Conversations Across Time: Teaching American History Through Interactive Analysis of Primary Sources

Abstract

A 2010 survey indicates that only a small percentage of U.S. history teachers in these Idaho districts currently place a significant emphasis on chronology, primary sources or connecting historical events with broader themes. Due to budget limitations, few teachers have had an opportunity to participate in history-related professional development over the past three years, and most would be interested in strengthening their knowledge of primary sources and interacting with historical experts. This project offers summer and daylong institutes during the school year featuring renowned national historians and twice-monthly half-day Saturday online workshops led by history faculty from Idaho's four institutions of higher education. The teachers will be organized into four cohorts of 10 based on location. Each of the three years, they will study a different chronological phase of American history, focusing on significant issues, episodes and turning points. They will use primary sources to learn how the words and deeds of individuals have determined the course of history, and create lesson plans using backward design and one of five teaching strategies: Binary Paideia, haunted history, content scene interpretation, cause-effect generalizations and cognition strategies. The teachers will produce four lesson plans for each unit. An academic advisory board will select the best teacher lesson plans and student products for inclusion on a consortium Web site. In addition, the online workshops will be recorded and made available as QuickTime movies.

Following America's Footsteps

Abstract

Districts from both western Idaho and southeastern Washington will be involved in this project; focus groups with history teachers found that few have learned from or taught with primary documents, and many believe their history curricula need to be updated. Following a 2-day launch meeting, annual activities will include curriculum improvement team meetings, three days of summer historian seminars/field study, five Saturday seminars, monthly Talking History viewing and discussion sessions, and quarterly book studies. In addition, three master teachers each year will attend a 5-day Gilder Lehrman summer institute. The project will serve at least 33 teachers and a principal who have volunteered to participate for the full term of the grant. To support improvements in teaching and learning, activities will become more participatory each year; in Year 1, many activities will be passive — lectures, podcasts — and by Year 5, most activities will feature discussions, practice and teaching others; specific activities will include re-creations, simulations and debates. Each year, all major historical eras will be covered so as to coincide with the time line used in secondary classrooms; repetition and differing perspectives over the life of the project will help teachers build depth of knowledge. Teachers will develop habits of historical thinking as they study 100 significant documents, 100 court cases and 100 significant turning points in history. Curriculum improvement teams at the project, district and school levels will develop curriculum maps, pacing benchmarks and common assessments. All teacher-created curriculum maps, assessment tools and lesson plans will be posted on a Web site for other teachers to use.

American History: Examining Years of Economic Strides

Abstract

This Atlanta district, like many U.S. districts, has seen scores on end-of-course history tests fall dramatically—from about 639 points in 2005 to 429 points in 2009. Examining Years of Economic Strides, or EYES, will immerse high school teachers in a 1-day kick-off event, eight 1-day education matters events, a 5-day summer academy, three days at the American History Conference, two book study circles, five resource library activities and five days of field research each year. With additional activities, teachers will be involved in more than 400 hours of professional development during the grant period. Four cohorts of 37 or 38 teachers each will participate in two years of professional development; this will enable every high school history teacher in the district to be part of the project. EYES aims to use the lens of economics to make American history fresh, engaging and relevant, and to encourage critical thinking and historical investigation into central themes and concepts. For example, the content of Unit A (1) will include examination of the colonial economy in a global context, property rights among American Indians, and the costs and benefits of American independence. EYES will use a blueprint, or rubric, to help teachers and project leaders track instructional strategies, such as using primary documents and applying historical thinking skills. Participating teachers will post materials about their studies and the lessons they create to the district’s social studies Web site, and they will present at conferences, including state and national conferences, plus a local one that they will host in conjunction with historians who lead project activities.

Liberty, Equality and Justice for All in American History

Abstract

Cobb County is northwest of Atlanta, near the borders of Tennessee and Alabama. Student performance on the history portion of state graduation tests has fallen in recent years, and district history teachers have had access to little or no professional development. Each semester, this project will deliver three symposia and two field trips, a book study, and workshops for developing curriculum materials. Each year, leading historians will present a 5-day summer seminar that will include lectures and materials, historian guidance during a field study, and opportunities for teachers to confer with experts in the field. The project will serve an annual cadre of 30 high school teachers; Year 1 participants will be encouraged to stay on, and any who leave will be replaced by new teachers. Applicants will be screened to select those who have the greatest need. By providing a cutting-edge professional development experience, the district aims to develop a cadre of lead teachers and mentors who can work across the district and the state. Symposia will be led by guest historians, and primary source materials will be reviewed for historical interpretation, point of view and analysis. Field studies will be designed to include history content and exploration of primary sources. Strategies will include use of History Habits of Mind, document-based questioning and the Understanding by Design process. Every teacher will design at least one lesson per year, and these resources will be available on the district and project Web sites. Participants will present at local and state conferences and will be encouraged to apply to national conferences.

The Freedom Project: Turning Points and Learning Points in American History

Abstract

These districts—the two largest in Delaware—are rated below target in terms of Adequate Yearly Progress. In addition, their American history teachers lack adequate preparation in their subject area. Each year of the project will include four 2-day American history workshops and two week-long summer institutes with field trips for two cohorts of 25 teachers and administrators, who will work in professional learning communities and lesson study teams. Cohort A will learn about events through the Civil War, while Cohort B will focus on post-Civil War history. To prevent attrition and ensure full impact, the project will employ an incentive system in which teachers and administrators who participate for three years will receive annually enhanced stipends. All topics are related to the theme of freedom. The project will concentrate on major eras of American history and more focused case studies of selected turning points in the evolution of freedom. The project Web site will feature videotaped sessions that allow visitors to view guided practice lesson presentations by the instructional specialist, a reader-response blog in which visitors can respond to recommended readings and research lessons, a forum in which visitors can recommend and discuss American history resources and best practices, an "Ask the Historian" component that allows participants to communicate with the project's guest historians, and a featured book site that draws attention to new and notable books.

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

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Photo, Year 3~Day 106 +77/365 AND Day 837: U.S. History, Old Shoe Woman, Flickr

Summarizing and paraphrasing is a useful practice for English Language Learners (ELLs) who struggle with understanding history text. By learning how to paraphrase, students can improve at reading and analyzing challenging text and gain a better understanding about what they are reading. Practicing key concept identification and rewording the material in another way helps ELL students understand the history content and the original text more fully.

Responding to English Learners’ Writing with the 3 P’s

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Middle school student, NYC

The qualities that make a piece of history writing “good” or “effective” vary, depending on the purpose and genre. For students, this can feel like a moving target! For English Learners, it’s even more challenging.

Your feedback on their writing can help them to communicate their thinking more effectively. However, English Learners often turn in assignments with so many flaws in their writing that it is difficult to know where to start. Overwhelming students with too much feedback will not help their learning.

Being strategic with feedback means:

Ron Gorr on Socratic Seminars with Primary Documents

Date Published
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Photo, Socrates, Sept. 7, 2008, Ben Crowe, Flickr
Article Body

One of my favorite ways to teach is by using Socratic seminars. If done well, an effective Socratic lesson can not only take me (the teacher) off the stage, but invest my students in their own learning by creating an environment of academic discourse, improvisational questioning and answering, critical analysis, and free-flowing exploration of content.

Of course, for all of these wonderful things to happen, class sizes must be manageable; instructors must design compelling questions that are specific enough to narrow focus, but also broad enough to elicit multiple answers; and, most importantly, students must bring a competent level of prior knowledge to the seminar so they can intelligently participate in the discussions. Over the years, I have found that prior knowledge is the biggest challenge in conducting an effective Socratic seminar. How do I get the kids to connect with the material before I ask them to discuss it?
Traditionally, I provide prior knowledge through brief lectures, homework assignments, and readings in the text. This year, I added primary sources to student preparation and I saw a dramatic difference in how my students connected with the material. Here is how I set up the lesson for two separate Socratic seminars; the first was on slavery and the second was on the 1920s.

Socratic Seminar #1: Slavery

I chose the slavery unit for my first Socratic seminar of the year because every student knows what slavery is and brings with them a basic understanding of the topic and its place in American history. My hope was that this prior knowledge would allow a certain degree of comfort and thus more participation by the students.

In order to make sure all of my students had a similar grasp of the topic, I asked the students to read the chapter on slavery in our text and identify the most significant points and ideas (I used a reading guide to do this). Secondly, I assigned each student a primary source from David Kennedy and Thomas Bailey’s collection of primary sources called The American Spirit. Each student was asked to read his or her document and connect it to the material from their textbook. Both of these assignments were due on the day of the Socratic seminar.

The depth of discussion improved and students were excited to incorporate their documents into the course of discussion because they had become personally tied to them.

On the day of the seminar, I started the class by having each person quickly introduce their primary source and tell the class how it applied to the content from this chapter. (We have 90-minute block periods, so we were able to fit all of this into one day. You may want to break it up if your classes are shorter.) Each student was allowed 30 seconds to a minute to present their material and upon starting the seminar, I asked each student to incorporate their source into the free-flowing discussion. In essence, this forced participation while also allowing each student the freedom to chime in whenever they felt comfortable.

I found that by using this method, the focus of the seminar became grounded in primary resources and not just the secondary material that the text provided. I found that the depth of discussion improved and students were excited to incorporate their documents into the course of discussion because they had become personally tied to them. More students actively participated, the discussions were rooted in facts and not conjecture, and for the most part, the students really seemed to enjoy the process.

One more note: The documents dealing with slavery elicited a powerful reaction from my students. Content areas like slavery, the Great Depression, and World War II can offer a treasure trove of primary sources that will engage students in this process. The sources related to these topics are often easy to connect to and allow students to invest personally in each document.

Socratic Seminar #2: The 1920s

For years, I found myself struggling to communicate to my students the depth and vibrancy of the post-World War I period. From the intolerance of the KKK, the Red Scare, and the Sacco-Vanzetti case to the cultural revolutions involving flappers, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Lost Generation writers, to the long-ranging ramifications of the automobile, the radio, and the advertising boom, I struggled to develop a focused timeline or lesson that connected these diverse topics in a coherent manner.

By using a Socratic seminar, I found that I didn't have to worry about connecting the topics—the kids did it for themselves! This might sound like a cop-out, and to some degree it was, but what I found was that by letting the students dictate the direction of the discussions after they completed a search for and chose a relevant primary source, it became more clear to all of us how many of these seemingly unrelated topics combined to tell a more complete story of the 1920s. Here's how I did it.

By letting the students dictate the direction of the discussions . . . it became more clear to all of us how many of these seemingly unrelated topics combined to tell a more complete story of the 1920s.

Prior to the seminar, I gave each student two assignments. The first was a chapter-wide review that touched on most of the items any teacher might want a student to get from this period. Second, I assigned each of the students one of the major topics from the period (examples of these included the Sacco Vanzetti Case, the Red Scare, flappers, Al Capone, Prohibition, the Scopes Monkey trial, the 19th Amendment, the Advertising Boom, and many more—see "For More Information" below for the complete list.) I asked them to research their topic more deeply and be prepared to share what they discovered. In addition, they were to find an applicable primary source directly connected to their assigned topic. This would also have to be presented. I recommended numerous research sites, but I always try to steer them to Teachinghistory.org.

When the students came to class on the day of the seminar, they presented their topics and primary sources in the same fashion as they did for the slavery seminar, and when they were done, we started the seminar.

After about 15–20 minutes of discussion (or when things stagnated), I asked all of the students to look at their topic cards. Each card had a number (1–10) on it that was associated with a theme or idea that I wanted the students to understand. I asked all of the students to find other students with the same number on their cards and sit together. (We all know how physical movement can positively affect a classroom environment. I found that doing it during a free-flowing Socratic seminar can help refocus the group and entice some of the quieter kids to start speaking up.)

Once in their groups, I asked each person to quickly remind each member of their topic and then, AS A GROUP, deduce the common theme that brought them together. They presented this finding to the class and proceeded with the seminar by focusing on some of the new themes discovered.

After about 15–20 minutes, I followed the same process, but this time, I combined multiple groups with common themes and then asked each to figure out what brought them all together. We presented the new findings and then spent the remainder of class wrapping up the seminar.

By combining primary sources and student critical thinking we were able to come to a much deeper and multi-tiered understanding of the 1920s. There was a stark difference between the superficial chronology that I had used in the past and this dynamic interaction that forced students to make connections and inferences about the diverse topics presented to them by the Roaring Twenties.

Powerful Tools for Historical Understanding

In both of these lessons, the use of primary sources allowed me to enrich the content areas and connect students to actual events, people, and time periods. As historians, I think it is our responsibility to incorporate these powerful tools into the fantastic lessons that we are already doing. Hopefully, this article will inspire another day of greatness in your classroom. And if it does, please share it with me!

Ron Gorr
Air Academy High School
ronald.gorr at asd20.org

Bibliography

Bailey, Thomas and David Kennedy. The American Spirit Volume 1: To 1877. Florence, KY: Wadsworth, 2009.

For more information

California educator Shannon Carey describes how Socratic seminars (among other strategies) can engage English language learners. The article includes a PDF defining Socratic seminars.