google search will also yield awesome templates for creating Time Magazine covers for any historical figure or time period. These covers not only showcase a plethora of information that your students have learned about a historical figure or time period, but they look awesome as well.

Last, we love using social media style templates to have our students explore what it would be like for historical figures to navigate the 21st century. How would Pope Gregory and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV handle an all out Twitter Battle? What would Charlemagne’s Instagram feed look like? Who would his friends be? Last, if King John were arrested, what would his mugshot look like, and what would the arresting officers add to the police report?

Having students analyze historical time periods and figures in a format that is familiar to them can yield amazing results. Students can either make their own templates on paper, or you can click on the links above - we got ya covered, teacher friends! Watch your students’ eyes light up with sweet, sweet, anticipation the next time you whip out one of these awesome lessons. Your students will be thanking you for making history a not so distant thing of the past.

What are your favorite history lessons to teach? Do you have any tried and true lessons that are a sure fire win? We’d love to hear from you! Comment on IG or hit us up on Twitter. Until next time teacher friends…pour yourself that glass of wine. Sit back, relax. You deserve it!

Bottoms Up!