Writing an Editorial

Writing an Editorial on the Industrial Revolution 10th Grade World History Chapter 6 Inspiration: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

For this next chapter, you will all become time travelers like Bill and Ted! You will travel back to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and conduct research. The time period you will travel back to must be after 1850 and before 1900. Your goal is to decide whether the events and progress of the Industrial Revolution improved the lives of the majority of people in Europe at that time.

Your research will come from chapter 6 of the text book and any online sources you use.

After you conduct your research, you will write a newspaper or magazine editorial. An editorial is an article that expresses an opinion of its editors or publishers. The editorial must be at least two pages long, typed in 12 point Times New Roman font, and double spaced.

You have a choice of two options:

1. Write your editorial as an interview. You can interview a famous person from the time period or you can interview a fake person. Your interview must also include your analysis of the interview and your opinion. 2. Write your editorial as if you witnessed events. Since you will be traveling back in time, you will be able to visit places and experience things. If you choose this option, write your editorial based on the things you experienced.

Don’t forget to express an opinion! You are deciding whether or not the lives of people improved from the Industrial Revolution.

Your editorial must include:  A catchy headline.  An introductory paragraph that explains where you went or who you interviewed  The interview, if you choose this option, and your analysis of it that proves your opinion  An account of the events you witnessed, if you choose this option, and your analysis of it that proves your opinion  A closing paragraph that summarizes your experience and opinion again  A bibliography for any resources you use outside of the Textbook

This assignment is worth 100 points and is due November 16 th ! 2

Possible Internet Sources

 www.historynet.com  www.lii.org  www.worldhistorynetwork.org  http://www.sjsu.edu/~jwhitlat/socstud.htm o this site has a large list of other websites that might be useful  http://directory.google.com 3

My class is a mainstream 10th Grade World History class with 31 students. My class has 4 English language learners who are proficient enough not to be in an ELD class. This assessment is based on the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I will show the students about 15 minutes of the movie to introduce the assessment. The parts of the movie I will show explain that Bill and Ted have to complete a history assignment to pass their class. Another scene shows them completing the assignment. I hope to get the students engaged in the assessment by basing it of this movie. The students have one week, including one weekend, to complete the assessment. During the first few days of this week, I will be providing lectures and activities that will assist the students in completing the assignment. I will be lecturing on section one and two that I feel relate closely to the standards. The students will be filling out study guide sheets that focus on the positive aspects of the Industrial Revolution as they read each section in class. They will also be analyzing primary source readings. From all of this, the students will be able to gather evidence that will assist them in completing this assessment.

Chapter 6 of the text book I am using includes too much information that is not important or relevant to the state standards. The book uses two chapters (five and six) for the state standard on the Industrial Revolution. Chapter 5 focuses on the Industrial

Revolution from 1750 to 1850 in Europe and covers most of the standards for 10.3. I went in depth for chapter five because I felt the information was relevant to the state standards. Instead of treating the chapter 6 as a traditional chapter, I am designing this assignment as a way for the students to glean the important parts of the chapter. I won’t be assigning any homework during this chapter other than working on this assignment. I am also doing this to save time because I need to be finished with the standard on 4

Imperialism before the December break and the book does not cover it until Chapters 9 and 10.

By using this type of assessment, I can skip the parts of the chapter that are not relevant to the standards. I am also teaching the students how to write persuasively based on evidence, which is an important part of being a historian. Chapter 5 covered a lot of the negative aspects to the Industrial Revolution, such as child labor and filthy living conditions. The first two sections of Chapter 6 go over more positive outcomes of the

Industrial Revolution such as medical advances, improvements in cities, and improvements in sanitation. By using this performance assessment for Chapter 6, I am building on the students’ prior knowledge of Chapter 5 while assessing their new knowledge of Chapter 6.

I have been assigning short written assignments in previous chapters to develop the students’ abilities to write persuasively. They have had practice writing paragraphs and forming opinions on topics and now I want them to be able to use these skills more completely. I think this assignment meets my writing objective because it is asking them to form an opinion on the effects of the Industrial Revolution and whether or not people’s lives were improved overall.

Another objective I have is for the students to find and use evidence to support their opinion. I am not requiring the students to do a lot of research because it would take too long. There is enough evidence in the parts of Chapter 6 that will be covered in class to support their opinion. I am allowing students to use outside research if they want because some students might want to talk about something that isn’t covered in the book. 5

I am not requiring the students to use sources other than their textbook and that is why I don’t mention outside resources in the rubric.

The standards for the unit on the Industrial Revolution were pretty well covered in

Chapter 5. This assessment for Chapter 6 deepens the students’ understanding of the standards because they will be looking at them in a different way. They will be investigating the later part of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and will be able to better understand some of the outcomes of the new technology, inventions, and drastic changes they learned about in Chapter 5.

One potential RSVP problem with this assessment is practicality. It will take a significant amount of time to read and grade each assignment. One way I have attempted to counter the lack of practicality in this assignment is by mandating that it be typed.

When they are typed, I can more easily read each assignment and write comments between the double spaced lines.

The assessment is standardized for all the students. Every student will get the same cover sheet with all the same instructions and two task variations. Since I am not requiring outside research, every student is being assessed on the same content from

Chapter 6 of the textbook. They will also have the same amount of time to complete the assessment.

I feel that the reliability and validity of the assessment is fairly high. The tasks that they must complete are clearly written out and they have a week to complete the assessment. Any problems like a student being sick or having a bad day are dealt with because the student has a week to complete the assessment. I also believe the assessment 6 is valid because it relates directly to the content they are being taught. The assessment asks the students to use evidence from the chapter they are learning about.

The rubric I have created for this assessment will be strictly followed when I have to assign grades. I will assign points according to how well the student meets each criterion.

The best way I can apply this assessment to the next steps of teaching is how well the students write a persuasive essay. From this assessment I will be able to gauge how well the students can write persuasively and where I might need to review how to write for a history class. The outcomes of this assessment will be useful for my unit on

Imperialism because I will ask them to write a slightly longer research essay. I will be sure to go over specific examples from this assessment to guide them when they write the next essay during the Imperialism unit. 7

Table of Specifications

Standards Objectives Tasks 10.3 Students analyze the TSWBAT develop an The students write an effects of the Industrial opinion on the effects of the editorial for a newspaper or Revolution in England, Industrial Revolution. magazine after traveling France, Germany, Japan, back to the late Industrial and the United States. Revolution in Europe.

10.3.2 Examine how TSWBAT analyze aspects The students find evidence scientific and technological of the Industrial Revolution that they will use in their changes and new forms of that support their opinion. fake interviews or the energy brought about events they witness from massive social, economic, TSWBAT create a fake Chapter 6 of their textbook and cultural change. interview or an account of or from research they 10.3.3 Describe the growth what they witnessed during conduct, though it is not of population, rural to urban their time traveling after required. migration, and growth of analyzing evidence from the cities associated with the textbook or their research. Industrial Revolution. 10.3.4 Trace the evolution of work and labor, including the demise of the slave trade and the effects of immigration, mining, and manufacturing, division of labor, and the union movement. 8

Rubric for project based on Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Criteria High Quality Satisfactory Low Quality 85 to 100 points 70 to 80 points 65 and below -The student develops an -The student develops an opinion -The student does opinion based on the based on the project goal not develop an Opinion/ project goal -The opinion is vaguely supported opinion -The opinion is supported by the student’s interview or -The opinion lacks Thesis by the student’s interview witnessed events relevance to the or witnessed events project Max 20 points 17-20 points 15-16 points 13 points or fewer

-The editorial includes an -The editorial includes an -The student interview or an account of interview or an account of includes something Evidence/ witnessed events witnessed events other than an interview or a Structure -Evidence supports the -Evidence relates to the Industrial student’s opinion and Rev. but does not completely account of events includes valid information support the student’s opinion -The student does Max 70 from textbook/research not use valid points evidence and has no relevance to an opinion 60-70 points 49-59 points 48 points or fewer

-The editorial includes a -The editorial includes a catchy -The editorial has no catchy headline that relates headline that relates to the headline Headline/ to the interview/witness interview/witness account -The editorial has no Mechanics account -The editorial has evidence and clear structure -The editorial has a clear paragraphs but no clear intro or Max 10 intro, body paragraphs with closing points evidence, and a closing paragraph

8-10 points 7 points 6 points or fewer