Kansas+History+Projects

The 8th grade history teacher and I have collaborated on this project for several years. It has been a great way to work together and incorporate information-gathering skills. The students like that they can choose their topics and product style.

Project overview:

Grading rubrics:

As support, I create a Google Custom search that combines good sources for all topics (especially primary sources which they are required to use): []

At the beginning of the project, I instruct the students on using the Custom Search and for searching their individual topics, we go over some advance Google search strategies. They are given this bookmark to remind them:

Both the history teacher and I help students and check off materials for each due date (topic and subtopic first, bibliography second, notes have 2 deadlines, etc.). As we help students, we emphasize: taking notes in your own words, how to find information on web sites and in thicker nonfiction books, how to incorporate ideas from a primary document, etc. Before they start on the writing portion, I go over parenthetical citations. This is the display I use: