Lesson Plan
Accentuating the History curriculum in your classroom can be accomplished through interdisciplinary lesson planning. This is a lesson design technique that uses one subject as a component of a lesson while teaching another. For example, a teacher may use a basketball game to teach students how to count by two's or they may have their students create an art project covering a theme in a writing assignment.
These two examples are ways to use one subject to help teach another. Interdisciplinary planning is separate from an integrated model because it has less overall consistency in the planning of a unit and can be used a little more randomly.
Examples of interdisciplinary lesson plans could include designing, drawing and coloring a food pyramid to help teach about nutrition or creating an astrolabe to illustrate Columbus' navigational practices or singing a song to highlight a concept or an idea.
I've highlighted some interdisciplinary techniques I've used in my classes to help stimulate an interest in the dreaded subject of US History. Typically, my students have little interest in learning about US History for a few reasons. Most are recent immigrants and have some language barriers and the others just don't care because history is so far removed from their perspectives. Intermediate aged students are focused on the-here-and-now and for me to create an interest in bygone eras within my students requires extraordinary effort. Enter now the Interdisciplinary Model of lesson design blending History with Music!
Music Lessons
To make the study of US History more appealing to my students I broke our studies into cleverly titled eras; America's Infancy, America's Toddler Years, America's Adolescence, America's Teen Aged Years and America In the Present Era. In the amended course description below I placed an I before the Infancy Era songs, a T before the Toddler era songs, an A before the Adolescent Era songs, a TN before the Teen Aged Era songs and a P before the Present Era songs.
We used the music to introduce an era or a topic within an era and disseminated any and all vocabulary into easily understood terms. The ice was broken as the students soon learned to have fun in class and sing in loud voices all of the serious or silly songs. The relationship between the song and the day's objective made teaching enjoyable and helped many students learn more than traditional means of history instruction.
Consider the excerpt from the course syllabus below as you begin your planning for history this year or in coming years. Though I used this material with 5th grade students, a similar procedure could used with any age group.
How To Learn
Course Syllabus
Hello Fifth Graders,
- Welcome to your history class. During this period music will help us understand the growth of the United States through its critical times in history. So often music plays a vital role in inspiring a nation and carries with it a feeling that develops into a sense of unity and pride. A set of songs has been selected which relate the story of an era through each tale. These songs include I) The Star Spangled Banner, I) Yankee Doodle Dandy, T)America The Beautiful, T) My Country Tis of Thee, T) God Bless America, A) The Erie Canal, A) The Battle Of New Orleans, A) Clementine, TN) Goober Peas, TN) Battle Hymn of the Republic and PE) Sink The Bismarck. While exploring these songs (and polishing up our best singing voices) you must additionally participate in activities that will help to fine-tune your reading and writing skills. A list of these requirements is on the back of this syllabus (not included in this article) and serves as our guide for the time we'll spend together. Let's make our class a fun and exciting time by coming each day ready to read, write, sing and learn.Happy History,Mr Jones
Nova Jones - Nova Jones M.Ed./Sp.Ed. NBCT
