Dr. Stephanie Muson and Laura Gualtiere, eighth-grade social studies teachers at Briarcliff Middle School, brought their classes back in time to the 1920s while adding the twist of 21st Century technology. Students were tasked with creating newspapers on school laptops using the software program Glogster, which they used to generate interactive newspapers that incorporated not only text and graphics, but music and video as well.
Working in groups of four or five, students selected a specific incidence that occurred during the Roaring 20s from a list of 10 choices, including the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, and the Harlem Renaissance. The groups named their newspapers and created catchy headlines and designs. Every newspaper page had to include images, video and an advertisement for a product introduced during the ’20s, as well as slang of the era. Each student took on a role, such as reporter, interviewer, history correspondent or editorial writer, and each page was evaluated.
On the final day of the assignment, the students presented their projects to fellow classmates, who evaluated one another’s work based on a comprehensive worksheet.
“It’s interesting to get a different perspective on the same topic,” said student John Gross. “I learned a lot.”
“I liked the Harlem Renaissance newspaper,” added student Jackson Gonsedth. “It got to the point right away and would have persuaded me to take action against the KKK.”
Both teachers continue to inspire their students with ingenuity. Their next project is slated to involve a stock market simulation game.