Medieval Project

This year I've been assigning history grades based on projects. The first quarter project was on Ancient Greece (since I didn't get going on this early enough to also do an Ancient Egypt project). Second quarter was a project on Ancient Rome. These projects include elements from their reading/literature, writing and some research. 

I'm excited about our third quarter project on the medieval period. For this project Elise and Erik will be writing their own original fairy tale. Those are well underway with rough drafts of 20+ pages double spaced. They also get to choose to focus on the church life, viking life or castle life during this period. Elise has chosen to focus on the church, while Erik thinks the Vikings sound much more interesting. 

For her project, Elise will need to complete a labeled diagram of a cathedral layout. She'll need to write an essay describing some element of the construction or architecture. She is going to make a piece of stained glass. (It will really be faux stained glass, but it should look pretty.) She'll also have to write down the steps for creating stained glass. She will have an illumination project, writing out a bible verse and illuminating (at a minimum) the first letter. Earlier this year we read about the process of copying bibles (and other books) that were followed by monks in monasteries and I will have her write these up along with directions for illuminating the text. I will have her read (and maybe watch) David Macaulay's "Cathedral". This will be spread out over the next 6-8 weeks and should keep her busy.

Erik will be watching pbs programs on Viking ships and Vinland. He will make a labeled diagram of a Viking ship and write an essay on how they were constructed. He will need to create a map showing Viking explorations, conquests and trading expeditions along with a couple of paragraphs focusing on one of these elements of Viking travel. Finally he will need a labeled diagram showing traditional Viking clothing, armor and weapons. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the completed projects! The next step for me is to complete a grading scale for each of them, so they know exactly what they need to do for each element of the project and understand exactly how they will be graded.