(Here is my updated session description that could be used to explain my session in the schedule) - Whiteboards, random groups, and thinking tasks aren’t just for math. They belong in humanities classrooms too! As a junior high ELA, FLA, and Social teacher who has spent four years learning about BTC without ever teaching a math class, I’ve worked hard to adapt these strategies for my subjects. I’ve had flops, but I’ve also had incredible successes! In this session, I’ll share the thinking tasks I’ve created and walk you through some of them, so you can see how they work and how to build student buy-in. I also want to leave time for questions and discussion, because those conversations are where we all gain the most, myself included, and I’ll do my best to answer your questions based on my own classroom experiences.
This session invites educators to step into the role of advertisers to explore how propaganda works by first selling the unsellable. Participants begin with a hands-on activity creating an appealing advertisement for a deliberately undesirable property, identifying techniques such as selective truth, emotional appeal, exaggeration, and omission. The session then connects this experience to the Last Best West settlement campaign, examining how government and railway advertising promoted Western Canada while omitting Indigenous presence, environmental realities, and settler experiences. Designed for upper elementary and secondary Social Studies classrooms. Educators leave with ready-to-use lesson structures and discussion prompts to help students question sources and recognize propaganda.
