Engaging Students through Authentic Inquiry
My unit plan asks students to explore the Byzantines and their place in the Renaissance and history as a whole through inquiry. In doing so, I wanted to have a unit that asked students to explore a variety of sources and participate in varied and engaging activities. You can find my unit plan here. In staging my big question, “Did the Byzantines contribute to the Renaissance?”, I wanted to immediately connect a culture that is seemingly irrelevant to students to their modern world. Therefore, I called for a trip to Greek Annunciation Church in Wauwatosa, WI.
This church, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is a local connection to Byzantium, both in the religion and in its design. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the church to blend the Hagia Sophia with his own novel “Prairie Style”. A piece of Byzantine culture in Wisconsin, it will hopefully. engage students in meaningful though about how history is relevant today.
My first supporting question develops a base of knowledge that connects Byzantium with the classical world, and therefore its revival in the Renaissance. Students have the opportunity to engage in both individual inquiry and document analysis. The latter follows the structure called for by VanSledright. For assessment, students engage in a debate where they are asked to form their own collective consensus. This creates an authentic learning experience as students are supplying their own answers to questions, not regurgitating answers given to them.
The second question has to do with comparing the Byzantine achievements with their Renaissance counterparts. This builds off of a storyboard backbone that provides the necessary direction for analysis of primary sources. Then, students are given an option in assessment, allowing the personalization of their learning.
The final supporting question bridges the gap between the Byzantine world and the Western world. Analysis of maps such as the one below demonstrates to students the multiple ties existing between these two seemingly separate parts of the world. Students are then asked to compile these connections into
their own map.
The final step is a summative assessment. The goal of the summative is to evaluate the ability of students to apply the history of the Byzantines to a new relevant format, video games. The structure of the assessment revolves around the game Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Exciting designs that incorporate all the supporting questions culminate with a revelation of the Byzantine connection to the Italian Renaissance. The flexibility allows for students to focus in on what they find exciting and important, while also demanding they engage with what Loewen refers to as a “Tale of Two Eras”. The second era is the students’ own time period, they decide what their story of Byzantine history is.
