Beyond-the-Basic Productivity Tools (BBPT)

Lesson Idea Name: The Civil War Timeline

Content Area: Social Studies
Grade Level(s): Fourth grade

Content Standard Addressed:

SS4H5 Explain the causes, major events, and consequences of the Civil War.

1. Describe the roles of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis,
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and William T. Sherman.

Technology Standard Addressed:

Knowledge Constructor:

1. plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their
intellectual or creative pursuits.
2. evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other
resources.
3. curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of
artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

Selected Technology Tool: ReadWriteThink Timeline

URL(s) to support the lesson (if applicable):

Bloom’s Taxonomy Level(s):

☒ Remembering ☒ Understanding ☒ Applying ☒ Analyzing ☐ Evaluating ☐ Creating

Levels of Technology Integration (LoTi Level

☒ Level 1: Awareness ☒ Level 2: Exploration ☒ Level 3: Infusion ☐ Level 4: Integration
☐ Level 5: Expansion ☐ Level 6: Refinement

Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

Motivation: This tool can be used to motivate and excite students to learn about historical events by allowing
for them to research and create their own timeline.
Representation: Students have the freedom to create and represent their thinking and understanding by
using this tool to create a timeline.
Lesson idea implementation: In this lesson, the students will explore the key events of the Civil War.
Students will have prior background knowledge of some of what has occurred as well as some important
figures of that time period.
The teacher will introduce the lesson by talking about how significant people, such as President Lincoln
can help influence and make an impact on the people of the United States. The teacher will use the timeline
to model how events can be organized into chronological order. After modeling this, the students will have
the opportunity to choose either a significant event or person during the Civil War. The students will then

Spring 2018_SJB
 Beyond-the-Basic Productivity Tools (BBPT)
conduct research on this event or person and will create their own timeline using the ReadWriteThink
Timeline online tool. To differentiate, students that would rather draw a timeline can do so as well. After
completing their timelines, students will present their finished products to the class.

Reflective Practice: This lesson is effective to students by scaffolding instruction via modeling and gradually
releasing responsibilities to students. Students also have access to the ReadWriteThink Timeline tool and
create their own timeline, just as the teacher did. This can be motivating to students because they get to ‘play
the role’ as the teacher and create their own timeline. Students will also have the opportunity to teach and
display their findings to their peers when presenting their finished timelines. Overall, I believe this lesson an
active and student lead, which makes it effective to their learning.

Spring 2018_SJB