Overview

Unit 1 – 6th Grade

This lesson is an exploration on life in a medieval castle. After using the book //Good Masters, Sweet Ladies//, as a launching point, students will be using online virtual tours to browse through a castle and see all the people that make it work. This will aid in assimilation of new knowledge of castles with what students already understood. After the tours, there is a small vocabulary worksheet drawn from //Good Masters// to complete. Next, they will write a short essay, imagining they are one of the workers. Students will be encouraged to pick someone they would not normally choose, to try a different point of view.

Unit 2 – 11th Grade

This lesson is more of a study on ethics, rather than strictly history. After a short lesson on medieval jousting (highlighting the rules and how knights were to conduct themselves), students will have the chance to become representatives of their own knight. They will decide on a name, and design the knight’s crest, using the internet to research colors and symbols. Net, they will describe how the knight treats various people during his jousting matches. Later, they will bring their knight into the present and have him watch a modern sporting event. They will relate how the knight views our modern competition (showboating and all) through chivalric eyes. The presentations can be oral, a video, a poem, whatever form the students want. While primarily an inquiry in assimilation, there is also an emphasis on inference as the students must apply the new knowledge in a modern setting.