New Tech's history projects pile on the learning

Anderson New Technology High School is known for being innovative while teaching students how to think critically about any subject matter.

New Tech utilizes the process method to teach students how to complete a project step by step from start to finish. Students used this method recently on an American government project in social studies class. The project helps set a tone for the entire school year while helping juniors and seniors sharpen oral presentations.

According to teachers Cathy Alderman and Steve Main, the process method is the same tool that project managers use to complete complex tasks in the world of business. Alderman knew of the method and streamlined it for teaching purposes with some help from a sister-in-law.

At the beginning of the school year, every junior and senior selected a delegate to the nation’s first Constitutional convention, held in 1787. The students ended up representing each of the original 13 colonies during the Critical Period (1783-1787) in America’s history, explained Alderman and Main.

Students then used primary source documents and other research of the time period to properly capture the role of their selected dignitary as well as the voices of the dignitary’s constituants.

About four weeks ago, students portrayed their characters at a formal reception representing the Constitutional Convention held in 1787.

Parents and community members acted as foreign dignitaries and asked the students questions, which they had to answer while remaining in character, said Main.

Students answered a range of questions from their state’s early history to the role each state played during the Revolutionary War.

Students offered opinions, as the delegate, on how republican government was running under the Articles of Confederation.

The purpose of this exercise was to help students write a script for a Reader’s Theater, the unit’s final project, explained Main.

During the Reader’s Theater, each group quoted from primary source documents and related materials while answering a question posed when the project started: “Thomas Jefferson wrote that in drafting the Declaration of Independence he meant to give expression to the ‘American Mind.’ Exactly what is the ‘American Mind?’

“How does this document that established the ‘American Mind’ give clariety to the nature of man and the right to self-govern?

How did our Founding Fathers’ perspective translate into the foundations, structures and purposes of the first political institutions?”

Over the course of two days, close to a dozen groups presented their scripts to groups of community members, classmates and New Tech staff members.

Each group’s script had to answer the questions posed above during a 10-minute presentations.

The use of costumes and props was encouraged, Main said.