Project 4

Project 4 centered around creating a website that merged 2 candidates areas of focus. In our case, Social Studies, and English. It turned out to be so easily combined that it's hard to see where Joe's work began and mine ended. We focused on propaganda of WWII and it's effect on the people of that time.
One of the interesting things we ran into, was the question of how to address the heavy racism so much of the propaganda of the time used. This led to some very interesting discussions on how to talk about racism, knowing your students and the area you're teaching in as well as knowing the RIGHT way to discuss something as difficult as racism, as well as the purpose it served at the time.

I think creating and maintaining a website for your students is a neat idea. Maybe have YOUR site as a teacher, and then pages off of it that deal with the topics, you'll be discussing and the projects the students will be doing. I think this would go a long way toward helping a substitute teacher who has to step into your shoes for a day or three. Rather than having them teach on something they may know very little about, or giving the students busy work and losing the time, you can have your sub go to "www.mysitethatcoversthetopicwe'retalkingabout.com" (I should reserve that domain name...) and spend a half hour there reading up on what you want them to teach about. They may not get as in depth as you might, but they'll be better equipped, and may give better instruction than if they'd had to wing it. The difficulty in maintaining a site like this is based around the idea of the pre-test we discussed in class. I can make a website and adjust it to my first year's class, but next year when my second year class understands topic A, but no one gets topic B, I'd have to go back and rework the whole site again to cater to their understanding. That's a pain. I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, but it would be a lot of work

On our team, once we decided on the topic, and the layout of the site, we divided the subject matter and went to it. I did about half of the front page, half of the Allied Propaganda page, I wrote the section on antisemitism and I wrote the page explaining the pamphlet we wanted the students to create.

Because of the nature of the topic, I don't know that either of us had a specific focus other than that of the main project. If I had done the website on my own, I would have looked at the impact of the propaganda the same was as a Social Studies teacher would have, and I think Joe would have done the same.

Joe and I worked well together, and I think the site we created was very good and would be an excellent tool for teaching students about WWII propaganda.