Basic skills and communication are foundation skills for this unit. The pieces of information extracted during the inquiry segment become building blocks for students to later write their essays and compose their Hyperstudio presentations. Problem Solving presents itself in a variety of tasks. During the first week students solve the problem of using various search engines to find web sites about their historical topics. Time management is a problem for students to solve as they struggle to fit their readings and other assignments around various aspects of their busy lives.
Students solve social issues and tactical problems as they delve to perform a scene from the play.
Lastly, some students will undoubtedly encounter problems as they attempt to post their projects on the class web page, so they must solve these pesky details as well. Overall, problem solving is one of the most underestimated and overlooked skills encountered daily by students and people in general. Synthesis is a higher level thinking skill that is employed as students compose their summaries of the historical research related to the play. Copying and plagiarism are strictly forbidden, and students will explain the main ideas as well as capture important details and express them in a fresh manner. Students will also employ synthesis in the art segment of the unit when they create artistic expressions inspired by the Internet research segment of the unit.