On an average day in fifth and sixth grade, half an hour is spent each afternoon on a history lesson. This year we are in the second year of our history cycle, working through the medieval era in all of its intense, imperial glory. Many lessons are four pages of primary source material from such sources as Bede, Procopius or Jordanes. Our class takes time to work through the text in order to understand what happened with given church fathers, kings of barbaric tribes, or emperors. We identify the outcomes of those figures’ virtues or vices, and discuss what can be learned from the way they lived. The students are well versed in distinguishing when someone is clearly living in love toward God and neighbor versus love for self, pride, power, and greed. The history lessons do well bolstering their confidence in how we should stay in God’s word and pray that He help us to live Godly lives.
There was something about our structure that was lacking, however. When I’d try to make a comparison back to someone we’d discussed much earlier in the year like Eusebius or Diocletian, or put someone into chronological context with other kings of the era, it would be with little confidence and a lot of flipping around in our binder of notes to aid our memory. I noticed, though, that there were a few instances of recall that were particularly impressive: the students were making connections to a few historical anecdotes or figures they’d learned last year. They were referring back to Alcibiades and Scipio more than anyone we’d covered together this year. Miss Hahn had given them the gift of History Skits. Working with bits of their history lessons last year combined energy, emotion, and excitement into the learning environment and had formed some particularly durable neural pathways and easy retrieval for their brains. It seemed like a no-brainer to try incorporating history skits into our classroom structure from time to time.
Thanks to Miss Hahn’s successful introduction to history skits last year, the students had a pretty solid base of ideas for how to write a scene. They were also extremely eager prop and costume makers. The majority of the work we needed to do was in pulling out the most important details to present their part of the primary source material in a way that would help their fellow students understand what happened and why it was important. They were allowed to quote directly from our sources if desired, but also given freedom to put lines into their own words. The skills of paraphrasing, summarizing, and concision are key to the rhetorical work we do as well. Writing the plays led to practice in all of these skills. The cherry on top was that when they were able to act out medieval history, these facts and figures were engaged in their own experiences. They tickled each other’s funny bones, had a surge in joy and excitement, and were able to build stronger neurological pathways. Bottom line: they’ll remember Alcibiades, Ulfilas, and Justinian (not just the “easier” or more obvious personas like Attila) for many years to come.
In Christ,
Mrs. Stutheit
