Taking a Look at Renaissance Royalty: a 5th grade lesson

Introduction

Oh no! Your time machine broke before you could get all the way home. As your time machine skids to a stop in the middle of a field, you look at your clockinator and realize you are in the year 1560. As you take your handy history of the world book, you realize you are in renaissance England! You must disguise yourself as a member of the royal court and get to know everything you can about these ages. This means that you have to know a thing or two about the Queen, her past, and the court life! Thankfully, your wonderful teacher sent you a webquest to help! You must do your best to fit in, so research well!

-Samantha and Aroxy

Task

You will have 2 parts to this task,

Stage 1: Independent

First, after completing the readings and watching the videos you are to write a letter to your future self describing what is going on, you might want to mention the queen, what court life was like, the food you had to eat, and how you felt. This paper should be at least one and a half pages long double spaced and should follow letter format.

Secondly, you will be asked to draw a picture of what you think the time period looked like, what you would have looked like, or you may design your own castle and attach it to your letter. It does not have to be perfect, but I am expecting your best effort. This picture should have details and should be colored!

Stage 2: Partner

Lastly, you will be asked to do a presentation in front of the class. For this task, you will be paired into groups of 2. With your partner, you have an option for which task you wish to complete:

Option 1: Fashion show→ you will need to find different types of dress from this time period. You will be asked to present a slide show of the different outfits along with a short description for each picture (i.e. was it men or womens clothes, royal clothing or peasant clothing, or something else). This presentation should be 5-10 minutes in length and must be done using technological software (prezi, powerpoint, or others)

Option 2: Chef’s Choice→ For this task you will be asked to investigate the foods of the time period and present a menu to the class. You will need to discuss your food choices, explain where the food would be found ( the castle or the village), and explain what the food is, and provide pictures. You are expected to print out a menu for the class to look at and give a short 5-10 minute explanation of your work, you may use a poster board or a tri-fold display board. Be creative!!!!

Option 3: Conversation Station→ If you choose to have a conversation, you and your partner will write a script featuring two members of court. You will talk about the queen, issues of the time ( make sure to look at the time line provided!), the food, the fashion, or other topics you may find interesting from the time. Do your best to be in character whether you want to dress up or speak in Elizabethan (Shakespearean) type language. This will be a 5-10 minute conversation and must include 7-10 facts or statements about the time period. A script must be written and provided. You may record this presentation to show to the class or act it out in front of the class.

Process

First: You will need to look at the websites and watch the video’s to gain information for your writing piece and your picture. It might be helpful to take notes on the sheets I provided for you.

Second: Once you feel as though you gathered enough information, start to map out your letter. What do you want to focus on the most and what did you find the most interesting?

Third: Write your letter and make sure that it is 1.5 pages long and includes a lot of information.

Fourth: I will divide you into groups of two

Fifth: Discuss with your partner about which of the three options you wish to complete for stage 2

Sixth: Follow the directions for the assignment option your group chose and complete the assignment (be ready to present and hand in additional materials).

Seventh: Celebrate your return to the 21st century!

Resources:

-http://www.elizabethi.org/contents/court/

This website features information about the court life during the reign of Elizabeth I

-http://www.elizabethi.org/contents/food/

This website displays information about the food during the elizabethan era

-http://www.elizabethi.org/contents/timeline/

This website is a timeline of events in Elizabeth I ‘s life

- http://www.ducksters.com/biography/women_leaders/queen_elizabeth_1.php

Biography of Queen Elizabeth I

-https://historyofeuropeanfashion.wordpress.com/category/renaissance-1450-1650/

Clothing

-https://www.google.com/search?q=renaissance+clothing&biw=1138&bih=546&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=b13rVMvSBIT1auq0gPAC&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

Renaissance clothing

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2udg2L49hc

Overview of Renaissance

Evaluation

Web Quest Individual Task Rubric

	1	2	3	4	Score/Level
Skillful	Makes no effort to learn new skills	Satisfied with answering questions, but no real understanding	Has general idea of task. Able to answer specific questions	Has clear idea of task and its relationship to technology and education
Cooperative	Will not help - ignores partner	Sometimes willing to help partner	Shares work when asked and listens to partner	Willingly explains things to partners and will use partner’s ideas
Creative	Never thinks of other ideas to solve a problem	Occasionally has a new idea, but little follow through	Has new ideas but will not share with others	Develops new ideas or ways of doing things. Products exceed requirements
On Task	Constantly talking to others in room, rarely works on task	Sometimes talks about unrelated subjects	Usually follows the task and talks only to partner	Always follows the steps of the task and sometimes goes beyond the concepts

Webquest Partner Project

	1	2	3	4	Score/Level
Sentence Structure	Unclear, incorrect, and/or ineffective sentence structure	Simplistic and/or awkward sentence structure	Organized and complex sentence structure that has some stylistic variation	Sentence structure is varied in composition and length
Grammar	Multiple grammatical and stylistic errors	Some errors in grammar and/or format that do not interfere with clarity	Few grammatical and/or stylistic errors	Nearly error-free which reflects clear understanding and thorough proofreading
Vocabulary	Apparent confusion with the use of language	Simplistic and/or unclear language	Effective language	Rich and precise language
Meaningful Development of Ideas	Ideas are unclear and/or not well-developed	Unelaborated ideas that are not fully explained or supported; repetitive details	Depth of thought supported by elaborated, relevant supportive evidence provides clear vision of the idea; contains details	Depth and complexity of thought supported by rich, pertinent details; supporting evidence leads to high-level idea development
Organization of Paper	Weak organization of ideas	Somewhat unfocused and/or unclear	Logical organization of ideas	Careful and relevant organization of ideas

Conclusion

CONGRATULATIONS!!! You have successfully convinced the other court members that you belonged while your time machine charged. Not only have you learned a ton, but you had a blast learning...no pun intended! I hope that you learned a lot about court life and the English Renaissance. What topic did you find most fascinating while researching and completing this project? Hope to see you again very soon on our next big adventure.

Credits

https://www.google.com/search?q=here+we+go+time+machine&biw=1252&bih=57…

Teacher Page

Standards:

8.4.5.B: Illustrate concepts and knowledge of historical documents, artifacts, and sites, which are critical to World history.

8.4.5.A: Compare and contrast common characteristics of the social, political, cultural, and economic groups in world history.

GOALS FOR THE LESSON:
- We wanted to give children the opportunity to engage with the Renaissance in multiple ways while still having a fun educational experience

- We wanted to take a UDL lead on these assignments by offering students choices in their partner projects

- We wanted to give the children a chance to work independently as well as work in a collaborative setting

Things to remember:

** Remember that there are going to be different resources used by every child, we gave a vast amount of resources for the children to look at and examine, so remember there may be differences

** Remember that a great way to practice, learn, experience, and have some fun is to do the webquest yourself and make a model example for the students, so they know your expectations.

** Feel free to use your own rubric or adapt ours!