Erin+Barry

//"// //An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."// -Benjamin Franklin
One of the most influential people in [|U.S. history] is Benjamin Franklin. In order to further understand his substantial impact on U.S. history and in order to recognize and understand chronological relationships I have picked the Ben Franklin time line lesson off of the [|discovery education website].

Each student will choose one event in Ben Franklin’s life from the ushistory.org Ben Franklin [|timeline]. The students will then write an essay describing their chosen event, how the event lead to or was influenced by other events in Franklin’s life, and how this event has affected the present day. Along with a written paper each student will create a collage on a piece of butcher paper of their chosen event using art supplies, magazines, or any other creative materials that depicts their event and lists the date that the event took place. Then we will turn our classroom into a giant timeline by hanging the events around the classroom in chronological order. After the collages have been hung up each student will present their event by explaining the collage and giving a summary of their paper. This lesson will allow the students to understand timelines by visual representation and by noting the relationships between different events in a person’s life. I will evaluate this project on how accurate and detailed the essay and collage are. I am basically looking for effort and completion of the assignment on time.

__**Responses**:__
Michelle's Response: I really like every aspect of this lesson plan. Not only are students able to learn about one of the most important people in United States history, but they are able to see/understand how much he has influenced and impacted life not only in the U.S., but the whole globe. What's expected of the students in this project is perfect for students at the 5th grade level. Students not only get to work on their writing, but they are able to develop research skills and have some creative application in completing the final project. My favorite part about this project is that it allows students to learn together by working together. The giant timeline will not be effective unless the students work together to create and organize it.

__Darryl's Response:__ I think this is a great idea of teaching about a very influential person in U.S history in a timeline. Ben Franklin was just that. U.S history is being taught through Ben Franklin this way. I really like this idea for my African American history class. Instead of Ben Franklin, I would use Martin Luther King as the influential person in history. I like the essay and the collage assignments. I would not do both of the assignments though. I would chose one and just focus on that assignment. I feel students will give an even better understanding of just one of them.

__Danielle's Response:__ I think that this lesson plan is really cool because of how the whole class contributes to one large timeline. This way, each individual student (or small group of students) gets to research in depth their certain aspect of Ben Franklin's life and then at the end they also get to learn about all of the different aspects. I think that the class would take pride in creating a group project such as this and in the end they may learn even more since each person was able to focus on a specific topic rather than a broad one.