Letting Students Play to Their Strengths

In addition to my other pastimes, I coach junior varsity basketball at my high school. One of the things I focus on with the young players is learning to practice & play to their strengths. This means if you're tall and strong I'm going to encourage you to work on low post play and not spend as much time working on your 3-point game. Of course there are exceptions to this, but this is one of my basic philosophies of coaching.

This idea has found it's way in to one particular part of my history classes in an interesting way.

I like to give empathy writing assignments. These assignments are an opportunity for students to use their creativity and talents to prove that they learned something in my class. I also believe they are an important part of what I hope students take from my class. I want them to come away with an idea of what it might have been like, what it might have actually felt like to experience the events we study in class.

An example of an assignment might be to write about what life was like during the Great Depression or write about what it might have been like to live in the USSR during Stalin's purges. They can write letters, journal entries, poetry, a song or even create a picture or a cartoon. 

I give students considerable freedom with these assignments, but I always repeat the mantra… play to your strengths. I urge them to use whatever medium they feel allows them to express themselves the best.

The first time I assigned one of these, I was impressed with the effort and thought many students put into it. Each subsequent time I receive at least a few really remarkable submissions.

In addition to showing that history class doesn't need to be solely about tests and term papers, I think it shows the potential for cross-curricular integration. I would love to see students in English class get credit for writing a poem about WWI or art students getting credit in both classes for a painting about the Cold War.

I'm attaching a few samples so you can see both the variety and the sheer awesomeness of the things my students hand in. I just received another batch, so I will post a few more next week.


Daniels Awesome Great Depression Song

Luke's Trench Warfare Assignment

Bella's Trench Warfare Journal