Friday 2 December 2016

The Renaissance: Homestretch

DISCUSSION PROMPTS: RENAISSANCE, RE-BIRTH, EUROPE, REFORMATION, INDULGENCES, OUR PLACE IN HISTORY, CURRENT EVENTS

UP NEXT: the European Renaissance x ME

We are well into our final part of our Renaissance inquiry. We have come a long way! We spent just over a month learning about the details and importance of the European Renaissance, and then we watched this:

Click the image to watch the video.

This perspective on the European Renaissance left many in the class thinking critically about what we had just spent a month exploring, and prompted some interesting inquiry questions for the final project. Some of the questions students developed and are exploring include:

  • How do we define an era?
  • How do we make decisions about how to organize history?
  • What other "renaissances" exist?
  • What era are we living in right now?
  • Should the European Renaissance be part of our curriculum?


Last week:
-We finally finished our spread of the Renaissance presentations. We learned a lot about the European Renaissance outside of Italy, as well as some historical figures that made major contributions to European history.

-We worked on building our vocabulary by creating crosswords for our peers! We have yet to complete these crosswords created by our peers, but that is coming soon!

-We did a mini-lesson on the Protestant Reformation, an example of major worldview change in Europe. We also watched a video on the Reformation and Luther, and practiced our "live" note-taking.