Terry Judson: 9th & 10th Grade
Global Studies
Queens, NY

Unit: Religion

Project: Powerpoint Presentations

Project Outline

Project Description

Teacher Reflections

Printable PDF of this page

Parts I and II of the Religion Unit:
"This is the third activity in the unit; the first activity was a time line that students did in groups, about the founder, the texts, and key events that happened in that religion. For the second activity, the students created maps on transparencies, to show where the religion started and where it spread, and how it spread, and also what conflicts it had when it spread, because very often, religions get connected to politics, and therefore there's conflict. And the last piece is a Powerpoint project on the beliefs of the religions."

Powerpoint Project
Step 1:
"We read one day then later reviewed the handout/directions to the project, and that included six main topics, and the three students who comprised each small group had to each choose two topics."

Step 2:
Book Research: "I have a variety of books, traditional American high school textbooks, some larger coffee table books, which are adult level but full of beautiful pictures, some simplified Regents review books, and what I call Trade Books, which are written for high school and junior high school students on that particular topic, like you might have a Crusades book, or an Islam book, or things like that.   I told them to take two pages of notes, and that they didn't have to be in an organized fashion, it was better if it was in their own words, just collecting information on their two topics.   So we did that for a couple of days, and I would go around, from student to student, helping them out. The last step before today's class was, we started the Powerpoint planning sheets, since they had familiarity with Powerpoint, it was a kind of quick review about the different parts of a Powerpoint document, this is the image, this is the words we see on the screen, these are the words that you say during your presentation, some tips about how to write those words on the screen--not many, partial sentences, main points, things like that."

Internet Research: "We went into the computer lab to do internet research. I had a list of websites that were a little bit easier, often education websites. I went around from student to student, often checking the website they were on, to make sure it was a good one, and at their level. I encouraged them to use websites in their native language, and to be continually taking notes."

Step 3:
"We started the Powerpoint planning sheets. Since they had familiarity with Powerpoint, it was a kind of quick review about the different parts of a Powerpoint document--this is the image, this is the words we see on the screen, these are the words that you say during your presentation, some tips about how to write those words on the screen---not many, partial sentences, main points, things like that."

Step 4:
Students gave Powerpoint presentations with their groups about the world religions they had researched.