Friday and today we discussed the Safavid Empire. The TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) to address this area are rather scant, focusing mainly on the “rise of _____ empires.” So I tried to be a little more creative and hit those higher level thinking issues. Whether or not the assignment accomplished this goal, I am not sure, considering I haven’t had much of a chance to look at their products.
The lesson included a short introduction to the Safavid Empire by way of showing some pictures and maps. I asked students to describe how the geopolitical location of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires might add to their growth. After some leading questions, they finally came up with the fact that their location on trade routes created the ability for the rise of these empires.
The activity we did today involved writing a letter from an ambassador of the Safavid Empire to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire describing the empire, and persuading the sultan to ally with the Shah. Some problems that I encountered included a basic lack of vocab – many students didn’t know what an ambassador was. However, I walked around answering questions to alleviate some of these issues.
I also allowed students to work in groups in order to complete the activity (although each student was responsible for turning in his/her own work). In the two periods that I was present, the groups worked quite well. Of course there was some talking in the groups, but when I walked around, the students were working for the most part. One student in today’s class was unwilling to work however. When I asked why she hadn’t started she said, “I don’t understand this.” Confused, I asked her to try and explain exactly what it was that she didn’t understand. “I don’t know the words. The words are too hard.” I could tell she thought that this would be a good answer, a way for me to leave her alone. Instead of leaving her alone, I asked her to read the directions aloud and when we came to a word she didn’t understand, we stopped and I helped her to define it. After we discussed some of the words, and went over the directions more closely, she began to work. Unfortunately I had to leave before class ended, so I’m not sure if she finished. But before I left she was working diligently.
Reading through the letters will be quite interesting though. I still need to develop a rubric for how I want to grade the letters. I really don’t know how to go about doing this, considering I’ve never really had to grade an “essay.” Do I look for hitting the basic facts? Do I try and grade creativity? How does one even try to grade creativity, or even on the ultimate subjective product? Considering the product is ultimately a question of style and flare, what do I even look at? I think herein lies my problem: What am I looking for? I start planning lessons with a nebulous concept, not really thought out well. Then, at some point between planning and actually teaching, I guess I hope for something to coalesce, to fall into my lap. So far this has worked out ok for me… but I really don’t think that this a viable methodology for making and planning lessons.
Posted by flank6a 
Posted by flank6a 