Midwinter Medieval Feast

In my absolute madness I've decided to host a Medieval Feast.

My Year 7 History class just started a unit on Medieval Europe. After a few lessons sitting with them in a classroom reading through books, internet sites and worksheets, I decided on a whim to ask them if they would be keen to organise a feast. Of course, they were thrilled with the idea of getting out of the classroom and doing some real History stuff with their hands.

I moved things around in the program enough to allow for the summative assessment to be in the form of a portfolio of work. This portfolio is intended to be completed using group-work skills.

The components of the portfolio are as follows:

• two posters about two Medieval persons.
• each group had approximately four members, so the students were able to work on the posters in pairs.
• one gigantic banner depicting scenes and text describing an aspect of Medieval life.
• one 'black death survival guide' (per student).
• the research and preparation of two Medieval recipes.
• the individual group-work reflection.
• this was intended to provide a method by which students could reflect on their own learning and their group-work skills.

I won't go into marking criteria and all of that right here.

Now for the things to do for the feast:

• make decorations
• design costumes
• order ingredients
• enlist the help of some other insanely eager teachers
• find some money
• panic.

Can someone remind me why a Temporary Teacher on a one-year contract would go to all this effort?