Unit Changes and Reflections

The greatest problem I had with this unit was a matter of time. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I had fewer days than I would have liked to complete the unit, and less flexibility to make changes or extend lessons as I would have liked. Therefore, most of the changes I would make to this unit have to do with the timing of activities and the omission of some activities in order to better illustrate the links between other topics we were discussing in class. I was trying to include so much in this unit that I think the connections between the topics were often lost and this ended up being confusing for some students. Specific changes that I would make include:

• Omitting the lesson on the Vikings and the Franks. There was not enough time to focus on these in a way that would have made the information meaningful, and although it is an interesting side topic it is not essential to students understanding of the Middle Ages nor does it meet any of my objectives set out for the unit. The time could have been better utilized.
• Taken time to go over the church information that students developed in small groups. The church became a central theme in our discussion of the Middle Ages, but I felt that I had to re-teach much of the information that I had expected the students to absorb in that one class period.
• Scheduled a day for the groups to present their Medieval Nations Assignments. The posters were on display, however I donÕt think many students took the time to examine them, and there was a lot of good information there. While I didnÕt want to over-emphasize the histories of individual nations, I think that they were glossed over in the rush to discuss other things.
• Moved the Canterbury Tales reading to the day of our discussion of problems of the church, and omitted the political cartoons. The students ended up not having much time to work on the cartoons and therefore they did not get a lot of meaningful information out of them. I would have also expanded our discussion of the Canterbury Tales. I would have liked to included a short-answer or essay question on the tests that referred to the reading (although some students did cite it as an example!), but I didnÕt feel comfortable doing so because we hadnÕt spent much time on it during class.
• Accordingly, the lesson on the plague, towns, and the Canterbury Tales could have been rearranged. I would have focused more on the plague, towns, and daily life and perhaps used a skit activity to get at what daily routines were like.
• Two themes ran throughout my teaching of the Middle Ages. First, there was the shift in power from smaller entities like lords to national governments and kings, and second there was the emphasis on the church and growing problems within it. In retrospect I think I could have emphasized these themes more explicitly as the unit progressed: the first theme could have been highlighted during poster presentations for their Medieval Nations Assignments and the second through a better prepared first lesson on the Church and continual references and questions probing at its importance in medieval life.
• A revised class schedule might look like this:
• Day 1: Feudalism and Manorialism
• Day 2: Feudalism Game
• Day 3: The Church in the Middle Ages & Quiz
• Day 4: England & Medieval Nations Assignment (MNA)
• Day 5: France & MNA
• Day 6: Holy Roman Empire & MNA
• Day 7: MNA Presentations and Medieval Power
• Day 8: Crusades and Trade
• Day 9: Plague, Towns, and Daily Life
• Day 10: Challenges to Church Power and Canterbury Tales
• Day 11: Review
• Day 12: Test
• There were also some questions on the test that, I realized upon grading, were probably more confusing than they should have been. I will definitely revise the test the next time I teach this unit.

Overall, I was pleased with how the unit went. Reading through the essay responses on the test I could see that most of the students understood the role of the church in medieval life very well, which I think will set them up for a good understanding of the religious Reformation and also the role of religion in politics throughout the rest of the history. It was important to me that they understood this and also understood what changes made the Middle Ages an important time of transition to the modern era. The MNA showed that most students developed a clear understanding of events in at least one particular country—few groups received below a B on that assessment. For most students test grades were consistent with what they had been earning previously, although I noticed that the most of the students who did well (got As) on this test, did really well (often getting over 100% through extra credit questions). This could be attributed to any number of reasons, of course, but I think part of it could be our review session that emphasized the kinds of critical thinking questions and clearly identified the important materials that would be used on the test.