The most difficult hurdle of getting students to choose a historical topic is having them comprehend how much history they can choose from. Certain histories are more popular than others, a lot of boys pick military, girls will choose women’s history, and students of color our prown to pick topics that relate to their ethnicity/race. These are all fine choices, but many students have too much of a general idea about history and do not understand how their interests can connect to historical events and people that they did not see before.
There are two activities that students can complete to help them go through a lot of history at once.
Activity 1: Reading through classroom history book
This activity guides students in how they can use their classroom textbook to search through a lot of history at once. The classroom textbook is useful because they are often organized with large section and subsection titles and it covers the standards the teacher must get through.
Activity 2: Watching Videos to Find Specific Topics
The second activity has students choose videos that have titles that interest them. Students are expected to watch the videos and write down any event, person, place, or unique idea that they would be interested in exploring in their projects.
After students have gone through these two activities, they go back through their original answers and add more detail to them.