A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century Activities & Classroom Projects

Fun Classroom Activities

The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help your students understand the text in amusing ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and more that will allow your students to interact with each other, be creative, and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying.

1. Medieval modern

Ask the class to recount their experiences at the medieval banquet hall-theme parks where knights joust and wenches serve food and drink. How do these banquet-hall companies package the medieval experience? How "authentic" did the experience feel?

2. Class debate

Ask half the class to argue that we have not made any progress since the fourteenth century. Ask the other class to argue that human nature has indeed progressed. Make sure to get the debaters to define progress as they...
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