American Values in American Texts

By: Ms. Lauren Burstein
from Torah Academy of Bergen County

Category:
Development of Critical and / or Creative Thinking

Subject(s) of entry:
History, Literature

Pedagogy:
PBL - project based learning, 21st Century Skills

Grade(s) to which this was taught:
Eleventh Grade

Grade(s) for which this will be useful:
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, Middle school, High school

Students learned the concept of a value and discussed different American values that exist in society. In groups they extracted various values from certain American texts (such as "The Gettysburg Address") and then connected the values they discerned from the text to values they could infer in a short piece of American fiction. The students had to then devise a lesson plan to teach the short piece of fiction and the value to a high school class. My students presented their work to the class and also wrote individual reflective papers about the entire learning experience.