Standard 2: Criteria C

Relates ideas and information within and across content areas.

For this criteria I chose a lesson plan that shows the use of Language Arts skills as well as social studies.

Artifact:  The First Thanksgiving            

Reflection:  In this lesson plan, students had to create new characters and place them in historical perspective of the First Thanksgiving.  They have already studied and read historical fiction in Language Arts by this time in 8th grade, so it was a natural to ask them to create a fictional story out of actual historical events.  The students, for the most part really enjoyed the assignment.  It was not the run of the mill social studies activity.  We used the same writing process that they are asked to use in language arts.  The story was graded in my class, but was also used for a writing piece for language arts if students chose to use it for that purpose.  It was eye-opening for students to see that a good grade in language arts did not necessarily mean a good grade in social studies, and vice versa.   Although we used the same skills and the same process, each class had a different purpose for the assignment.