Cranford+option+one

7th grade:

5.03 If you and your family were starving (stealing not an option), what form or work would you do to try and make an income fast? I would use debate for this question. It provides the opportunity for students to voice their opinions, build upon prior knowledge, and feed off their family pasts. I want to cover the issue of poverty. I want my students to truly debate what it means to live in poverty. I want them to draw upon prior knowledge about foraging vs. farming. I want them to debate which life would be better. More hours are spent in farming, but is the abundance of food better than time? I want them to weigh the importance of materialism, and see if the past life of nomads was any better than today’s life of materials and capitalism. I want the students to debate if the life of bartering for goods vs. money is the better method of trade. Debate will allow the students to justify their thoughts, to validate history, and to learn from the past. The students will learn the methods of subsistence living in Australia, Africa, and England. They learn how weather can determine how one will live. I will judge their learning by their debates and reflection after the debates. One can either judge by overseeing the debates, or allow a panel of their peers to produce a winner.