Who Did That?

Teaching Theme of the Week

by Gary Hopkins, Editor-in-Chief, Education World®

Not all remarkable women lived in the past. Can your students identify the accomplishments of today's remarkable women?

Subjects: Language Arts, Social Studies

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

Objectives
Students will:

• search newspapers and magazines for the names of women in the news today,
• research one of those women and write a biography about her, and
• write trivia questions based on her accomplishments.

Keywords
women's history, United States, current events, trivia, biography, women, game

Materials Needed

• current newspapers and news magazines
• print and/or online biographical resources
• index cards

Procedure
Provide students with current newspapers and news magazines and ask them to find the names of women making news today. Encourage students to continue and extend their search at home.

Have each student select one of those woman newsmakers, research her life using print and/or online resources, and write a brief biography about her.

Tell students that as they do the research for their biographies, they should also write on index cards one sentence about a few of that woman's most noteworthy accomplishments. Tell them to be sure to write the name of the woman (and their own initials) on the back of each card.

Collect the cards and use them to conduct a women's history bee. Read to the class the accomplishment cited on each index card and challenge students to identify the woman connected with each accomplishment. (Students cannot answer questions about the woman whose biography they selected!) Award a predetermined number of points to students who identify a woman and to those whose index cards stump their classmates.

Assessment
Evaluated students on their class participation, their biographies, and the appropriateness of their trivia questions.

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