The usual array of first day options for any class are boring; Syllabus overview, lectures on class rules, half-hearted ice breakers…they project a boring banality that undermines so much of the first day’s potential. From the student’s perspective, the view appears more tiresome. Summer is over, and students find themselves starting another year and although many are excited, many more are focused on the imminent workload. Add to the mix an entire day of the same boring intros and overviews…class after class…and you can hear the excitement and energy being sucked from the building.
There is plenty of time to get to all the usual housekeeping items done as the first few weeks of the year unfold. On the first day, first impressions matter. Be the teacher that does something different.
My Favorite Day 1 Activity: Ordeal by Cheque
After a very brief intro about myself and the course, about 5 or 6 minutes at the most, I jump right into an activity.
Ordeal by Cheque is a common first day activity that asks students to dive into a mystery with primary sources. As they work through the evidence around Lawrence Exeter Jr. students must use their sourcing skills to corroborate and qualify their hypotheses about who he is and what happened to him over the course of his life.
Don’t let students google various interpretations of the story, it ruins the fun. With some well-timed dramatic flair, I’ve never had this lesson fail to make a positive Day 1 impression. Best of all, the activity previews so many of the skills that will be taught in the first two units giving me an anchor to reference when I formally introduce something like contextualization or HIPP.
One of the foundational practices that make students successful in AP World is asking good questions. In this activity they will be asking lots of questions and then seeking out the answers. Trying to understand the cursive or old-fashioned terms helps them grasp fun mystery element of historical research. Analyzing each bit of information on every cheque forces them to practice close-reading and critical thinking. Developing hypotheses and testing them with further evidence helps them become historical problem solvers and questioners. The many theories that get developed amongst a class make it obvious how history is an interpretive act.
Make sure you provide an inflation calculator so students can be amazed at how cheap things like Stanford tuition were a century ago. A little humor and relevance always helps. I have seen a more modern version of this activity called “Ordeal by Venmo” but, I like the old-timey feel of the original version. A PDF of the numbered cheques is linked below. I recommend going through them yourself first to get a sense of the evidence so you can ask provocative probing questions and help steer students towards the desired patterns of thinking. This is also a great activity to attach “inquiry” to as a buzzword, particularly if the teacher is prepared to facilitate it in a more active and engaging way.
Similar Activities
I like to start with similar types of activities in all my classes. However, if I do Ordeal by Cheque in all of them it becomes repetitive for many students and ruins the purpose. For other courses, or younger students there are some other great options that can provide the same benefits.
Lunchroom Fight I & II
The Digital Inquiry Group, formerly Stanford’s Reading like a Historian program, has two great lesson plans that also ask students to piece together a narrative using different sources. The topic is a lunchroom fight. It is simpler than Ordeal by Cheque but also structured to get students thinking about source corroboration, contextualization, and other key skills and concepts. I found success with this years ago when I taught a 9th grade history class to majority English language learners. The Digital Inquiry Group has a ton of great source-based lessons and can be accessed for free.
Break-Up DBQ
This activity introduces the skills of a DBQ through the topic of a high school break up. I have seen a couple versions of this DBQ over the years and I do not know who actually created it. With the right humor and storytelling, this can do all the things Ordeal by Cheque does. I used this activity when I taught on-level history courses in the Florida public schools.
Man-Bats on the Moon: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
This mini-DBQ was put together by the great Steve Heimler as an easy summer assignment for AP World several years ago. I have used it alongside some other videos and sources on the Great Moon Hoax to create an source based lesson around an engaging topic.
- This New Yorker Article on the Moon Hoax and the birth of fake news helped with the activity debrief.
- The Library of Congress has some great images, sources, and links around the topic that can be added as evidence for the activity.
The point of all of these is too get the year started with something engaging that will help establish a positive class culture through the year. Be the unique class after Day 1 and show students that inquiry and historical thinking can be fun.
I had heard of the Ordeal by Cheque but this is the best explanation of how to implement it I have found. My school system doesn’t have the elementary schools teach students cursive anymore, so I may need to find the cursive version so as not to have to spend the whole time reading the cheques to them. I also followed your link to the lunchroom fight, which I had never heard of and think I might use as well.
I’m actually the one who created the original Break-up DBQ about Heather and Freddie back in the early 2010s. I shared it with a couple colleagues but was amazed when I started hearing people refer to it years later and seeing other versions of it. Most of them are way better than my primitive original, though, so I usually use some version of my work that someone else has improved that I find on the internet. True collaboration!
Thanks for the comment, and for creating the original Break-up DBQ! I always enjoy the first few minutes of the Break-up DBQ as students wonder if its real or made up. By the time they get to the handwritten note they become convinced its fake. After all, who passes notes in the hallway anymore?