ADDIE Design Lesson Plan

Medieval Feudalism

1. Gain Attention: Show a short YouTube video clip of a Robin Hood story that shows familiar medieval characters such as kings, knights, peasants etc.  After the conclusion of the movie clip ask who wants to be king (or Queen) of the class.  Choose one student.
2. Establish Purpose: Explain to the class that today we are going to be learning about the Feudal system (write on the board) which was a loosely organized system of rule in which powerful local lords divided their land holdings among lesser lords or vassals. 
3. Stimulate recall: Ask the students to remind you of why people may have been organized in such a manner in 500 AD. (The fall of Rome, there was no centralized government, people needed to be protected, it was better to be under a lords control then to be out on your own) write these examples on the side of the board.
4. Present Content: On the board write all of the different roles that people played in the feudal system.  King, Knights, Vassals, the Manor, the 3 field system.
5. Guided Learning: Have the student who you chose to be king come up to the front of the class.  Then together pick four people to be lords, four people to be knights, and then tell the rest of the class that they are vassals (peasants).  On the board draw a large circle and explain that this is the Kings land and all of you play an important part of the workings of the land.  Then proceed to draw a castle (where the king lives) then draw some manors (where the lords and Knights lived) and then draw little circles of land that the vassals worked on. 
6. Elicit Performance: While drawing the different aspects of the Feudal system on the board, call on students to explain the roles of each of the people in the feudal system.
7.  Provide Feedback: While calling on the students to explain to you about the feudal system provide deeper meaning to the different roles of the ancient people and guide them to the correct answer if they do not know it at first.  Let students help one another out if they are called on and do not know the answer.
8. Assess Performance: After every student has been called on at least once erase everything on the board and ask the student to draw their own kingdom and tell them they must include: One king, four lords, four Knights, and eight vassals.  They also must either draw it or write  explaining the relationship they have towards one another.
9. Enhance Retention: Go back to the movie clip that you showed at the beginning of class and point to the different characters in the clip and have the students tell you who is the king, the vassal, the knight, etc…

Rubric for Feudalism Exercise

8 pts	There is the correct number of participants in the diagram and they are all in the right order and places in the “kingdom” The relationships are explained correctly
6 pts	All of the characters are there and the diagram is mostly correct, but not all the relationships are explained correctly
4 pts	Not all of the characters are depicted on the diagram, and not all of the relationships between the characters are explained correctly
2 – 0 pts	There are few or no characters on the diagram, there are no relationships explained.