Video: Feudalism around 900 AD

Do your students understand feudalism?  Mine rarely do, even after three weeks of studying the Middle Ages.  They still make mistakes in their writing and class discussion that suggest that they think of feudal governments as having tax collectors, bureaucrats, officials and judges just like we do.  It’s hard to help them understand how knights wind up replacing the old Roman government completely with an utterly different sort of system.

Video: Use the Active Voice

A lot of my students are falling back into the pattern of writing in the passive voice. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s them, but I figured it was time for a review of the mindset that leads to the passive voice, and help students become more active writers.

It’s worth noting, particularly for first-time visitors, that I made the American history videos on writing for seventh graders, and the writing videos about Medieval history are for sixth graders.