Creating a Timeline of Historical Events-Chronology of Gun Use in America Grades7-12
Subject-History/Social Studies
Time for completion 1-2 / 40 min. classes

Activity 2.
When researching, students should have prior knowledge of how to evaluate a website in terms of accuracy and usefulness. Refer to the Evaluating Website Section for lessons and checklists

Summary:
This activity provides the students with a basic knowledge of historical laws regarding guns. It begins with the Second Amendment and proceeds to the latest gun legislation. This lesson focuses on the cause and effect of gun laws so that students understand the circumstances in history that have led to political action.  It provides them with a chronology of events so that when they watch the video "There Ought to be a Law", they will have prior knowledge of gun control in America.

Objectives

1. Students will read and analyze specific information
2. Students will interpret cause and effect factors
3. Students will write to clarify thinking and synthesize historical information

Procedure:

1.Have the class form groups of four or five, or have them choose a number for random groups. *When using Noteshare, just embed the cards, the timeline and the cause and effect chart into your Teacher Notebook.

2. One student per group gets the teacher Notebook by going up to -Open Shared Notebook- The one student will get the materials (card, cause and effect chart, and timeline) from the Teacher Notebook and place into a Group Notebook. This student will -Share Group Notebook- thus making it available to the small group. The other group members will go up to -Open Shared Notebook- and together they will read the historical card, place it in their own individual notebook and formulate a plan for research.

3. Each student begins the research process in his or her individual Notebooks. Students are looking for what caused the legislation or the law to be enacted, and they are looking for the effects or the results of the law.  They write a short summary in their individual Notebook. They should include in their Notebook the URL of the site where they found information. It works best  when each student chooses a different colored ink (foreground text color) so when they copy and paste into the Group Notebook, the teacher will know what each student has contributed.

(If not using Noteshare, go around the room and have each group select one or two historical cards (depending on number of groups-you may need to distribute two cards per group).  They will research the law as above and write a summary including their sources for information.

*Note to teacher : This activity requires students to critically examine web sources for information on the specific law. It is important that they have been given direct instruction on evaluating web sources, and have completed the web lesson, "How to Read a URL" before this research assignment.

4. The last step, when using Noteshare their groups, students discuss their research findings and collaborate as they decide together what should be included in the cause and effect chart.

Each one adds to the -Shared Group Notebook-by taking turns getting the pen and contributing to the summary.

5. As a group, they will formulate one question on their gun law for the class to answer. They will also place their card on the timeline.

6. The final step will be for the one person who is sharing the Group Notebook to drag the folio page from their group Notebook (containing their paragraph, the timeline with card, and the question that they came up with together) to the Teacher Homework Notebook.

Materials- Noteshare software or a word processing program, historical event cards, timeline chart, cause and effect chart

Technology Integration- This activity is best done in Noteshare because students can access a Teacher Shared Notebook and add the assignment files to their notebook. If using word processing, make sure the students are able to add their paragraph to one document that is circulated around to the various groups. They would need to have the Timeline document circulated also.

A whole class discussion on both the group process (how well it worked or did not for each group) and the results of the research material is very important. Refer to Cooperative Learning Resources and scroll down to "group processing."

If a class has no technology, all forms can be printed and distributed to the groups. Each group would choose a Recorder to compile the research results into one document and together they would cut out and glue the event on the timeline and formulate one question for the summary sheet. Their research would be done in a library where they would have access to historical information.