The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth was celebrated in 2009. This year, 2011, marks a related sesquicentennial. Sesqui? What's that? It means "one and a half," and a sesquicentennial marks something's 150th anniversary. In 1861, 150 years ago as of April 12, Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, SC, and the American Civil War began.

Historical sites, museums, societies, and other organizations have been gearing up to celebrate this anniversary for months, if not years—and as educators you can take advantage of their materials and events.

Looking for digitized primary sources? Downloadable lesson plans? Interested in planning a field trip? Your state (as well as your local community) may have new resources available, or in development, for you.

Many states have chosen to make the sesquicentennial an official affair, overseen by a committee or commission recognized by the governor. The websites created by these groups vary widely in quality, but they're a good starting place for exploring the sesquicentennial. Many include timelines, calendars of events, digitized primary sources, educator sections, directories of historic sites, discussion forums, and other resources. The following states have publicized their sesquicentennial preparations online:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Maine
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Vermont
• Virginia
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

What states aren't here? Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming do not currently have state Civil War commissions. Illinois may have one forming, and Louisiana may have one that has no web presence.

Ask your students to think about this list. Why might these states not be celebrating the sesquicentennial? The answer for some of them should be clear—they weren't states at the time! Yet textbooks emphasize disagreement over whether slavery should extend into the territories as one of the causes of the Civil War, and history certainly didn't stop happening in these regions during the war.

Consider giving your students a state. Maybe you want all of them to study your own state's Civil War history. Ask them to look at how your state is commemorating the sesquicentennial. What Civil War sites are located in your state? Are they preserved? What was happening in your state in 1861? How much of its history in that year was driven by the Civil War? Were there major events that seemed unrelated to the war? What events seem to be talked about most often in your textbook and the resources about your state's 1861 history that you can find? What events are given very little space? Does your state have a history of celebrating Civil War memorials? What kind? Have celebrations changed over time?

You might also give each student a different state. Include wildcards, like Hawaii and Alaska, that weren't even territories at the time. Have them research 1861 in their state histories. What was happening in each state (or the areas that would become their states)? How much was related to the Civil War? Were there events that your students think deserve commemoration (even if they weren't related to the war)? Have them put together a theoretical sesquicentennial commemoration for their state, celebrating the year 1861. Remind them that events don't have to be Civil War-related!

If you've looked through the sesquicentennial websites above and can't find resources to suit your needs, try searching our Website Reviews. We've visited more than 300 websites with resources on the years 1850–1877, and annotated all of them.

However you want to approach Civil War history, chances are good you'll find a site with relevant resources cataloged here.

As teachers of history, we know that there are the curricular realities of textbooks, common assessments, district outcomes, and state standards to meet. But as teachers of history, we can regularly experience the motivating effects of having students think historically, wrestle with primary sources, and interact while they explore events, issues, ideas, and people of the past. We can do this while still meeting those curriculum targets that, at times, make it seem as though we must take our students on the deadly content coverage march.

I teach 7th-grade world history at the Hudson Middle School in Hudson, WI, and have taught every social science discipline, world history, American history, and state history in every secondary grade over a career of (so far) 37 years. As a classroom teacher I have found that in order to meet those curricular timelines and standards while engaging students in the study of history it is important to:

1. develop a climate of engagement, interaction, and activity; and
2. develop a repertoire of engaging thoughtful teaching strategies that will engage students in the study of history.

How can we as elementary and secondary teachers set a climate for exploration? How can we engage our students in historical thinking while meeting the expectations for curriculum coverage that we must? In this blog, I will write about creating that climate and those teaching strategies that I have found are unsurpassed in having students engaged in the study of history.

Many years ago, my family was sitting around the dinner table after the first day of school. We were talking about that first day when I asked my youngest, who was just entering in middle school, what he did in his class. His reply was we did the first thing we always do on the first day of school: we talked about rules. The two older children, one then in middle school and one in high school, chimed in that in addition to rules, we got to listen to course descriptions, just like every first day. That was an "ah ha" moment for me. What they, and probably most students, experience on the first day is basically a matter of routine and it is not setting a tone for engagement.

I love history and want to engage my students in its exploration. Setting the climate for this begins day one. Although there are certainly many ways to initiate your students into a climate of engagement and discovery, I would like to share mine which, with continual tweaks, I have been using ever since that dinner table conversation about 10 years ago.

When the students come into my room on the first day of school, they find desks formed into groups of four. They seat themselves, and as soon as the bell rings, I give them a challenge: students are to make a class timeline by standing along the walls of the room in order of their birth. The rules are that they cannot talk and they cannot write.

Of course, they realize very quickly that the only way to do this is to use sign language—so many fingers for the month and then the day once they have found others born in the same month. After a few minutes of positioning and repositioning, from the first in line to the last, students announce their birthdays.

From that point, students are formed into groups of four and we talk briefly about the class. I start by asking them about their attitudes toward history and then give them my three guarantees. Regarding their attitudes I always seem to find that roughly a quarter of my students like history, another quarter dislike history, and the rest are ambivalent. It is then time for my three guarantees:

1. this year we will explore a lot of history (I emphasize the word explore);
2. this year you will enjoy learning history; and
3. this year you will never, never do a worksheet.

We then spend the remainder of the period playing a team-building game called Whatzits.

The goal on this first day is not to set up the rules for the class, to give my students a syllabus, or even to begin engaging them in historical thinking (that will come). My goal is that when students leave the class, they will have a sense that this history class is going to be different from what they may be accustomed to. I use the birthday line-up, my guarantees, and a team-building exercise to set the tone for my classes. As fellow teachers of history, you may find other methods, but I strongly recommend you get students up and moving, and engage them in activities that will set those expectations of engagement.

What is the next step that must be made in fulfilling those expectations? Simple; the next step is to hit ’em with your best shot. Immediately.

To carry through with a tone and climate of engagement, it is necessary to use engaging and thoughtful teaching strategies in your teaching immediately. My best shot, i.e. the strategy that I have found most motivates my students and excites them about the upcoming unit, is a strategy called Discrepant Event Inquiry.

Imagine that students have just come into your American history class. The bell rings, and you tell your students that they are going to solve a mystery. The first thing they must figure out is what has happened in this story:

A young boy named John lived on a farm in a beautiful, mountainous, wooded area in Eastern Tennessee in 1837. His family planted corn and raised animals for meat, milk, and eggs. John had four brothers and three sisters. The family appeared happy and prosperous. In 1839 the family moved to a treeless, dry, flat prairie. During the journey, two of John’s brothers and one of his sisters died. When they arrived at their new home, the family could not grow enough to feed themselves. John’s father became a member of the legislature and his mother helped publish the local newspaper. John missed his brothers and sister, and his beautiful home in the mountains.

When the short tale is complete you say to your students: what you must figure out is why John’s family would leave their beautiful farm for a difficult life in this flat dry prairie.

A timer is set and immediately students begin to question you. But these are all a particular type of questions—questions posed to you must be answerable with only a yes or a no. No open-ended questions allowed—students must figure this story out on their own.

The questions and answers begin:

• Did the family know where they were going?
• Yes.
• Did they want to leave Tennessee?
• No.
• Why did they leave?
• I can’t answer that—remember, only yes or no questions.
• Did they have to leave?
• Yes.

Questions build upon questions and answers build upon answers as students probe and analyze the problem and develop hypotheses. After a few minutes, the timer is paused and students briefly discuss what they have learned and what they still must discover. Then the timer starts again, as do the questions, until time runs out (I give students five minutes) or a student has developed the correct hypotheses.

I have learned in using discrepant event inquiries that the motivational qualities of this strategy are just as strong, perhaps stronger, if a class does not figure it out. If the time runs out and they have not solved the mystery, they are ready to move into the inquiry more deeply and learn about it. If they do figure it out, they are happy and ready to move on to further inquiry into the subject.

There are four steps in conducting a Discrepant Event Inquiry:

1. A puzzling story or statement is told to students as well as a statement of what they must figure out in order to solve it.
2. Students analyze the puzzle by asking the teacher questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no."
3. The teacher pauses during the inquiry in order to give students the opportunity to engage in small-group discussion to enrich their thinking and help them form hypotheses.
4. The inquiry is followed with the development of questions that students wish to answer during the unit/lesson.

Developing the puzzling story or statement requires a bit of imagination, but anything that can be stated in a puzzling way or stories that can be told about the subject leaving important pieces of information out are ripe for the inquiry.

By the way, John and his family were Cherokees forced from their homes in the Trail of Tears. Students are now eager to make further inquiries into this tragic period in American history. Two exemplary strategies that the history teacher can use to further engage them in their inquiry are Response Groups and Mystery, which I will examine in future blog entries.

Music has been a source of inspiration, of protest, of wisdom, and of emotion for millennia. In the United States, music became woven into the fabric of our culture well before we became a nation, and it remains so today. Through songs of protest and patriotism from the 18th and 19th centuries to music of today commenting on and influencing social or political issues, music has found its way into nearly every era and event in American history, inspiring it or reflecting on it.

Beginning in my early teens, I recall being affected by the political and social messages in the music to which I listened. In fact, my music-inspired evolution toward civic-mindedness greatly influenced my decision to teach social studies. As an American history teacher, I found significant success employing music in my lessons. Students in my class might get a sampling of some Joe Hill union songs from the IWW; 1960s protest songs such as "Masters of War" by Bob Dylan; a taste of punk rock music from the Bad Brains, Black Flag, or Minor Threat that raged against governmental policies or notions of class from the Reagan era; or hip-hop songs from Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, NWA, or KRS-one that lamented urban blight of the 1980s and 1990s.

These songs became sources integral to our wrangling with the experiences of the past and examination of contemporary social and political issues. We often laughed at the vocalists or the crude recording and instrumentation, but our mission was to analyze the meanings behind the songs in terms of their significance to history and the social studies. We treated these songs for what they are: cultural contributions critically relevant to the past, present, and future of our society.

I am certain that sharing these songs with my students engaged them in the content for a time. I am also certain that they enjoyed the unusual activity of listening to music in class, hearing my commentary of the artists, and discussing, for example, the characteristics of Dylan's voice or the bombast that was 1980s hardcore punk rock. However, my goal was beyond just engagement. Whether reflecting on or being a part of the context, these songs contained meaning. They represented a look inside the lives of the songwriters and the stories they had to tell. These songs allowed us to be more aware of our own world. They held the potential, as do other relevant sources in the social studies, to humanize us.

I am heartened when I communicate with prospective history educators who believe in the idea of teaching history beyond the textbook. These future teachers share innovative ideas of image and document analysis in an effort to move students toward developing historical habits of mind and keen interest in the world around them. It is my contention that teachers can and should consider the use of music in the same way they consider more archetypal sources—as essential to effective teaching.

It has been my experience that the following strategies work well when engaging students in listening to and analyzing music in the classroom.

1. Using a modified inquiry method where students are unaware of the relevancy the song(s) has in terms of the lesson heightens student interest and allows for some creative interpretations and deep analysis. In this strategy, students will listen to the music (with lyrics up on the screen in front of class) and are asked to analyze the lyrics in an attempt to discern the salient meaning. Students would likely be using text sources/artifacts as well to provide context and foundational knowledge. This can be done as an individual or group activity with a class debriefing to follow.
2. Listening to the song and carefully analyzing the lyrics and tone in the direct context of the historical, social, or political event I am teaching is another way of using music effectively in class. Teachers employing this more traditional strategy post lyrics on screen while students listen to and interpret meaning individually and as a group. This method provides opportunity to share songs with narratives contrary to the traditional, which can foster cognitive dissonance, important to any worthwhile history and social studies class.
3. Borrowing from Drake and Nelson's (2003) History Research Kit, a teacher may use one particular song as a "first-order" source. In this strategy, the teacher shares the song and analyzes and interprets meaning with the students as the principle source for the lesson. The second-order songs might include two or three songs with other interpretations of the event(s) covered in the lesson. These songs are analyzed as a model for students to follow for the third-order songs. For those songs, the teacher asks students to seek their own sources (songs or other artifacts) that either support or refute the meaning from the teacher-provided songs. Allowing students the opportunity to find their own sources serves to empower students to do history, which has great potential to result in deep understanding and meaningful learning.
4. Intrepid teachers comfortable with software used to create music may promote the idea for students to create their own music related to history, or, more broadly, social studies content. Clay Shirkey (2010) notes that digital natives are accustomed to creating using technology, therefore, actively involving students in such creative endeavors might be truly beneficial to their learning. One of the aforementioned methods might serve as a precursor to this strategy. My success with this method has come when my students were keenly familiar with music analysis and interpretation. Asking students to engage in this activity without prior experience will likely yield disappointing results.

Please note: If your thoughts are drifting toward sharing "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel or songs from some new website advertising "American History Learned through 50 Rock-n-Roll Songs" where a songwriter has penned songs related to salient events in American history, please be cautioned. What I am referring to here is quite different. My goal is to engage students in listening to or creating music that requires more from students. The music presented ought to be considered as carefully as when choosing just the right letter between Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, or the parts of George F. Kennan's Long Telegram to share. I don’t mean to disparage Billy Joel; I am, in fact, a fan. I'd just rather listen to The Stranger or The Nylon Curtain . . . you know, the old stuff is always better.