ENGLISH 9
Ms. Kelly's
Jedi Academy
However, the History Hunger Games CST review became so popular with students at Kelly's school, they began sharing it with friends in their neighborhood. The investment and excitement in the review prompted students to know when they'd have their actual real life History Hunger Games-- and so was born the interactive HHG final-- complete with Kelly surprising the students dressed as Effie Trinket. When the CST test scores came back from the California Board of Education, ALL of Kelly's students had scored Proficient or Advanced.
The testimonials of appreciative students in her first year coupled with their CST data and the realization that a digital classroom would provide opportunities for work-force and college-ready skill mastery, prompted Kelly to expand the History Hunger Games into a full year program. Revolutionizing it's design and implementing it as a fully functional cloud classroom, Kelly piloted her integrated cloud classroom in the Fall of 2012 and then launched her three year study into its effectiveness on investment and achievement.
The Evolution of the
History Hunger Games
Nearing the end of their first year in the classroom, Teach for America corps members, Kimberlee Kelly, Jeff Astor and Chris Corragio were in desperate need of a fun and motivating review to prepare their students for the impending California State Test (CST) in each of their subjects. They worked for different organizations and their kids lived in different communities, but they all wanted their students to score poficient or higher on the CST. For Kelly, the Social Studies CST would test three years of content-- from Ancient Greece, across every continent and up through time to the United States Reconstruction era-- content that Kelly hadn't even been their teacher for. She had left six weeks to review, but had no idea how to pull it off... Between Astor, Corragio and Kelly-- the Hunger Game themed CST reviews were born.
The intial version of the History Hunger Games, was a text heavy and cumbersome weebly site that broke down the 3 years of Social Studies content into "12 DIstricts." Students were told to hone their content knowledge and skills, show mastery by surviving whatever each District threw at them. It was a daily work in progress, staying only days ahead of students.
Although, the History Hunger Games has been retired, it is the digital frontier in which the Jedi Academy was born-- where traditional classroom setting meets innovative digital design. Here, traditional literacy and digital literacy went hand in hand. This is the place where we began to weave nerd culture, reality pedagogy, and content that spans history, politics, government, religion, and society as a the medium through which students learn real world work-life skills and prepare for university level academics.