The American Promise

[GingerG1965]

Hello,

My school is changing the LMS to Canvas.  I really like the text, but my school wants more interactive activities and activities in regards to my class.  I have added supplemental materials: slide shows, videos, discussions etc.  What do you suggest?  My text is The American Promise: Vol 2 from 1865. 

Thank you in advance,
Ginger

[MelRodriguez]

Great question, Ginger! I am going to loop in one of our power media users and fellow user of The American Promise @suzanne_mccorma here because she is a fellow educator and user. 

[suzanne_mccorma]

Some of the best inter-active assignments I have done with students have centered around web sites and drawing connections to material they have been assigned to read in the text.

Example: once students are familiar with the history of US involvement in the Second World War (using the materials included in the textbook), I have them work with a number of sites to facilitate discussion. "Dr Seuss Went to War" https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/index.html is a favorite with my students. They use the background they have gained from the text to interpret Dr. Seuss's political cartoons and then explain them in small groups. This assignment is one that also works well using a discussion board in a remote/online course. Sharing government films to supplement the textbook readings is also useful, especially for 20th-century history. My students have used "Manpower" (1943) https://archive.org/details/Manpower1943 to further discuss the gender issues so prevalent during the Second World War.