Initial ideas
### Project Title
**What Does It Really Mean to Be an American?**
### Project Overview
Third grade students will collaboratively write and perform an original historical play that explores the question: **“What does it really mean to be an American?”**
Students will travel back in time through a fictional time-travel story to visit the Tongva people on the land where we live today. Through the perspective of their characters, students will learn about Tongva culture, traditions, relationship to the land, and way of life before colonization. They will then encounter the arrival of colonizers and explore how colonization changed the lives of Indigenous people through the taking of land, displacement, and disruption of communities.
As students move through different moments in history, they will investigate who has been considered “American,” who has been excluded from that definition, and how ideas about American identity have changed over time. Students will connect historical events to the present and consider what being an American means today.
### Driving Question
**What does it really mean to be an American throughout history?**
### Final Product
Students and teacher will **co-write an original play** that tells the story of a group of students who travel back in time and meet the Tongva people. The play will incorporate students' historical research, dialogue, narration, characters, scenes, and reflections.
The play will be performed for families/community members as the culminating exhibition. Students will also create individual portfolios documenting their research, writing, artistic choices, and reflections throughout the project.
### Learning Journey
Students will:
1. Build background knowledge about the Tongva people and their relationship with the land.
2. Explore what life was like for the Tongva before colonization.
3. Learn about colonization and how it affected Indigenous communities.
4. Examine how land, power, identity, and belonging are connected.
5. Investigate the question of who has historically been considered an American.
6. Compare historical ideas of “American” identity with how we understand the term today.
7. Use research and classroom discussions to develop characters, conflicts, scenes, and dialogue.
8. Collaboratively draft, revise, and edit a class play.
9. Rehearse and use theater techniques to communicate historical ideas to an audience.
10. Reflect on how their understanding of the essential question changed throughout the project.
### Cross-Curricular Connections
**History/Social Studies:** Indigenous peoples, Tongva history, colonization, land, identity, continuity and change
**ELA:** Informational research, narrative writing, dialogue, vocabulary, speaking/listening, revision and editing
**Theater/Arts:** Character development, script writing, staging, acting, movement, voice, collaboration, and performance
**Social-Emotional Learning:** Perspective-taking, empathy, collaboration, respectful discussion of difficult historical topics, and understanding multiple perspectives
### Student Agency
Students will have meaningful choices in the creation of the play. They may help determine characters, scenes, dialogue, questions the time travelers ask, staging choices, and how the play communicates the project's central message. Students will work collaboratively while also contributing individual writing and reflection to their portfolios.
### Authentic Audience
The final play will be performed for families and the school community. Students will understand that their research and writing have a purpose beyond com
for THIS lesson, i want a start on improv and what it is and how to do it and connect it to this topic to prepare them to start writing
