History Intro Project: THE BEST YEAR EVER!

If you need a short and powerful, 2-class mini-project to start off the year in your history class, you have found the perfect activity! In "The Best Year Ever," you will not only get to know your students and build your classroom community, but get an easy pre-assessment indication as to your students BOY historical skills.

This mini-project involves students defending their idea of "The Best Year Ever" - in all of history! The first objective as stated within the resource is to "build a strong classroom community by sharing our opinion on the “Best Year Ever.” After sharing their opinions with the class, students will have more confidence of themselves and their classroom community.

The other major purpose of this mini-project is for students to demonstrate beginning-of-year historical skills, including knowledge of key terms like primary and secondary sources, thesis statements, and historical evidence in argumentative essays. Students will actually "have fun" while demonstrating their current skills - the ingredients for a perfect pre-assessment!

Included in this resource are a student copy, recommended project roll-out, answer key for key vocabulary, and four different student samples of a finished project.