Individual Education Plan

For my Individual Education Plan (IEP), I created an iMovie Unit for my 11th Grade U.S. History class. All of my students learned how to create an iMovie, how to organize information into a story format, and how to tease out the significance of an historic event. The unit went through storyboards, creating a bibliography, researching, and writing a script.

Throughout the unit, I made time to help individual students as well as the entire class. We spent time in the computer lab at the high school, and I spent a lot of time outside of class working with students who needed help. We also spent time in the classroom working with iMovie, and mapping out our stories.

Students got to select a historic topic from a list of 100 significant events of the 20th century. One of the highlights of the project was watching them work on a project about a subject they were interested in. Topics ranged from the 1918 influenza epidemic to the falling of the Berlin Wall and the origins of jet travel.

For my iMovie, I chose Nixon's historic visit to China in the early 1970s. You can see it by clicking here.

To see the unit's lesson plans, click here.

Click here to see my iMovie grading rubric, and click here to see the storyboard from my iMovie (the model I used for my students).

Digital Story

My second iMovie, "Nixon Visits China," is now posted on Youtube. Click here to watch it.
I had a great time making the movie, and I am becoming a bit more comfortable with the iMovie program.

To help me organize my story, I created a storyboard, which you can see here. I used this storyboard to show my students how I went from an idea to an organized and informative iMovie.

I had my students make historic iMovies as well, which was one of the highlights of the year. To grade their iMovies, I created a rubric, which you can see here.

I enjoyed using the iMovie program a lot, and most of my students did as well. Each student chose their own topic (from a list of historic events), and it was great watching the students make something their own about a topic they were interested in.

I hope to do it again!

A Professional Conversation

During my brief tenure in the world of teaching, I have enjoyed the feedback and counsel of the veteran teachers at the Juneau Douglas High School. I have also benefited from the numerous, less formal conversations I have had with teachers I meet everywhere I go.

However, I have also drawn inspiration and support from perusing the National Council for Social Studies website.

They list resources of all sorts, from Advocacy to Teacher Training, Classroom Management tools to standards, lesson plans, and numerous other resources. I use the website mostly for lesson plan ideas, although there are also great links to other websites, for example:

California Newsreel & What Kids Can Do.

NCSS is a great resource.