Lesson Overview 

This is a Jigsaw-style Group Work.  The students will do a cold reading on primary documents (they will be assigned which document - there are 5: A-E).  They will have time to read the document - cover it with their notes (they will have the Group Work focusing questions, so that should help a lot with their note taking).  And then all of the A's will get together, the B's etc.  They will compare notes on what they came up with (thereby the entire class really collaborating) - and then they will get back (or this may be for the first time, depending on how you approach this - there can be an initial question that they could answer and start off in their groups, before getting with their like primary document letters.

Once in those groups they will answer the remainder of the Group Work questions - utilizing what they came up with in their like-letter groups, as well as what they came up with on their own, when they were reading and taking notes.  

There are so many valuable things that take place in this lesson:

• Learning about the Middle Ages second hand after reading a summary in their text book.  (One big take away will be that some of the things that they believe the modern world has a monopoly on - are actually very old.

• Working on their note taking skills (especially under a controlled "friendly" pressure situation

• Listening and Learning from other students both in and out of their group.

• Working together with a different group (the teacher will put the Group together to make sure their are ideally 5 members (one for each Primary Document) - you may have to have 6 in a few - in that case, just double up one of the letters (spread that around the room)

• Learning about what Primary Documents are and what they can tell us that other histories cannot.

• Getting prepared for their Middle Ages Unit - The Canterbury Tales has a lot more meaning when the students know about things like the clergy (and how rotten they could be), misogyny, antisemitism, what student life was like, the hypocrisy of the Chivalry - and more.

Here are the Primary Sources Topics: A: Women, B: The Clergy & student life,  C: Knights, Chivalry, and the treatment of Jews, D: The Normans & the peasants, E: The Crusades, The Children’s Crusade

And here are the 3 parts of this Group Work: 1) student reads their respective Primary Source, cover it with notes (12 to 15 minutes)   2) Students get together with like letters (6 minutes) and compare what they came up  3) Students get with their Groups (the rest of the period) and answer the questions using what they found on their own and with other like letter students.

In the past I have handout out little paper squares OR even better the Primary Documents  with their Group and Primary Document Letter on the Primary Document reading or the paper square as the students enter the room.  This makes grouping a lot easier.  You have the Documents or Paper Squares in the right order: 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E; 2A, 2B, etc.   Time is of the essence and this helps a lot logistically.

Thoughts on the Lesson 

This is one of those exercises that the process is as important and the product.  The students help and work with each other.  Which is great - because there are some pretty big things to mentally process here - and by sharing reactions (and their notetaking skills) they can learn so much more than they could on their own.