President's Day: Creating a Trifold Brochure

Learning Objectives:
1. Evaluate examples of historical trifold brochures.
2. List qualities of a good trifold brochure.
3. Locate pictures and research facts about a museum /historical location to include in the brochure.
4. Create an attractive, well written, historically accurate brochure to attract visitors to a historical location/ museum.

Summative Assignment

Outcome: Students will create a historically accurate, well written trifold brochure to attract visitors to a historical location or museum and share that brochure with classmates.

Assignment Description: There are many purposes for historical writing in addition to a research paper. Historians who curate museums and historical sites may be asked to create a trifold brochure to attract visitors to their site. Our students can model this process of sharing historically interesting information that also markets a location to visitors to increase visitation. First, students should become familiar with trifold brochures by examining and evaluating qualities of some brochures that they think effectively convey information and draw visitors to their site. Instructors should select a theme from a certain period to compliment the current unit of study and assign each student a different location. For the purposes of this post, we will use historic homes of U.S. presidents. Students should then research their location and collect interesting facts, images, and other information that would be appropriate for the brochure. Finally, the student will create the brochure and share it with classmates.

Steps and Instructor Notes:
1. The instructor and students collect examples of historical site brochures and examine commonalities and effectiveness. (Students and instructors can collect these at the airport, restaurants, tourism centers, etc.)
2. The class will visit resources on how to create an effective trifold brochure such as the website at the University of Florida.
3. Students will meet in small groups examining the brochures they collected and discussing what they learned about creating effective trifold brochures. They will create a list of qualities they think should be included in a good brochure. (A collective list created by the class and instructor could be used as an evaluation/rubric tool at the end of the project to grade the trifolds.)
4. The student will research and collect facts and images to include in his/her own brochure about one President’s home.
5. The student will create a visually appealing, grammatically sound and organized trifold brochure that contains accurate historical information about the President’s home.
6. The class will share their brochures with one another. Some assignment options are to have the class evaluate each other’s brochures based on a rubric generated from the discussion the class had about the qualities of a good brochure. The class could also rank the top three brochures based on those qualities. Regardless of how you decide to evaluate the brochures, this sharing part is essential as students will learn about Presidential history and get ideas for later assignments by seeing each other’s work.

Rubric is based on 100 points total but it is likely this assignment would take several days and is very dependent on participation which could be evaluated many different ways. For the purposes of this post, the rubric only evaluates the trifold brochure:
20 points-Student created a trifold brochure that is visually appealing and provides enough content to interest the reader.
10 points- The back panel includes credits and additional contact information.
20 points- The inside three panels contain historically accurate information that informs the reader about the historic home and President.
30 points-Student included at least 1 image and 10 facts regarding the location.
20 points-Overall the student composed a grammatically sound and well organized document.

Presidential Trivia Assignment

For fun, bonus, alternative assignment or web search, create a trivia quiz for President’s Day. This is a great way to focus on our nation’s leaders, and bring a little fun to an online or face-to-face classroom. As a web search, I know students will learn more than these basic facts about the Presidents. Here are some questions to get you started.

1. Which President could write both Greek and Latin with either hand at the same time?
2. Which President said, “If you expect people to be ignorant and free, then you expect something that never was nor never will be?”
3. Which President was a prisoner of war and the first to ride on a train?
4. Who made the longest inaugural speech but served the shortest term?
5. Which President said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt?”
6. Which President was married at the White House?
7. Who served as vice-president and president but was not elected to either?
8. Which President received a patent for lifting vessels over shoals by inflating air chambers near the water line?
9. Which President introduced spaghetti and ice cream to this country?
10. Which President was the shortest at 5ft 4inches?

One alternative would be to have students create the trivia questions and see who can stump their classmates. Visit this use web source for more trivia or this site has some fun ones but beware of the extra ads. A great place to start research is Whitehouse.gov or this fact filled site. One other great resource on the web is the National Archives page on Presidents.

So I know you'ree wondering if I'll give you the answers... here they are:
1. Garfield, 2. Jefferson, 3. Jackson, 4. Harrison, 5. Lincoln, 6. Cleveland, 7. Ford, 8. Lincoln, 9. Jefferson, 10. Madison

Inauguration/January 20th

Inauguation Ticket from LOC.GOV

We all will witness a very historic inauguration on January 20th. While pondering our future, it is a good time to reflect on the history of Presidential inaugurations. This event occurs at the start of my spring semester, but it is of such great importance that it will at least be a discussion topic. Not only is there a peaceful change in party, which frankly does not happen everywhere, but we are also seeing the inauguration that broke the race barrier. What a great way to bring relevancy to our learners!

First, to understand the significance of the 44th President, we should first reflect on the lives of the men who preceded Obama. Who were the Presidents of the United States? The median age of our Presidents is fifty-four. Thirty-one served in a military post, this includes state militias and the National Guard. Six of our Presidents came from Ohio, and six others came from New York making those states tied for the most Presidents. Twenty-six, including Obama, list lawyer on their resume as a former occupation before becoming President. Grouped together these men have been identified as Christian, using a broad definition including diesm, and some did not publicly identify with any church. Eight have died in office. Also, take a moment to reflect on who were the Vice-Presidents as they too take office on inauguration day, and even though these men often take a back seat in history, they are potentially one fatal day away from being President.

From protest marches to inauguration balls, what happens on inauguration day? Most importantly what messages have new President’s delivered in their inauguration speeches?

Want to do more research? Check out some of these sites.
Presidential facts

President Biographical facts

President quiz

Smithsonian Inauguration information

Interesting Inauguration summary

Library of Congress Collection

Teacher Resources

George Washington’s Address

Top 100 Speeches

Audio of FDR’s speech

Inauguration Trivia

When all the celebrations are over, Obama will enter the Oval Office and start his new job. What will Obama’s first hundred days bring? Next week we will consider the significance of the first hundred days.

Presidents and their Pets

Happy New Year!

In honor of the upcoming inauguration of our 44th President, this month I will focus on “all things Presidential.” In December, the new first family was in the news and internet quite a bit about what kind of pet would call the White House home. So on the lighter side this week, what kinds of pets did former Presidents have?

Interestingly, most of our Presidents have had pets ranging from Madison’s parrot to two bear cubs that Lewis and Clark brought Jefferson. Early Presidents had live-stock including their main mode of transportation and some favorite companions, horses. On the more unusual side, John Quincy Adams had an alligator and silk worms and Martin Van Buren had two tigers. A few Presidents didn’t have pets: Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and Chester A. Arthur.

For a list of pets owned by Presidents

Presidential Pet Museum has some pictures of the pets

Funny site but also includes a list of Pets for the Presidents.

Slide show of some Presidents with the pets

What does this all mean about Presidents or our nation? I’m not sure. However, these pets have become part of the public relations plan for modern leaders. Down in the polls, how about a few pictures with a cute four-legged friend? Want to seem more down to earth and relate to the common man, play catch with a dog on the White House lawn…Think I’ve gone too far, maybe, but check out White House Kids.gov. You will find Barney Cam videos.