TEACHING PORTFOLIO: MEGAN THOMPSON
REFLECTION
The activities in this course challenged me to develop historical arguments and to adopt historical perspectives as part of a role-playing activity. It challenged me to consider how I might use this in my own classroom, where I often ask students to view things through a thematic lens (social, political, cultural, geographic, or economic), but it is less seldom that I ask them to take on a particular historical perspective. In researching the value of role-playing activities as part of a literature review for this course and developing a lesson that fit these parameters, I continued my journey to increase student engagement in my social studies classroom.
HIST 501: CLASSICAL WORLD OF GREECE AND ROME
Interpretation and Synthesis Artifacts and Reflection
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
My work researching and writing as a historical figure helped me to create a lesson plan and annotated bibliography to help apply these skills to an AP World History classroom. I used the Council as a case study and a foundation to connect to other global religions about which they have learned, collecting historical resources as well as pedagogical ones that would best help students learn.
RESEARCH ESSAY
I researched and wrote an essay to create an argument that Athanasius, my assigned historical figure, would have supported. In finding primary and secondary sources to support a post-equinox Passover date to be included in the Nicene Creed as part of a class simulation, I deepened not only my understanding of the Council of Nicaea but of the historical context that surrounded it.
RESEARCH ESSAY
In an essay that focused on the way in which Roman emperors’ cruelty and lack of justice created instability in Rome, I realized that this method of case-study, of examining individual actions and their consequences, makes history much more personal and entertaining, as both I and my students can imagine these individuals making human choices. While I have used this before in a discussion of the specific individual decisions that led into WWI (using the “Iron Dice” chapter of Why Nations Go to War), this course helped me consider using Roman emperors in a similar discussion.