Joel+Taggart

(Anfield, Liverpool, England)

Bonjour all

I'm Joel Taggart and like almost everyone else I'm a history major and I'm also a geography minor. This is my second senior year, so you could say I'm taking a victory lap! I'm hoping to go the grad school route after my internship and possibly a PhD so I can teach at the college level someday. I'm quite passionate about a few things and history just happens to be one of them. Ever since my dad plopped me down in front of a TV tuned to the History Channel, we've both shared in an immense passion for history.



My passion was only strengthened through my study abroad throughout western Europe. I studied World War II in England, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands. It was the greatest 4 weeks of my life and I learned so much more then I ever thought I could about the War and also about the many cultures that make up Europe. Reflecting on my experience, I think this is where i draw a lot of my teaching inspiration from.I feel that you can't fully know and understand an event in history until you've stood where it happened. Anywho, if you haven't already taken a study abroad, I highly recommend doing so. You won't regret it!

(The American Military Cemetery in Normandy, France)

Another one of my passions is football, or as we Yanks call it, soccer. My study abroad also helped with this passion. I toured numerous stadiums while abroad in Europe; from teams in London, Paris, and Berlin to even the tiny city of Bayeux, but the one that mattered the most was Liverpool. I'm an avid supporter and Anfield, Liverpool's stadium, was like the Promised Land to me. Not only do I follow the sport avidly, but i play as well, mostly just IM now as age and sport have taken their toll on me. I also played rugby here at MSU and toured the Bahamas with the team. I'm also into mountain biking and am part of the MSU cycling club.

9/11 Lesson Plan

5 minutes- intro with a general question session finding out what the kids know about 9/11 and the events that followed and preceded it, a "where were you" activity with a map of Michigan/ United States/World where the kids would place a tack on their location during the 9/11 attacks.

5 minutes- quick background info on major events in the middle east leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks

15 minutes- show clips from the History Channel "102 Minutes That Changed America : Witness to 9/11

5 minutes- sum up the film and make sure the kids understand the importance of the event in the world in which we live

10 minutes- have kids group up and make a newspaper article for 9/12 explaining what they had learned which they will present to the class

5 minutes- have the groups present their newspapers to the class

Colleague Correspondence-

My colleague correspondent teaches both History and French at my high school back home in St. Clair Shores. When she writes unit plans, she begins by identifying the main ideas for that particular unit. These main ideas are centered around questions, similar to the “BIG question” method which we used. On top of that she sets goals for what she wants the students and herself to accomplish. She likes to balance between teacher centered time like powerpoints/lecture type activities and cooperative student group activities. After that she determines the types of assessments that she feels are applicable for that unit/lesson. She usually includes at least one test, one quiz, and some type of media and art assessment assignment in each unit. She also added that if a particular unit lends itself well to a larger project, she will integrate that as a type of assessment.  Her response was very informative as well as interesting. It saw aspects of the things that were doing in class and it helps add credibility to them. It helps me see that they actually can work once put into practice. She was one of my favorite teachers in high school and in hindsight, I think her lessons were planned very well and this helped the class stay focused and on track. I really enjoyed her classes because she’d always have something else planned, a backup “plan b”, to use if things didn’t quite go the way she’d hoped. I also enjoyed the activities and projects she assigned because they were usually in groups and I work very well in group activities. On top of all that she made it a point to add fun/relevant things to the lesson plans which kept us involved and interested.  Trying to make sense of lesson and unit planning has been no small nor easy task. It takes a lot of bad lesson planning to finally churn out something worthwhile and good. Practice, practice, practice!! The more we do it, the more comfortable I become with the whole process. We have been given a good foundation to build our lesson planning skills on I still don’t feel as comfortable as I should with this, but I know that once I start using lessons I’ve planned. I just have to remember that there is no correct way to shape a lesson, so I must be able to be flexible to my students needs and able to adapt and have a backup plan.

Portland Middle School Lesson Plan

**//Westward Expansion (Manifest Destiny) //** || 1) 4.3.2 maybe?? ||
 * **CLASS: 8th Grade US History ** || **DATE: Monday, October 17- Friday October 21, 2011 ** || **UNIT: //Expansion and Reform (1792-1861):// **
 * **ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: **What will my students be able to do or understand by the end of class? ||
 * SSU…
 * Native Americans paid a huge price in both land and lives in the United States expansion westward.
 * Settlers pushed west into ancestral Native American land with little to no regard for it and its significance.
 * Many Americans believed they were destined to spread “civilization” and democracy westward. ||
 * **ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: **What 1-2 major themes/ideas do I want to explore with students in this unit? ||
 * * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Was the United States justified in expanding West?
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Was the land rightfully theirs in the first place? ||
 * **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">MICHIGAN ****<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;"> HSCE: **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">Which three state standards does my plan address?


 * **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">HOOK/INITIATION: **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">What will you do to get the students invested in the lesson? ||
 * * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Expansion game: have students separate their desk with a majority on one side of the room and the rest on the other. The smaller group of people are to have a bigger amount of space in the room. Use duct tape to clearly delineate the sides of the room. Have the kids do the bell ringer and a few other activities and then have the kids in the larger group discuss what they should do about the issue. They will likely arrive at the idea to move “west” into the more expansive territory inhabited by the less abundant group. Have them discuss legitimacy and rights to the land. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">TEACHER ACTIVITIES: **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">How will I convey the knowledge/skills of the lesson to help my students understand? ||
 * * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Show Powerpoints (with lots of pictures) on Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark, Native American Tribes, Trail of Tears, California Gold Rush/Oregon Trail (about 20 minutes each day)
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Have a discussion session about the words “manifest” and “destiny”
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Have students analyze John Gast’s //American Progress//
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">In class guest : have an actual member of a Native American Tribe come in and speak about culture and tradition
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Movie clips from History.com relating to Manifest Destiny (The Buffalo and Native Americans, Lewis and Clark Expedition, Transcontinental Railroad, Gold Rush, and The Louisiana Purchase) and also the Jeffery Lewis video on Sitting Bull <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">( [|http://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/videos#sitting-bull]) ||
 * **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">STUDENT ACTIVITIES **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">What will the students do to demonstrate their understanding? ||
 * * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Group up the students and have them draft a compromise between the Native Americans and the American settlers after a deliberation
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Play Oregon Trail (for settlers experience)
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Complete map of various Native American Tribes and where they were located before and after American expansion.
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Have the class pair up and present on an assigned Native American group
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Have students individually find examples of Native American resistance to westward expansion ||
 * **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">CLOSURE/SHARE BACK: **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">How will the students share/interpret knowledge for others in the class? ||
 * * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Divide the class into two groups and assign one group to explain Expansion through the eyes of American settlers and the other through the eyes of Native Americans. ||

<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Write Native American on the board and ask the students to name off as many tribes and things about them as they can.
 * **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">BELLRINGER: **

<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Have students create a short poem 5-6 lines long about the effects of Westward Expansion || **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">ANNOUNCEMENTS: ** ||
 * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">TICKET OUT THE DOOR: **
 * ^  || **<span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 8pt;">HOMEWORK: ** ||
 * ^  || * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Have students create a journal each day about life as either a settler moving west or as a Native American being forced from their homes. (assign which) ||
 * ^  || * <span style="font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 9pt;">Have students create a journal each day about life as either a settler moving west or as a Native American being forced from their homes. (assign which) ||

__**Concept Attainment: Looking at Maps**__ <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I really enjoyed reading these three articles. They really shed light on something I thought I already knew very well. When we look at maps nowadays, which we rarely do, the thought never comes across our minds that they in fact could be biased. I guess we always think that a map is just a representation of how the world really is. We rarely think that it is something shaped in reality by the opinions and ideas of a person. I think then, that this would be something we should hit home with our students. My activity would help the kids to understand what goes into the map making process and how a person’s unique insights can lead them to make a map differently than someone else. I’m borrowing heavily from Segall here, but that’s what teachers are supposed to do right? I think I would take Segall’s first classroom activity and expand upon it. I would have the kids, in groups, make maps of say the classroom or the school and then have them compare the differences in them. Expanding out I would have them define cultural regions within the United States. I would be curious as to how they define regions like the South, the Midwest, and so on. Expanding even further, I would move to a world scale. I’m not sure how much I would do with this, but I would definitely like to revisit our Middle East discussion from earlier in the year. I think I would have them try and drawn the “borders” of the region. I also would dabble into the ideas of political borders overlapping cultural and religious barriers and how this can and is causing problems to this day.





**Professional Growth Plan**