Cooperative Learning

The activity I would like to blog about is the cooperative learning activity I did with my class. I know I have talked about it numerous times but it had great success with my students. In my unit we were covering WWII, and I needed a good activity to really set it home with my students.
I looked up and printed off primary documents of WWII. These documents were letters from Hitler to Mussolini about the different military actions that were getting ready to happen. My students were learning about alternative communication in wars and learned that they too could contribute to important military tactics. The students were to read and analyze the documents, and then translate the documents into modern day texting. This way the students could play the roles of dictators and show how they would send messages back and forth without anyone knowing who or what was sent. The students also had to explain the historical significance of the documents. This was a period long activity and kept the students busy and working hard the entire time. This activity went extremely well and I feel was a great success amongst the students.
I chose this activity in relation to my SOS 404 class. We have learned all semester that in order for students to truly understand what happened, we have to make it relevant. This activity I feel was the most relevant activity I could do with the students for what we were going over. The students felt it was a great way to understand the communication between leaders, as well as learning how to truly evaluate a primary source document.