John Lafitte

The Pirate John Lafitte at the Battle of New Orleans

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This page will take your to the resource pages and other information repositories that were instrumental in the production of this WebQuest
 


Purpose - The Battle of New Orleans WebQuest had several different purposes that were synthesized into one project. First of all, it was a way to teach students more about the Battle of New Orleans, the people involved and the way the events unfolded over the course of several weeks. Second, it taught the students a number of skills under the framework of working as a team as they gathered research, critiqued each others work and built a map / time line about the battle of New Orleans.
 
Rationale - It is important for students to know and understand the historical portion of this lesson so that they can appreciate our American heritage and have a better knowledge base about a war that was actually fought on the mainland of our country. The importance of learning to work as a team and to gather information and synthesize it into a single project, teaches the students basic skills in gathering information, evaluating, sorting and critical thinking. These are skills that they will need for higher education and life.
 
Learner Description - This WebQuest was designed for High School levels in 11th and 12th grade history classes.
 

Instructional Objectives - The students experienced and completed several objectives. The results of completing this task are:

  • Students gathered historical information and materials that they needed in order to make a detailed map of the Battle of New Orleans
  • Students then evaluated this material and drew conclusions as to what information they would need to include in their map / time line.
  • Once the information was collected, the students then synthesized this information into their project.
  • After their initial maps were sketched out, they then met in groups to critique their projects and assess what information needed to be included and excluded and any other changes to their projects had to be completed.
 

Standards Addressed - The Standards that are addressed in this WebQuest relate to the State of Kentucky Educational Standards for 2007 in the areas of:

Reading:
1.1 Students use reference tools such as dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedias, and computer
reference programs and research tools.
Students make sense of the variety of materials they read.

Historical Academic Expectations:
2.20 Students understand, analyze, and interpret historical events, conditions, trends, and issues to
develop historical perspective.

Geography Academic Expectations:
2.19 Students recognize and understand the relationship between people and geography and apply their knowledge in real-life situations.
 

Subject Matter for Learners - This WebQuest contains the following sections for learners:

  1. Introduction - This page was designed to help the students become familiar with the material of the subject they were about to do a project on.
  2. Task - The students were to design a map / time line about the Battle of New Orleans. They were to design the map and time line by evaluating the events that took place in New Orleans from about December 14th, 1814 through January 8th, 1815.
  3. Process - The students were to gather materials and resources, read and evaluate these materials and then synthesize all of this information into their project. They were to also critique other teams work and listen to ideas and critiques about their own project.
  4. Evaluation - A Rubric was designed so that students would have a set of standards and guidelines that they could follow. This Rubric will be the actual standard that the instructor will use to evaluate the students projects.
  5. Conclusion - This page was designed to point out various concepts and ideas that students learned while working on this project.
 

Assessment - The students produced a Map / Time Line of the Battle of New Orleans and learned how to process information, synthesize it and work in teams. The students will be assessed according to the Rubric on the assessment page.