The Adventures in Mrs. Ripp's Class

Our current writing project is titled "The Lens of History" and has to do with researching a historical event and then writing about it.  We decided to make it a bit more interesting though by giving the students a choice.  They can either choose to write a research paper detailing their event or they can turn it into more of a historical fiction story (which is harder to do).

I have given the students the following criteria so far:

• Be specific, rather than pick "slavery" for example pick a certain part of slavery such as the North American Slave Trade.  Otherwise their research will be much too broad.
• Put yourself in someone's shoes, take on the perspective of someone who has lived through it to develop deeper thinking and empathy for the situation.
• Limit your pictures, but make sure the ones you do include contain vital information.
• Include at least one map.
• Sources should be cited using Easybib or something similar.
• Research now, we will start to write in a few weeks after we do outline etc.
• Use books whenever possible as your starting point.
• Length should be between 4 and 10 pages typed, double spaced, size 12 font.
• Pick something of interest to write about, you can pick any event in history that you want to learn about.
• Figure out how to best keep track of your research.