Scramble for Africa redux

Scramble for Africa Plan

1. Presort materials (map, squares, cut out goals) into packets. For a class of 30, you need 5 packets. 
2. Separate students into groups of 6 & give a leader the Scramble for Africa packet. 
3. Explain the rules: each student is a country trying to get territory in Africa according to a goal they will receive. Students will take territory by placing 1” squares of construction paper on the map. Each group goes clockwise around the circle, starting with Britain, taking turns placing the paper 1 piece at a time. Conflicts (papers overlapping) will be resolved through wars-- RPS. Loser’s square is put away and can’t be reused. Go until all nations have placed all squares.
4. Have them set up the desks in circles, pass out goals & papers. Students should not know each others’ goals—only their own. 
5. Wait to start all at the same time. Give 15 minutes for the activity itself. 
6. All wars should be conducted with your supervision. (I find that we have to go over a standard way to play RPS because students disagree.) 
7. Afterwards: Ask how many achieved their goals and have volunteers read each nation’s goal. Connect to the real scramble for Africa by comparing to a real map of Africa in 1914. Create a compare/contrast Venn diagram together. 
8. Return all materials & move desks back to normal – start notes on Africa 

Instructions as shown to students: 

1. Claim territory according to your goals. 
2. Starting with Great Britain and going clockwise, place 1 piece of paper on the map to claim territory until all countries have used up their paper. 
3. You may place over another country’s claim.
4. Once all countries have claimed territory, resolve any conflicts through wars. 

Rules for WAR 

1. Wars are conducted through Rock, Paper, Scissors. 
2. Best 2/3 rounds wins, and keeps the territory. 
3. Loser must remove their square and cannot place it back on the map. Your soldiers are dead. 

Goals

1. Portugal – secure African coastal areas to help develop secure trade routes with Asia 
2. England—secure a colonial empire (as much as you can) so we can build a transcontinental railroad that would extend from north to south. Keep port cities. 
3. France—secure a transcontinental empire (as much as you can) from west to east. We also want to gain control of old trading posts on the west coast. 
4. Germany—secure new colonies on the west coast and east coast for trading posts. We have no hold in Africa and really want one. 
5. Spain—secure African coastal areas to help develop secure trade routes with Asia. 
6. Italy—secure an African empire of any kind, we came into the imperialist race late and want to catch up. Closer to Italy is better. 

Note on proportions— 
My numbers and sizes are based on the students using an 8”x11” map of Africa. If you use a larger map (could be good) just adjust accordingly by making the squares larger, or upping each one by the same number of squares. The idea is that the amount of territory they can claim is related to how much was actually claimed by their nation.
Portugal – 3 squares
England—6 squares
France—5 squares
Germany—4 squares
Spain—2 squares
Italy—2 squares

Map— I use a blank map of Africa with a few major physical features (rivers mostly) and important port cities labeled. Definitely no political boundaries. Keep your map in a sheet protector!

Scramble for Africa

For everybody that has commented about wanting copies of the Scramble for Africa game, I'm working on lesson plans for the imperialism unit this week (we jump in when we get back from break) and I plan to update the game and post it sometime soon.

Also, I recommend Rock-Paper-Scissors for solving silly classroom arguments in all situations, always. Best 2/3 with the teacher watching usually works.

Flexibility is KEY

This is a follow-up to "So what if it's a project?"

I never did come up with a better project idea. I had the edges of something but I couldn't make it resolve. So I picked two of the more school-y but somewhat authentic projects (newspaper, conversation photostory) and let them pick. Before starting, though, we spent half an hour on a review warm-up (bellringer) that I planned as a quick thing. I saw with my first block class how much time they were taking to do it, but not in a "those kids are slacking" way - they were thinking hard about it and trying to do it without looking at their notes, and I decided that my planned 10 minutes of review at the beginning of class could be half an hour of letting them struggle with this. They struggled and then we discussed it. I asked them who was the easiest and then it just went from there.

 
What's the point? The point is flexibility. The point is the lesson plan is only the introduction to the story. I'm not always good at remembering that, but when I do, I am in that moment seeing what is happening for the students and willing to change around based on what I see on their faces and hear in their voices, those are some of my best moments as a teacher. This simple warm up was not something I expected to be a powerful learning experience - but something about it challenged them and they rose to that challenge and were willing to push through and work on it. I had kids who are not my 'hand-always-up' types coming up to me as I circulated and just let them work, and struggle, and say "Martin Luther was from Germany, right?" and the excitement in their voice at knowing this, at remembering without looking at their notes, got me excited.

After that it was time to introduce the projects. I went over the two options, they got in their groups and picked one, I handed out directions and spent the rest of class just circulating and helping out. I both love and hate those classes. I love it because I feel the most engaged with the students but I hate it because there's 26 kids in the room who all want a conversation with me to resolve their concerns so I'm worn out by the end of the period.

What happened with the projects? Out of 3 classes, only 4 groups are doing a photostory because a newspaper is easier. One group, however, took the two ideas and ran, asking if they could basically do a newscast. Some groups got into their newspapers, making it sound authentic. Some are basically rewriting the notes into their own words and calling it an article while others asked for textbooks and resources to look up additional information. Two kids called me out on details I remembered wrong. Although very few students did not get engaged and work hard, there were those few I didn't reach.

I don't know how to judge this in terms of success. Success at helping them grapple with the content? Some already got it and are just flying, others did have to go back and review and ask questions and seem to have learned from it, others seem not to be learning much from it, just completing the requirements. Success as a (somewhat) authentic project? Assuming the role of a newscaster or newspaper writer seems to have had an appeal to some students, but I'm not going to make big assertions about authenticity.

Overall I'm glad I went forward with the projects even if I couldn't make a grander idea resolve. Last week there was a lot of lecture in my regular World History classes, and to be honest, I got bored. If I'm bored, you KNOW the students are. Even if this wasn't the perfect implementation of project-based learning, it was a step in the right direction with a unit that I have previously struggled very hard with teaching. There's other topics where this is easy for me - the Industrial Revolution, for example, is incredibly easy to create simulations and stimulating activities for - but the Reformation has always been a struggle to teach well. For the first time in years I feel like I made progress on that.

Review Quizzes

Sometimes I do this thing where I give a pop quiz.

The first time I do it, everyone panics, because I'm not a pop quiz type. Then I say, "no, no, it's ok. It's a review quiz. Don't worry." Everyone gives me this look like "What in the world are you talking about Mrs M? Are you crazy?" and I explain.

A review quiz is a pretty simple idea that always amazes me with how well it works. I give the students a quiz. It's all identification, short answer questions so that when I read their answers I really know what they know. They spend some time taking it like a real quiz (books and notebooks out of sight, no talking, no questions asked.) I tell them they can get out their notes and they switch pens and start looking up everything they don't know. Eventually, I collect them and take them home and look over them, marking them up with corrections and suggestions but giving a lot of leeway in grading.

I'm always surprised by how motivating they seem to be. I'll get a few students who just keep working with their books closed even after time is up, because they'd rather remember it than look it up, and eventually get it all. The majority of students will have to look up about half of it, and I can get a feel as I walk around about what's been working or not lately. A few students will have almost nothing on their paper at first, but rather than give up, they work diligently to figure it out when it's notebook time.

This also gives me a good chance to fix misconceptions, point out common errors and take notes on what to review before the actual test. Great for long units like the current one (World War 2).

Scramble for Africa

The Current Game*

Set up: The board is an outline map of Africa. Make it as simple as possible-- a few major physical features (Nile River, Suez Canal, Congo River are all that's on mine) and that's it. Each student is a European nation seeking territory in Africa. I set up six players per board (Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal) giving each player a set of colored construction squares and a goal. The goals are based on the actual goals/empires, for example, Britain is trying to create a transcontinental (N-S) empire. The students get colored squares based on the power their nation, so Britain has the most.

Play: Students take turns placing their squares one at a time to claim territory in Africa according to their nations' goal. They may overlap, and play until everyone has run out of squares. The board at this point will be a jumbled mess of overlaps. That's good!

War: There is no peaceful solution to these territorial conflicts. Like nations throughout all of history, we solve our disputes by strength of arms in the ancient game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. To ensure fairness, all wars must be monitored by the teacher and are best 2 throws out of 3. Loser removes their square and cannot re place it. (I tell them that those soldiers are dead, so they can't go conquer some other territory with their ghosts.)

After you've solved all the wars, it's time to determine the winners. Each nation reveals their goal and we figure out who, if anyone, actually met their goal. Sometimes no one has, and sometimes a few lucky throws lead you to a clear winner.

Wrap Up: I tend to follow this up by displaying a map of colonial territories in Africa ca. 1914 and ask them to do a little compare/contrast between their own maps and the real territorial divisions. Depending on how well your various students play RPS, it can lead to some pretty realistic maps. We discuss how the real map makes sense in terms of the students' goals in game and then move on to the rest of the lesson on Imperialism in Africa. (If you don't teach in the block, that will probably be next period. This does take 30-45 minutes depending on class size and wars.)

Someone else did it Prettier

The day after I taught this lesson this year, I found this Scramble for Africa board game online. There are some serious differences -- their game includes points values for colonies w/preset borders, dilemmas based on historical situations, and a more real win condition. The basic goal is the same.

The Plan for Next Year

Based on my simple game and the pretty one I found this year, I'm going to try to do a SmartBoard version of Scramble for Africa. I will set up the board as a blank Africa made up of hexes, which will change color to be claimed by a country. I still plan on setting national goals, rather than the points-based system, but I will add some scenarios to exploration and probably a movement system. I'm not sure whether I'll keep the conflicts over territory--the creators of the other Scramble for Africa game had a good point about how little violent conflict there really was between European powers. I'm still working on a lot of details, because this will move from being a group game where every student is involved (with 4-6 Africa boards out) to something that is whole-class by necessity of using the SmartBoard.

____________________________
* I'm not at work where all my binders/files are because it's break, but when I get back I'll post links to my goals and details of set up if you want them.

Finding a Vision

I'm in a strange place with teaching right now.

On the one hand, there've been several reminders lately of how much work I still need to do at classroom management. I'm back to the place I was at the end of last school year, bemoaning all the situations that happen where I don't do anything, or do the wrong thing too late, because I don't actually know what I should do in response to that student. It's frustrating because just a few weeks ago I had a series of days where I felt like I was totally "on my game" and able to think quickly enough to make intelligent choices in classroom management. I started to see it, really, I swear I did! Where'd it go?

On the other hand, I've been starting to really get a clear vision of what I want my classroom to be. I have all these ideas I've been working on, introducing pieces of into the classroom, and generally spending a lot of time behind-the-scenes working out the details of how and why for everything from assessment to pedagogy. It's like I've been walking around blind in a maze for the last 3 years, occasionally stumbling into the right thing, and then suddenly I left the maze and got a chance to view it from above.

On the gripping hand, however, I realize that those sorts of visions are only part one of trying to get better at this teaching thing. I'm good at big-picture vision, and dreaming up interesting ideas. I'm also good at reflection, seeing where I went wrong. The problem is, I'm not so good at translating those two things into actually doing all the nitty-gritty work right and making the right decision in the moment. 'Great idea, poor implementation.' That's me.

I used to call this "follow-through" but that's not quite it. I got follow-through: I come up with an idea, I do it, I keep fussing with it. What I don't have is "not-starting-over-again-when-the-going-gets-tough", aka persistence. As nice as all these visions for next year are, they don't help me do a good job for the next 4 months. Rather than give up on working through this tough, winter stretch and planning how I'll do it better next time around, I need to be focusing on how I can bring all these ideas and realizations into the classroom now.

To that end, I've been giving myself assignments. These are specific things that I can work on, have a finite end point, and I can use in the classroom right now. Currently, my assignments to myself include:

• Fixing presentations. Less text, more images. Less bullets, more story. Seems to be in vogue around the ednet right now.
• Organizing test questions. My big plan for next year is to introduce an assessment scheme modeled on Dan Meyer's, but adapted for my standards, content, and students. To that end, I need a reliable bank of test questions on every standard I teach, organized by substandard (WHII9a,9b,9c, etc) and tagged by difficulty (still working on that part). So, every time I write a quiz/test for the rest of the year, I'm going back and tagging questions, adding new ones, and generally trying to do this as-I-go rather than all-summer-long. It's actually making me do a lot more thinking about the questions I write, which is good, because I hate writing tests and slack off on them usually.
  
• Including processing/transformative assignments in class time. I wrote about this a little before, but it's become a big thing for me. Any time I plan a lesson and I think 'there's not enough time, have them do it as homework' it's a sign that it's time to reevaluate the lesson, make sure I'm keeping it simple, and make time.

I'd been meaning to write about some more of my stuff that's worked lately, and post some good links, but I've been ignoring the internet lately. I'll be back, don't worry.

Games, dream electives, and why I want a 20th century history course to be taught in 11th grade.

It's been a busy week. I've been starting a new semester, new units, generally trying to do a better job of staying caught up and taking a Spanish class. I wanted to make sure that I posted a couple of thoughts before they escaped my brain though.

1) I love it when I can make a game out of something to introduce it. This week was the "Scramble for Africa" game. (The day after I finished playing it with my classes, I found a nicer "Scramble for Africa" game someone had made. I now have a whole plan on how to make a totally cool, SMARTboarded up, version. Next year, though. Now I need to concentrate on teaching World War 1.)

2) World/European History and American history classes should all stop around 1890. Then you should do a 20th century/modern history class that combines the two. Seriously, February-May is annoying. I teach about World War 1 in US and then the next week I'm teaching it in World. I feel like I'm getting planning whiplash. It's not exactly the same curriculum, since the emphasis is different. (Example: with the Great War, in US I emphasize why we got involved and the 14 points, whereas World emphasizes the actual course of the war, Russian Revolution and overall Treaty of Versailles effects.)

Considering how much I had to reteach my US class that was supposed to be in the World curriculum, and how truncated those emphases are without each other, it makes much more sense to devote an entire course to the 20th century and include both perspectives in it. (This might also give us a chance to do a better job at including Latin American, African and Asian perspectives on a lot of these events.)

3) I'm working on a dream electives list.

• There's already the "Media and American History" one that Tom and I wanted to teach together.
  
• I also want to teach "History vs Hollywood" as a semester course. The students would vote on 5 "historical" movies for us to examine, and it'd be very project-centered, encouraging them to use the research on the accuracy of the movie to jump off into research/projects about the time period.
  
• "Italian City-States: A Historical Soap Opera" would be fun, although I'd need to dust up on my Florentine intrigue.
  
• I also have always wanted to teach a social history-oriented elective that went at about the same pace as the regular World History courses. This would be my chance to incorporate all the pieces I think are missing from a standard history curriculum: art, music, clothing, food, daily lives of real people, social structures, literature, gender, advertising, propaganda outside of wartime, race outside of slavery, etc.

What history-related electives would you want to see taught? What changes would you make to the structure of the social studies curriculum?

Finally, how many of you agree that all high school history and english should be taught as humanities courses? (History provides the context in which we practice those language skills. English provides the great literature that we read about in historical context. It's a match made in heaven.)

"Where's the Teacher?" Moment Today

Picture, if you will: A classroom full of students. The desks aren't really arranged, but pulled into random groupings of 2 and 3 and 4. Everyone in the room seems very intent on their notebooks or their laptop, talking quietly with those in their group. You look around the room for the teacher, and you can't seem to find her. Nobody's lecturing, and several people get up and walk around the room to talk to others about something before going back to work.

I actually had a student stop by and be unable to find me in the room (even after someone told her I was there) until I came over to her. Feeling truly invisible now!

Things that Work

I'm currently finishing up the unit on the Industrial Revolution with my 10th graders. This unit has been going pleasantly well, especially compared to the jumbled mess it was last year. To finish it up, we're taking a look at some of the effects of the I.R. in order to have students write an editorial as if they're a reporter in 1830.

The set up is that they're moving around the room to different stations with information, pictures, music, etc on topics such as "child labor", "modern buildings" and "industrial production." The thing that's making this work well, rather than just be ok, is that I asked them to not only list positive or negative effects for each topic they examined, but also discuss how the negatives could be fixed with their groups. Wandering around the room clarifying ideas in their information, prodding them to consider negatives and positives not directly specified, and asking them about their suggestions for improvement is my favorite kind of teaching. Small conversations in which I can poke and prod at their ideas and see things start to click. Without having to outright say it, I got a lot of "so that's why we have laws about that nowadays" out of them. :)

My favorite overheard remark:
"I know how to fix this one--have kids go to school more." *sees me walking by* "I never thought I'd say that." I smile.