4W PowerPoints

This is a support page for partner teachers who are working with CALIS to develop 4W materials and strategies.

Four Words of History

These powerpoints (ppt files) are an experimental alternative to 4W charts in the Activities Database that are presented in Word (doc files).  The doc files are very dense with analysis of factors accompanied by teaching notes.  A ppt file can provide a step-by-step layering of ideas on its way to the detailed illustration of a focus question.

Caution:  These ppt files are NOT necessarily recommended for classroom use with students.  The initial purpose was for teacher training where teachers can be given quick examples of different applications of the 4W analytical process.  However, the purpose of the 4W analytical process is for students to engage directly in layering ideas in order to practice anticipating which social science factors are in play.  Partner teachers who help craft these files have spent time to think through applications of the 4W model and ways that they will help students tease out the layers, make connections, and relate to multiple examples. The process is about facilitating student dialog where they are talking about the human condition – engaged in articulating why factors are relevant, theorizing about cause and effect, defending which factors they conclude are more determinant of certain outcomes, and which factors are strategic to resolving or avoiding problems.

The goal is critical thinking, not filling in a worksheet.

As a reading strategy with the textbook, the slides can provide teachers with a plan for questioning the class about textbook main ideas -- guiding students to identify or infer factors and connections that teachers can then record step-by-step to a 4W chart on the front board.  Regardless of a particular textbook, with any focus question as a study of a human dynamic, students can be guided with examples and leading questions to consider – infer or anticipate – which factors are in play.

 

Each ppt has slide with the Table of Contents that lists the series of 4W focus questions. 

The section for slide notes is sometimes used to clarify how slides progress or how they are integrated with tools, cases and activities from the Activities Database.

 

Enlightenment

  

4W ppt: Enlightenment

    
Four Worlds of History

Overview

Results & Impact

Common Core

 

 

More ppt files are in progress.  Check back or contact CALIS.

This ppt is a roll-out of key concepts that introduce 10th grade Modern World (10.1 Western Political Thought).  However, the main ideas are a repeat of 7th grade Enlightenment and 8th grade Constitution and other concepts that are central to 11th USH and 12th Government. Indeed, the divine right of kings established in 6th grade is a key concept in question during the Enlightenment.

  

4 – Which factors make slavery a part of all Four Worlds?
....... an opening example of a 4W analysis + causes, solutions
12 – How did kings have legitimate authority over their people?
20 – Revolution and Enlightenment – What are the “big ideas”?
29 – What are the main purposes of a constitution?
39 – How does classical liberalism relate to personal virtues?  <-- 8.1
....... directly tied to Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin
53 – What is the relationship between government & civil society?      
....... directly tied to Thomas Paine
63 – Role of Institutions in a Democracy -- institutional infrastructure
68 – The Individual & Community -- equally important competing values
70 – How is American society organized?  (reference sheet 4)
78 – Goals of the Social Sciences (a standard ppt ending)

  

Imperialism

   4W ppt: Imperialism  

This ppt is an "active reading" exercise to outline textbook information to a 4W chart.  In the 4WH model, active reading is an example of "close reading" mandated by Common Core State Standards.  Completing the 4W chart is a text-dependent process.

   As a reading strategy with the textbook, the slides provide teachers with a plan for questioning the class -- guiding students to identify or infer factors and connections.  Students 1) organize information according to each type of factor (each world), 2) identify or infer the specific factors in play, and 3) connect or relate the factors. Once completed, students can review all the factors to determine the primary cause of imperialism and problem-solving approaches to ending imperialism.  

Early American Culture

   4W ppt: Land & Rights  
Begins with another "active reading" -- an inference exercise that is provided in the CALIS Activities Database

temporary launch		   4 - Inference Exercise with quotes from a textbook
42 - Assess the Assessment
44 - Got Land?
49 - Enclosure Movement
56 - Principles of the US Constitution
68 - Classical Liberalism
71 - American Identity
75 - Civil Society (version of Thomas Paine slides in above ppt)
93 - Costs of Freedom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




  • Center for Active Learning in International Studies
  • CALIS is an outreach project of the School of International Relations.