The Cabeza Chronicles

Breaking Up: Rhetorically Speaking...

The exhilaration of a new relationship and the world-ending-feeling after a breakup summarize the range of emotions that occur in the daily life of a high school student. The longing for acceptance by self and others is everything as high schoolers gain a better understanding of themselves as a friend, partner, student, and job-worker. What better way to get students interested in Rhetorical Analysis than to compare it to element’s of their everyday life.

To begin, students in English III at Byron Nelson High School deconstructed one of the nation’s oldest break up letters, the Declaration of Independence. They analyzed its literary text structure which included the Preamble (introduction to the conflict which is also the claim), the Declaration (rights and beliefs), a list of grievances (specific complaints), and a counterargument (perspective from the “other side”). Next, student’s scrutinized the popular Country song from Old Dominion called “Break Up with Him” to study the tricky use of sound counterargument.

As a culminating, summative activity, students then wrote their own break up letter using the rhetorical structures and devices they’ve been studying throughout the unit. The lesson objective states “Using “The Declaration of Independence” as a model, you must “declare your independence” from something that is a problem for you: something that makes your life difficult, unhappy, or stressful. This can be a relationship with a person, a problematic object, a bad habit, or even a situation you find yourself in often. You may be as creative as you like!" Once the subject of the essay was chosen, students then had to incorporate the rhetorical appeals of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos and include at least one rhetorical device of choice; furthermore, the location of these literary devices were easily located by color-coding the corresponding statements within their essay.

Breaking Up with Anxiety

Breaking Up With Sugar

Because of its cross-curricular emphasis through incorporating Historical text in conjunction with the relevant, meaningful, and personal context of the assignment, this lesson met multiple objectives outside of the English III, 15A TEK. This meets International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)’s standard of a Creative Communicator (6D) in which “Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.” in addition to being a Knowledge Constructor (3D) in which “Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.”

Additional examples include Breaking Up with Cats and Breaking Up with Loneliness.

Cabeza de Vaca Goes Digital!

Who is Cabeza de Vaca?

Schluter 4th grade students created an authentic game-based learning platform to show depth and mastery of knowledge on the DBQ study on Cabeza de Vaca. This fun project supports Social Studies and History skills in which students demonstrate communication skills by creating written and visual material, as well as identifying the accomplishments and explaining the impact of significant explorers on the settlement of Texas. (TEKS SS 4.2B & 4.22D)

Using the game platform Kahoot! each student created their own questions about Cabeza de Vaca with answer choices, identifying the correct answer. Students chose either multiple choice or true/false questions, and they could upload visuals to accompany the question. Students received feedback from classmates and their teacher as they developed and tested their questions. As one student describes, "We were testing each other to see if we really knew the information."

Students collaborate & discuss accuracy of other students' questions

To provide peer feedback, students play each other's game to see who "wins" by correctly answering the questions.

Multiple classes worked on this project, which provided a unique opportunity. After students completed their assessment questions, a set of questions was created for each class and then... they switched classes! Each class played another class' game to provide not only a review of the material but also to experience how other students created unique questions covering the same material.  

The excitement shown by students who get the correct answer says it all!

In addition to demonstrating content-specific skills, this project utilized technology in a way that enabled students to demonstrate how they are empowered learners and creative communicators, crucial skills for being future-ready. (ISTE Student Standards)

Some students will be presenting their Cabeza de Vaca Kahoot! project at Techno Expo on February 23, including the opportunity for audience members to play a sample game to test their knowledge of the impact of Cabeza de Vaca on Texas history!

Mucking Through Historical Blogs

Students in Mrs. Proudman's class have recently created blogs from the perspective of historical investigative journalists from the end of the 19th century.  These journalists looked into the dark side of the so called Gilded Age in American history, often dragging topics into the light for others to see, earning them the moniker of "muckrakers."  For this project, each student was assigned their own muckraker to research and learn about.  But instead of writing a report or a standard presentation about their subject, the students used Blogger to create blogs about the journalists.  "I really liked making the blog," said Carlos, a student in Mrs. Proudman's class.  "It made it more fun because we were able to use our imagination more and make it more of a story than a report."

Student working on the Blogger site

According to the project instructions on Mrs. Proudman's example blog, students had to imagine they were going on a "Ride-A-Long" with their journalist as they investigated an issue of the time. Students then created a blog with multiple posts to document that journey, including biographical information about the journalist, photos or pictures from the trip, and transcripts of what happened.  This allowed the students to explore the time period and the subjects in a more immersive way.  "The project was very interesting," said Carlos.  "It allowed us a chance to time-travel back and see their own views, how things looked like to them."  A good example is this blog on Samuel Hopkins Adams, which writes from a perspective of a third person traveling with Mr. Adams.   As the students wrote their blog posts, they took time to ask themselves "What does it feel like? What do you see? What do you smell?"  Some of the blog even took this a step further and wrote their posts from the first person view of the muckraker themselves, such as this blog on Nellie Bly.  The beauty of this project is that not only did it give students a chance to use their imagination to explore the time period, but it also allowed them the choice of how to present and relay that information.  They could write from different angles, include pictures, videos, or anything else they wanted on their blogs.  Students even took the time to comment on their peers' blog posts to leave both praise and constructive feedback.  Take a look at some of the blogs linked above or some more examples below, and enjoy your trip back in time!

Blog on John Spargo
Blog on Lincoln Steffner

Texas Oil: A Digital Exhibit

For this project, 7th grade Medlin students were asked to create a digital exhibit that records the history of the first Texas oil boom at Spindletop in 1901 and describe the social and economic effects of the discovery. Students researched the history of Spindletop, collected data, composed relevant charts and/or graphs, and present the information digitally. Students had the choice of what to use and   how to present their digital exhibit.

This student group created an emaze to communicate their learning on Texas oil. "I benefited from this project as a student and learned how the oil discovery at Spindletop accelerated the production and use of oil. The old discovery at Spindletop made oil the leading energy product for automobiles. This large oil discover led to oil production taking over as one of the World's largest industries is in the US and even the World."

Vanessa and Isabella created a video using Microsoft Movie Maker for their digital exhibit. "This project was so much fun! This project was a good experience for us to learn more about the oil industry. The technology we used was appropriate for the task given. I thought the fact that boomtowns arose in a matter of days was very interesting. I loved this project!"

For more projects, please visit the links below:

Smore: Oil, how did it affect Texas? 

PowToon: Texas Oil Project

Smore: The Rise of Black Gold


Thanks to Mr. Perrin and Ms. Scholler for their collaboration on this post.

Creating Art in History - A Nontraditional Use of Google SketchUp

What’s going on behind the walls of history? The Pre - AP U.S. History class of juniors just finished their new creative art project. John Klingseisen, STEM Facilitator, created the project around a field trip to the Fort Worth Amon Carter Art Museum where students took a step inside the past by learning the ideas behind American art during the Gilded Age. The project itself consisted of a physical art piece, an informative essay including topics such as industrialization, urbanization and Progressivism, even a digital representation of the art piece.

One art piece per group was required. The essay portion was necessary for grading. This assignment was a reflection of what a student learned from personal research as well as how to follow a rubric’s criteria. The required amount of APA cited sources left in the students in charge of what they learned. On the rubric it was mandatory that every student in their essay use outside sources such as books or databases and not the more common sites like Wikipedia or Bing. The digital representation was accomplished through Google Sketchup where different textures and feature were applicable.

Nathan Patske Pre - AP U.S. History student said “Our project was the best,” piece including an electrical switch for lights. Although enjoying the project the student felt there was something missing. Nathan added “There should be checkpoints” for the progression of the art pieces to keep one single person from working on the whole art aspect.

A question for the History Facilitator was, “Next year will the project will be implemented?” The answer, yes. Perfect or not, the project broke out of the regular Project Based Learning format unlike regular history projects with informational question and monotonous reading instituting hands on art the teams were able to share and finally present to a panel of colleagues.  


STEM Academy Newsletter

By: Martin Bowser, STEM Academy Student

Biography Analysis: A Lesson on Character

If a teacher is like a tour guide, their students become travelers on a shared journey. From this perspective, students are afforded freedom of choice, a sense of independence, and agency over the experience. In Mrs. Laura Taylor-Dunn's 5th grade class at Peterson Elementary, students traveled back in time and examined biography texts about their chosen historical figure. They then created a published document and newscast showcasing what they learned.

Students worked together in collaborative groups to analyze and identify the traits and characteristics of their historical person and recorded their findings in a circle map. These traits were then used to create a recording sheet for their research projects. Students worked with their Library Media Specialist, Mrs. Sanders, to research and compile important information about their famous person. After analyzing their notes, students selected three character traits they felt their famous person best displayed and justified their selections. The resulting artifact was a Microsoft Publisher newsletter. Students then used an iPad application called TouchCast to create a news report video about their famous person.

In Ashlyn's examination of Eleanor Roosevelt, she highlights that "people still think she was respectful, caring, and nice because she cared about how other people felt and she focused on human rights and women's issues. I guess you can say she followed the Golden Rule."

According to Ms. Taylor-Dunn, "this project enhanced student learning because it was fun! Not only did the students learn how to use Microsoft Publisher, they also had the opportunity to explore an app called TouchCast.  Using this technology allowed the students to express themselves creatively and to communicate their ideas authentically."