Medieval Life Instructional Strategy Find the Fiction In teams, each student writes three statements: Two true,

, one false. Students take turns sharing their statements. Teammates try to identify the fictitious statement. This strategy draws on teambuilding, mastery of skills, and utilizes thinking skills. When students create their own Find the Fiction, they have to apply higher order thinking skills. Not only do they have to write down two examples of what you have taught, they have to write down something that is wrong. Students are thinking backwards, and having to make the fiction close enough to what is right so as not to give the answer away too quickly. Also, this is a very easy way to check if a student understands a concept.
Big Ideas

Peasants and Serfs had different chores and tools to complete those chores and depending on the season, certain crops to plant and rotate just like we do today. Curriculum Expectations Overall 1) use a variety of resources and tools to investigate the major events and influences of the era and determine how they shaped medieval society; 2) relate significant elements of medieval societies to comparable aspects of contemporary Specific 1) describe medieval agricultural methods and innovations (eg. Common pasture, three-field rotation, fertilizers, the padded horse collar, the wheeled plough, mills) and explain why the innovations were important. 2) outline important ways in which medieval society changed over time (e.g. growth of towns, specialization of labour, changes in transportation methods, changes to law and justice) and give reasons for the changes. 3) make connections between social or environmental concerns of medieval times and similar concerns today (e.g. pollution, the spread of disease, crime, warfare, poverty, religious intolerance)
Activity 1) In their cooperative groups for this unit, students are given five minutes to review their notes on medieval life (tools, chores and crops) 2) Putting away their note books, individually, students have one minute to write two true statements and one false statement about this topic. For example: harvest corn with jointed sticks called a flail, cut tall meadow grass with a scythe and turn it into hay for animals winter food, plow and cultivate fields using a sickle.

3) Teammates try to identify the fictitious statement that they each wrote. 4) Repeat this process three to five times while the teacher walks around the room listening to the statements and taking note of who is understanding the concepts about Medieval life. 5) Mix Pair Share: The class mixes until the teacher calls, pair. Students find a new partner to discuss the teachers questions: What aspects of Medieval life do we still use today? (For example, we still rotate our crops to regenerate the soil) What drinks were unsafe to drink in Medieval times and why are they safe to drink today? (For example, Cows milk was hard to keep fresh and often contained dangerous germs, today we pasteurize our milk)