CCOT Lesson Plan
TEACHING CONTINUITY AND CHANGE OVER TIMELearning Objectives:• Skill objective(s):• Understand how the historical thinking practice of continuity and change over time (CCOT) is essential to historical analysis. Description: In this lesson on continuity and change over time, students are introduced to the concepts of continuity and change and learn how to evaluate different historical periods based on this type of analysis. We’ll also review how to use the CCOT Tool and Feedback Forms in your classroom so that students become adept at CCOT analysis and receive important informative feedback to sharpen these skills.
2CCOT—IntroductionOpener: Continuity or Change?Before diving into the CCOT—Introduction activity, watch this short video that introduces students to the terms that are essential to CCOT analysis: continuity and change. Then, post the following statements around the classroom and ask students to decide if each statement represents a continuity or a change. Students can indicate continuity or change by writing on the statements or posting sticky notes to indicate which one they chose. We’ve included four statements as examples; feel free to edit these or use your own.Statement 1: The invention of writing.Statement 2: The improvement of agricultural tools.Statement 3: The expansion of trade networks.Statement 4: The creation of a new government.Once all students have indicated their choices, discuss each statement and note that you could argue that some of these statements could be classified as either a continuity or a change—it’s not always black and white. Now that students have an idea about what constitutes a continuity or change, work as a class to define each term and post these definitions in your classroom for future reference.Activities: CCOT–Introduction: In this activity, students will read about farms in Iowa at different points in history. They’ll use the CCOT Tool to identify continuities and changes and write these on sticky notes. Then, they’ll place their sticky notes on the graph and decide whether their continuities and changes were positive or negative. Finally, they’ll evaluate their continuities and changes to decide which of these were most historically significant. Examples of farms in Iowa over a span of 300 years.
3CCOT—The Global Tapestry to Transoceanic Connections: This is the second activity in the CCOT Practice Progression and the first activity that uses historical content from the World History Project 1200 to the Present course. Students read two overview articles, complete the CCOT Tool, and share their most significant continuities and changes with the class. Teaching another World History Project (WHP) course? You can find the second CCOT Practice Progression activity in any of our WHP courses using this handy guide. However, note that you can adapt this activity by using any content that corresponds to where you currently are in your course. The CCOT Practice Progression activities are not married to WHP courses; they can be used in a variety of social studies courses and periodizations. Simply replace the assigned readings your students will use to complete the activity and create your own sample answers to check your students’ work.CCOT—The Global Tapestry to Transoceanic Connections student worksheets.Closer/Assessment: Quick-Write Exit Ticket To review key concepts from the materials in this lesson, students will write three-sentence responses to two prompts:1. Why is CCOT analysis an important tool when studying history? 2. Describe one continuity and one change about your hometown.Then, they’ll pair with a partner to share their answers and have an opportunity to revise before turning in their responses.