US History – Colony Project

Created by David Cross

This syllabus is for 8th Grade Students

Driving Question: How did the founding and early history of this colony impact it's future?

Purpose: Students will learn about the geography and history of several of the original colonies.  They will then prepare a wiki that will tell other students about their colony focusing on changes that occurred between the colonies founding and 1750.

View the grading rubric for this project:   colony rubric.pdf

Process: Students will form into groups of four and then select one of the original 13 colonies to study.  Individual students will complete a research log about their colony. In groups, students will divide responsibilities in order to create the wiki. Wiki's should include: multimedia (images, graphics, audio or video), a slogan representing their colony, cover the topics listed below and provide a list of sources used. The following must be included:

• The Wiki:  Must contain information about:
• The colonies geography and how that effects the living conditions
• Major business types (agriculture, maritime, trading, manufacturing, etc...). Include specific examples if possible
• Specific information about living conditions, religion, rights & laws, African Americans, education, leisure activities, food, family life, industry, and farming
• A map of the colony listing major cities and sites to visit
• A short history of the colony
• Show the colonies flag (or the current state’s flag)
• Must include the slogan
•  The Slogan:
• Must be developed by the students (not created by someone else)
• Must be included in the wiki
• Must be catchy and help people to know more about the selected colony
• Must tell about some aspect of the colony, or life in the colony
• Bibliography:
• ALL sources used must be included
• MLA format must be used
• Use of the Citation Machine is highly recommended. It can be found at http://citationmachine.net/

Topics: Students must answer these questions in their wikis:

o      How has the geography affected the development of the colony?

o      How do the people of the colony support slavery? (directly or indirectly)

Resources:  Students may use the Colony Resources page found in the 8th Grade Folder in the sidebar.

Due Date: Work must be completed by class on Tuesday, September 15, 2009.

Expectations:

• Be Smart - Be Safe:
• Never post personal information about yourself or other students.
• This includes phone numbers, email addresses, addresses, your full name (first and last initial only).
• Don't post embarrassing stories about yourself or friends (or even people you don't like). This is your school work and not a place for gossip or story telling.
• Check out iKeepSafe.org for more information.
• Participation:
• Each student in the group will participate equally in the creation of the page, specifically, research and writing will be equally shared among all members.
• Each student will take responsibility for editing the work of other group members.
• Participation on this assignment will have a major impact on the final grade. Participation will be determined by the amount of work initially entered by each student, the edits completed by each student and input by partners during the final assessment.
• Behavior:
• No crude or inappropriate language/words or multimedia will be used in any of the pages of this wiki.
• Students may only work on assigned pages, they may not edit the work of students in another group.
• Students are encouraged to make comments on the work of other groups, but may not use put-downs, crude language. Comments should be in the form of positive encouragement. ex: "I really like you page, but you might consider underlining key portions of the text."
• Check out the Wiki Etiquette page in the resources folder for more information.

Follow these links to your colony wiki page: