The World Digital Library, a collaborative project of the Library of Congress, UNESCO, and other partners, is a collection of primary documents from around the world. Particularly useful for working with ELL students, the site has a drop-down language menu, which allows teachers to translate the site’s accompanying materials into a number of languages including Spanish and Chinese.
Congratulations to Stacy Hoeflich, a 4th-grade teacher from John Adams Elementary School in Alexandria, VA, and a 20092010 Teachinghistory.org Teacher Representative, who is the 2011 National History Teacher of the Year!
The award, presented by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, HISTORY® (History Channel), and Preserve America, honors K12 teachers for their use of primary documents in the classroom, the level of inspiration they provide their students, and their career achievements in education.
Ms. Hoeflich received the title and $10,000 award in a ceremony at the Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem that included two of her former students, along with James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute; Libby O'Connell, senior vice-president and chief historian, HISTORY®; Clement Price, vice chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation; and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Teachinghistory.org's Outreach Director Jennifer Rosenfeld attended the event representing Teachinghistory.org, which sponsored Ms. Hoeflich's nomination.
Dr. Kelly Schrum, Director of Teachinghistory.org, who nominated Ms. Hoeflich for the award, stated, "Hoeflich is devoted to the teaching and learning of history. After seeing the students in her classroom excitedly puzzle over a difficult map created almost 400 years ago or analyze political cartoons from the last century, students leave her classroom with a lifelong interest in understanding the complexities of the past."
An accomplished educator, Ms. Hoeflich has taught elementary school for 13 years. She has presented at local, state, and national education conferences on teaching history and historical thinking with primary sources. As a Teacher Representative for Teachinghistory.org, Ms. Hoeflich provided feedback about the website in order to improve its use by educators.
On Teachinghistory.org you can watch videos of Stacy Hoeflich teaching with maps and teaching with political cartoons.
Teachinghistory.org also has materials from previous National History Teacher of the Year winners. Check out 2008 winner David Mitchell's piece for our roundtable on organizing a U.S. History Survey Course or use 2005 winner Roseanne Lichatin's teaching guide on students working in historic preservation.
Teachinghistory.org is full of resources developed by other award-winning teachers, so be sure to check out our blog, teaching guides, and best practices videos to learn what outstanding teachers from across the country are doing in their classrooms!
I am looking for historical timelines that I can purchase or download for the late elementary or early middle school level—both US history and world history. Any ideas?
There are plenty of timelines available on the web, for free and for sale. But not all timelines are equal. Different timelines emphasize some events or periods over others, and some “timelines” are actually chronologies. So, you’ll want to be a critical consumer as you browse the universe of available resources.
A good place to start is with resources recommended by the National History Education Clearinghouse. The Teachinghistory.org website has reviews of the Presidential Timeline, which explores the lives of 12 presidents from Hoover to Clinton, as well as of a Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events, 1620-1920, which divides eras and decades into year-by-year timelines. The Presidential Timeline is an actual timeline—it has a line, marked with dates, that runs left to right across the screen. The timelines included in the Brief Timelines of American Literature and Events, 1620-1920 are vertically-oriented, moving through blocks of time from the top of the screen to the bottom. Remember as you’re choosing your resources that younger students sometimes struggle to recognize big leaps in time; one of the great strengths of a traditional timeline is that it places events on an evenly-spaced line that accurately represents temporal distance.
There are other good timelines available on the web. One of the best is Digital History’s Interactive Timeline, which includes a sliding scale (horizontal) that students can use to bring up events on a map of the United States. The BBS offers a similarly detailed interactive timeline for British history. Ohio State University’s Ehistory project has a number of vertically-oriented timelines focusing on American and world history, some of which move year-by-year through history. Each resource is divided into categories for tracking changes across politics, science, culture, etc., which may be useful depending on what your aim is.
Chronologies, though they differ somewhat from timelines, can also be quite useful. The Library of Congress’s American Memory website, for instance, offers a number of chronologies that move from the top of the page to the bottom, and often cover events year-by year. They are available on a number of topics, from African-American history to women’s suffrage. Other first-rate web destinations, like PBS, offer chronologies on a range of topics like the history of slavery and the history of the American West. CNN’s Millennium website is something of a timeline/chronology hybrid and covers 1000 years of world history.
Though they may not be useful for younger students, some web resources include primary documents along with their chronologies. The Smithsonian Institution, for instance, offers a list of resources organized by historical period. The University of Oklahoma College of Law has a chronology of U.S. historical documents with links to the documents themselves—a great tool for the appropriate audience.
The web, of course, is not the only place you can find timelines. National Geographic’s Illustrated Time Line or John Teeple’s Timelines of World History are books for purchase, and offer a wide selection. The Social Studies School Service also offers plenty of relevant tools. If you go to the site and preform an advanced search for "timelines" you will find a multitude of materials from different periods in history. Be sure to limit the "Subject" section to "U.S. History".
Finally, you might consider having students make their own timelines. You can begin that work with tools as simple as paper and pen, or with some of the tools outlined in this posting from teachinghistory.org. There are also some great online resources like an online interactive tool from DocsTeach. A project of the National Archives, it offers four activities on topics like women’s suffrage and the Civil War ask students to organize primary documents.
A month ago, on June 14th, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released the Nation's Report Card: U.S. History 2010, Grades 4, 8, and 12. The Report Card is the "largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do" in U.S. history, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Approximately 7,000 4th-grade students, 11,000 8th-grade students, and 12,000 12th-grade students in public and private schools across the country took the test, resulting in data that will be analyzed for years to come.
Several professional and educational organizations and publications released responses to the Report Card:
But what is the Report Card? What does it mean? The first step in interpreting the results is to understand the tools used for collecting them. Looking at the structure of the NAEP U.S. history assessments and at the stated goals behind developing and administering them may be a useful way to understand what exactly the results are before trying to understand what they say.
A good place to start is the U.S History Framework for the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress. This document explains the goals of the assessments, describes the structure and rationale behind them, and provides sample questions.
After reviewing this document, head over to NAEP to try your hand at answering sample questions yourself. How did you do? If you want to see more questions from the 2010 (and 2006) assessments, NAEP's item maps let you pull up further sample questions. (Note: When you arrive at the site, set the subject to "U.S. History" in the drop-down menus under "Select new item map," and choose the year and grade level you want to explore.) Questions are labeled with the knowledge or skill they were designed to address and their format (multiple choice or constructed response), related theme (U.S. democracy, the gathering of cultures in the U.S., economic and technological changes, and U.S. world role), and difficulty level.
Once you've gotten a handle on the tools NAEP used to collect data for the Nation's Report Card, read over the Report. It includes charts and graphs with short summaries of conclusions drawn from the data.
NCES commissioner Jack Buckley offered a brief interpretation of the Report's findings, and the press release for the Report Card included further remarks.
(For comparison, you may want to read Commissioner Mark Schneider's remarks on the 2006 findings, as well as the official 2006 release remarks of other experts. Follow the link and scroll down to "2007," "History and Civics.")
Understanding the rationale behind the Nation's Report Card, the tools used to collect data, and official interpretations, you can now investigate the numbers yourself. Using the NAEP Data Explorer, compare test data using filters including jurisdiction (public or private), gender, race and ethnicity, geographic region, eligibility for the National School Lunch Program, disability status, and more.
For a look at data on how the tested students were being taught prior to their assessment, try Classroom Context, a section of the official Nation's Report Card website. Here you can compare what percent of classrooms used primary sources or films, or how many classrooms used computers for certain tasks. The data can't capture actual teaching strategies, but it can provide some general ideas about how history is being presented in the classroom.
Some students in class today may have clear memories of the events of September 11, 2001. Some may have vague memories. Others may have been born years after the attacks. The 10th anniversary of 9/11 presents an opportunity for educators to explore with students what it means to experience history. Were students alive during the attacks? Do they remember them? How do their parents remember the attacks? How did adults they know make sense of the events as they happened? How do people who were alive during the attacks interpret the past when its events are close and painful? How long does it take for historians to find a framework in which to fit events such as 9/11? People watching the World Trade Center towers collapse knew that 9/11 would appear in history books later—what has happened during students' lifetimes that they think was "history in the making?"
One way to teach 9/11 is to compare and contrast it with other past events that witnesses believed were history in the making. Lesson plans often feature the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the assassination of JFK as comparable to 9/11, but what about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The assassination of Abraham Lincoln? The assassination of William McKinley? The Boston Massacre? The Springfield Race Riot of 1908?
How many people witnessed those events? How many of them witnessed them in person? How well were the witnesses prepared for the events? Did they know ahead of time what the effects might be? Did they share their eyewitness knowledge freely with others, or keep it secret? What did people write about these events immediately after they happened? Years after they happened? Does where something happens make a difference in how people react to it? Has technology made a difference?
Regardless of how you choose to teach 9/11 and whether or not you contrast it with other historical events, approach the subject thoughtfully and with clear goals. To honor the anniversary and to help you as you learn about, teach, and remember the day and its effects, we've gathered together our 9/11 resources on one page: "In Remembrance: Teaching 9/11."
Our spotlight doesn't include all of the many resources available online. More examples follow. Some were created in the immediate wake of 9/11 and some were created 10 years later, in the present day. You can use the older materials as they are, or use them as primary sources in their own right. They represent snapshots of writers, publications, and educators trying to make sense of a sudden, horrifying event.
If you are contrasting 9/11 with other traumatic events in U.S. history, you may want to compare these early reactions with early reactions to those events. How did schools, educators, and students react to violence in the past?
From 2001:
From 2011:
Many websites and publications also offer primary sources, yet to be interpreted for educational use or packaged into lesson plans. If you have the time to search for and browse these materials, they can provide a rich base from which to assemble your own comparison of past and present. Here are some examples:
Soaring food prices, a hunger for locally grown produce, high obesity rates, and the desire by people to reconnect with nature and with each other have sparked a national renaissance in community gardening. As part of this movement, school gardens are sprouting up everywhere. Teachers are using these green spaces to teach a variety of subjects, including horticulture, nutrition, history, science, math, writing, and art.
The idea of incorporating gardens in schools began in the late 19th century when Henry Lincoln Clapp, a teacher at the George Putnam Grammar School in Boston, MA, established the first school garden. Inspired after visiting school gardens in Europe, Clapp created a wildflower and vegetable garden at Putnam in 1891 with support from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The establishment of school gardens soon spread throughout the state and eventually became a nationwide movement, with an estimated 75,000 school gardens by 1906.
For garden advocates, integrating school gardens in the public schools served many purposes. It was a way to get city children outside, engage them in physical activity, and instill in them a sense of pride and teamwork as they cultivated and maintained their gardens. Gardening classes provided students with vocational and agricultural training. Teachers taught a variety of subjects through garden activities. Students practiced writing by keeping planting journals and writing compositions about the garden. Math skills were acquired by counting seeds, measuring garden plots, and determining the appropriate soil depth for planting. Students learned botany and entomology by observing plants and insects and their interrelationships. Geography and history came into play when students studied the origins of fruits and vegetables and planting customs among different cultures. The gardens provided inspiration for drawing, painting, and performing music. In 1914, the federal government established the Bureau of Education’s Office of School and Home Gardening, which promoted school gardens and provided “how-to” pamphlets and course guides.
Children’s involvement in gardening took on a new urgency when the United States entered World War I in 1917. In order to provide food to European allies facing a food crisis and to U.S. troops fighting overseas, citizens were encouraged to grow food for domestic consumption as part of the war garden campaign. Children were enlisted to join the School Garden Army, which adopted the motto, “A garden for every child, every child in a garden.” Students became important contributors to the garden campaign, growing thousands of dollars worth of produce in their school and home gardens.
When the United States entered World War II, children once again played an active role in growing fruits and vegetables to assist in the war effort. During the war, citizens were encouraged to establish victory gardens in their backyards, vacant lots, and schools to provide food for civilians and troops. Gardening was also promoted to boost morale, encourage physical activity and healthy eating and to help Americans deal with the stresses of war. The U.S. Office of Education encouraged victory gardening at schools and promoted school lunch programs that served locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. The Boy Scouts of America, 4-H clubs, parks and recreation departments, churches, and many civic organizations were involved in victory gardening programs for children. In 1944, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that victory gardens produced 40 percent of the vegetables that were consumed nationally.
The post-war suburban housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s generated more interest in backyard gardening than in community gardening. This changed in the 1970s when rising food prices, an increase in environmental awareness, and a desire by citizens to revitalize neighborhoods plagued by crime and neglect sparked a new community garden movement. Citizens and non-profit groups, such as Boston Urban Gardeners and New York’s Green Guerillas, turned vacant lots into colorful, productive green spaces. The U.S. Department of Agriculture initiated the Urban Garden Program in 1976 to help residents in major cities grow their own food. Educators and activists who were concerned that children were disconnected from nature and unaware of where their food came from reached out to young people and encouraged them to participate in neighborhood, youth, and school gardens. In a 1974 article in the Washington Post, writer Henry Mitchell noted that in Washington, DC, “there are 1,000 small gardens about town in which children grow such plants as the radish, the onion, and (as the weather stops being barbarous) the tomato.”
Since the 1970s, the popularity of school and youth gardens has grown steadily. California took the lead in 1995 by launching the “Garden in Every School” program. As in the school garden movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, teachers are utilizing these outdoor classrooms to teach a wide range of academic subjects through hands-on experiential activities. In addition, educators are using school gardens to encourage a healthier lifestyle, promote environmental stewardship and provide students with the opportunity to develop leadership and team-building skills.
These free resources provide ideas on how to incorporate school gardens into the academic curriculum, including social studies:
Lawson, Laura. City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Mitchell, Henry. “A Child’s Garden in The City.” The Washington Post, May 19, 1974.
School Gardens with Constance Carter. Library of Congress webcast.
Test your knowledge of (modern) historical gardening with our quiz on victory gardens!
What made Frederick Douglass a radical abolitionist?
That Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist is beyond debate. Born a slave, he eventually escaped and became one of the most famous activists to work for emancipation. Whether working as a stump speaker or editing one abolitionist newspaper after another, Douglass expressed tremendous hope that the slave power would eventually fall. He once declared, “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.” That Douglass was radical in his anti-slavery speeches and newspaper editorials is somewhat debatable, and would depend on how one defines “radical.”
“Hereditary bondmen! Know ye not / Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?”
Frederick Douglass was fond of quoting this line from Lord Byron as it summed up his political activism. This call to the enslaved to be their own liberators reflected a revolutionary urgency and fervor most would associate with radical measures. But compared with abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass’s one-time mentor and fiery editor of the Liberator (whose masthead read “No Union with Slaveholders”), Frederick Douglass appears measured and sensible. For example, Douglass once wrote, “My position now is one of reform, not revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the government—not over its ruins.”
In contrast, Garrison burned a copy of the Constitution in public, calling it “the most bloody and heaven-daring arrangement ever made by men for the continuance and protection of a system of the most atrocious villainy [sic] ever exhibited on earth.” Most famously, he pronounced the Constitution “a covenant with death,” “an agreement with hell,” and “refuge of lies.”
Even more extreme was John Brown, who tried to recruit Douglass for a raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, VA, a doomed venture that exacerbated sectional tensions leading up to the 1860 presidential election. Brown believed the seizure of the armory would spur local slaves to rise up against their masters and spark a slave rebellion throughout the South. Douglass shunned the effort. As historian David Blight observed, “For Douglass, the question of violence was always more a tactical than a moral problem. He did not relish the prospect, but morally he believed the slaves had the right to rise up and slay their masters.” Compared with the lawlessness of Garrison and Brown and their disrespect for the Constitution, Douglass’s abolitionism looks less radical, if not tame.
Douglass sought to free the slaves within the confines of the Constitution. He thought only by keeping the slave states within the American Union could the federal government then be used to rid the nation of slavery. Douglass came to view the Constitution as a pro-liberty document, thus agreeing with Lincoln “the Great Emancipator” on the principal means of promoting freedom.
Lincoln understood the Founders to expect slavery to wither away in a generation or two by restricting its importation into the new nation (as early as 1808) and preventing its expansion into federal territory (see, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787). As historian James Oakes writes: “Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass agreed that there was no such thing as a constitutional right to own slaves. But for Lincoln the Constitution recognized the existence of slavery as a practical necessity, whereas for Douglass the absence of a right to own slaves obliged the federal government to overthrow slavery everywhere.”
In sum, what made Frederick Douglass an abolitionist was his experience with slavery firsthand: simply stated, he found it a poor fit for his humanity. He became a radical abolitionist, calling for the immediate abolition of slavery, because he came to view the U.S. Constitution as a pro-liberty document that could be interpreted to permit Congress to abolish slavery not only from federal territories but also in the states where it already existed. One might say his aims were radical, while his means, especially after the break from Garrison, were not radical insofar as they remained within the American constitutional context.
Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. 5 vols. Edited by Philip S. Foner. New York: International Publishers, 1950-1975.
_______. Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Library of America, 1994.
Myers, Peter C. Frederick Douglass: Race and the Rebirth of American Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008.
Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.
When the 13 colonies first rebelled against England, they called on the help of established nations—including France and Spain—to succeed. After the Revolutionary War, the newborn United States gradually began to take part in world affairs itself, making payments and treaties, waging war, and withholding or offering aid. Today, the U.S. maneuvers its way through a constant web of decisions. Who does it choose to help and how? What kind of aid should it offer? Military? Economic? Social? When and why does it withhold aid? How have the choices it makes today grown out of those made in the past?
Following the March 11 earthquake that rocked Japan, your students may have questions about the U.S. and international aid. Or maybe they're curious about the uprisings in the Middle East, a part of the world with which the U.S. has a complicated history of trade, war, and aid.
A good place to start learning about U.S. aid history is, appropriately enough, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Established in 1961 in an effort to separate non-military and military aid, USAID combined the social and economic aid efforts of a number of smaller initiatives under one "roof." Though the website's history page is dense, it provides a sense of the complexity of aid issues. If you want to dig a little deeper (and read a little more), download the primer on USAID. (The section on "Responding to Crises" may be particularly relevant right now.)
For statements on current events, check out the Senior Staff Speeches and Testimony section. Press releases also feature current information. For a broader view, search by location to learn more about USAID's work in Haiti, Egypt, Thailand, and other nations. Browse issues of USAID's newsletter, FrontLines, starting in 2003, to see what's been given the most press in the past few years.
Ready to head further back in time? In our Ask a Historian feature, look at aid in the Middle East, both non-military and military, during the 1950s.
Skip back a few years more and learn about the Marshall Plan, a well-known precursor of USAID designed to help Europe rebuild following World War II. USAID's small online exhibit on the Plan features audio, visual, and text primary sources, while the Library of Congress hosts an exhibit on the Plan. If you need more primary sources, try the document collection Truman & the Marshall Plan at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
Of course, U.S international aid didn't begin with the 20th century and isn't limited to the federal government. Read up on the history of the American branch of the Red Cross, an organization founded by Clara Barton in the late 19th century. (The bibliography in the "Students" section recommends American author Pearl S. Buck's 1948 children's novel The Big Wave for learning about tsunamis. You might consider introducing this novel to students as a primary source itself, reflective of Buck and the context in which she wrote.)
Consider having students trace the U.S.'s relationship with a particular country or region back in time. For instance, what part is the U.S. playing in events in Libya now? What is our stance on the country and events there? What was it back in the early years of the U.S.? (For an idea, listen to historian Christine Sears describe the First Barbary War, one of the U.S.'s early overseas conflicts.) Between then and now, how has our position changed and evolved? Have we given aid or taken it away? When and how?
As it has grown in power, the U.S. has shifted in its relationship to other parts of the world again and again. Exploring the history of international aid might help you (or your students) follow these shifts through time and gain a better understanding of responses and relationships today.
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
The discrepant event inquiry on the Trail of Tears is adapted from William C. and Jean K. Bruce, Mindtronics, Home Tree Media, 2009.
For a complete explanation of strategies for developing Discrepent Event Inquiry stories, and many other strategies, see Yell and Scheurman, A Link to the Past: Engaging Students in the Study of History, National Council for the Social Studies, 2004.