More “stuff do do when the students come back”!

Following on from Mike McCartney’s excellent suggestions for a project returning AS students can work on in the next few weeks, I thought I would share my plans for my classes.

Perhaps unusually I am ‘mixing and matching’ A2 units, starting with Unit 4: Governing the USA and then from January studying Unit 3: Introduction to Ideologies. I won’t go into the rationale for that here (drop me a line if you are interested in why!), but what I will outline is how I intend to make best use of the time between now and the summer holidays. In my experience, its very difficult to motivate students in these last few weeks but it is a valuable opportunity to introduce them to A-level study and get ahead on the course content, leaving useful revision time around Christmas.

The first couple of lessons back for me will be spent on an introduction to American history, politics and society. I will challenge them all to complete this BBC “What do you know about America?” quiz, get them to produce group mind-maps on perceptions of America and then try to challenge those perceptions with a discussion based around actual facts and figures from the US Census and CIA world factbook sites. Next a ‘whistle-stop tour’ through US history (a powerpoint I have put together, largely based on this BBC site) and finally a research lesson, where each student must draw a state out of a hat and produce a factfile including as many useful and trivial facts as possible!

Then onto some ‘proper work’- reading and worksheets on the writing of the US Constitution and the provisions within it. I have some card sorts and games based around checks and balances and some articles about the amendment process etc. Pretty standard stuff… After looking at the Bill of Rights I will show Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine and discuss some of the issues brought up by the films (the Patriot Act, gun control etc) in the context of civil liberties in the USA. I will probably ask them to write reviews of the films for display.

One day I am taking the class to Obama’s People, a free exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery of photographs of the new administration (you may have seen a selection of them in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago). I will make a worksheet to go along with this visit, asking them to find out who has some of the key positions and a bit about their background. I have also booked places at a student conference on globalisation at Aston University.

If anyone would like any of the resources I have referred to or any more information about the above, don’t hesitate to be in touch.