Grade 4 Summative Task: The Medieval Era
Big Idea
Understand what life was like in the medieval era, and compare it with life today.
Task
The entire class works together to write and perform a play about the medieval era. Each student will critique the play for historical accuracy, and follow up with a journal entry relating the medieval era to the present.
Task Details
The play must include at least one important historical event: The creation of the printing press. It must show how the creation of the printing press affects peasants, clergy, nobles and royalty. Beyond these criteria, students are free to create the story.
Students will choose groups for the creation of the play, according to task. The tasks include prop and set crew (who will use techniques from art lessons), costume designers, music arrangers, story board writers (for the basic story line), and script writers (for the actual script). Students in each group will be required to do the necessary research using both classroom experiences and text sources (internet, books etc) to make sure their product is historically accurate. Each group will have a “crew communicator” to communicate with the other groups to make sure all the groups work together to create the final play. Once complete, the students will be divided into actors and stage crew and the play will be rehearsed using techniques learned in drama, then performed for an audience such as a class of grade 3 students. Each student will then write a critique of the historical accuracy of the play (due to either mistakes made by their classmates or to constraints on time, space or materials).
Journal Questions
- Describe the three things that you think would have been hardest about living in the medieval times, and explain why.
- Describe one thing that you think is harder about living now and explain why.
Assessment
Teacher will assess using a rubric based on the following materials:
- contribution of group to the play (communication, application)
- observations in class (knowledge & understanding, thinking, communication, application)
- input from student self-evaluations (thinking)
- input from group peer evaluations (thinking)
- students’ research notes (thinking)
- journal responses (application)
- critique of the play (knowledge & understanding)
Notes
I have chosen this as the summative task for this unit because I think it is an authentic task. Students are being asked to communicate to others what life was like in the Medieval era as well as the significance of a major historical event to people’s lives. This requires that students understand that themselves, but it gives them a reason to try to understand it. They are learning for a purpose, not just because the teacher told them they need to know this.
This task also allows students quite a bit of choice: What aspects of the play to be most involved in, what tasks to do within their group, and the story of the play. In this way students are able to participate in the way that is most appropriate for their learning style and intelligences. The task is somewhat differentiated by this choice, but it could be differentiated further by offering a choice of journal questions that involve different levels of thought according to Bloom’s taxonomy.
All activities throughout the unit can be focussed on this final task. It is also a task that integrates all the arts (drama, music through the musical arrangement for the play, and art through the creation of the set and the storyboard) as well as the language curriculum (in writing the play, and in responding to the questions in their journals).
It gives students the opportunity to work on many learning skills and guidance objectives:
- group work skills,
- organization and time management (since the class is depending on them completing their job),
- use of information as they have to use their research appropriately in the play,
- problem solving to ensure the play comes together and runs smoothly, and that groups work together
- and goal setting as they decide what they would like the final product to look like and plan to achieve it, and as they give and receive feedback on the historical accuracy and dramatic effectiveness of their work.
This can also serve to get the grade 3 students excited about grade 4, and give them an introduction to the medieval era unit that may help them learn more effectively when they get to grade 4.
