Dawn. The Blue Ridge Mountains, of Pennsylvania, in the western distance, down Chambersburg Pike have an ethereal purple hue as the sun captures their crest. Closer to the ground where we are standing the mist is beginning to lift this mid-October morning. Students and chaperones huddle close together to ward off the autumn chill. All is quiet for this moment I have planned. Reaching into my satchel I pull out my set of Tibetan bells. Asking for perfect stillness from my students and chaperones I bring the bells together. As their ring echoes and trails off, I invoke the Spirit of History to be with us this day as we explore the site of the largest battle of the Civil War. Seven hours later we will head back to West Springfield High School, and my students will never look at a historic site in the same way again.

This article will help you to craft deeply rich learning experiences for your students. The lens through which we will use to explore this topic is my annual pilgrimage to Gettysburg National Military Park. Any of the strategies modeled here can be easily adapted by you to use at any historic site you choose.

For any field trip, preparation is a necessity and that includes planning

• the logistics of getting there,
• making sure your students are fed, and
• figuring out how, what, and where you want your students to learn.

Planning is essential, and yes it will take hours, but in the end everyone is rewarded for your hard work. Before you take students, visit the site yourself, several times if necessary. Speak with site staff about your visit and keep a sharp eye and ear attuned to the narrative told at the site. Pick up tidbits along the way that you can use to transform the total experience. If the site has audio-visual programs look at them and determine if you want your students to see them. Doing so will help you to determine your time frame for visiting the site. Your use of time is crucial, particularly if you are visiting a large site such as a battlefield.

Early on I learned that what makes a field trip more meaningful for students is getting them involved. I don’t want to simply be a tour guide. For our trip to Gettysburg I ask for student volunteers to teach all of us about what happened to certain individuals at site specific locations, what I term "battlefield vignettes." Working with the National Park Service staff at Gettysburg I assembled file folders of information about seven or eight people who were part of the Gettysburg story. Student historians are then given these folders about a week before the trip to help them to prepare for their presentations. At different stops along the way, we disembark from our motor coach, and the student historians share what they have learned about these characters and what happened to that person at the specific site from which they are speaking. This provides an optimum experience on a variety of levels; it sharpens students speaking skills, it allows peers to see others in action, and it forces the student historians to "get into" the story of their character and be a historian.

My role on the trip is to provide necessary background information about the battle as we drive along in our bus. At different places we stop I will read dramatic primary source accounts of key moments in the battle. Before I read I ask everyone to take their minds' eye back to that time and place and settle in with the moment of the past. On the crest of Cemetery Ridge, at the Angle, where Pickett's Charge was repulsed, I read several eyewitness accounts of the actual combat that took place where we are standing as well as reflections on the site that were written the day after the battle was over. These prove to be powerful and moving as history becomes transcended.

Assessment

It is important to have students reflect on their experience and the best way to do that is to have them write reflective journal entries about their visit. (See here for example of prompt.) Entries are crafted to plumb not only the intellectual components of their visit but also their feelings, affirming what Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote, "There is no truth but in transit." Field trips can be the ultimate learning and teaching experience and provide you and your students not only a slice of history but a lifetime of memories as well.

Preparing and modifying primary source documents so that all students can read and analyze them in their history classrooms.

Although they are useful for engaging students in the past, and teaching them to think historically, primary source documents often use antiquated or complex language. This can pose a challenge even for able readers, let alone those who read below grade level. Adapting a variety of historical documents for use in the classroom will allow students greater access to important reading and thinking opportunities.

Adapting documents for the classroom includes the use of excerpts, helpful head notes, and clear source information. It means adjusting documents for non-expert readers and making them shorter, clearer, and more focused. Adaptations can also include simplifying syntax and vocabulary, conventionalizing punctuation and spelling, cutting nonessential passages, and directing attention to a document's key components.

• Choose a document that is relevant to the historical question or topic that    your class is studying. Consider what you want students to get out of the    document. Will they try to unravel a historical puzzle? Corroborate    another document? Dive deeper into a particular topic? Write a focus    question for the lesson and the document.
• Make sure that the source of the document is clear. State whether you    found it online or in a book, clearly identify when, where, by whom, and    for whom the source was originally created.
• Create a head note that includes background information and even a brief    reading guide. This helps students to focus on what they're reading while    using background knowledge to make sense of it.
• Focus the document. Although some documents may seem too important    to edit, remember that students may be overwhelmed by passages that    look too long. Judicious excerpting with a liberal use of ellipses makes any    document more approachable and accessible. If students are confused by    ellipses, shorten documents without them.

Consider simplifying the document. This can include the following modifications, but use them sparingly and carefully:

• Cut confusing or nonessential phrases to make it shorter and easier to    follow
• Replace difficult words with easier synonyms
• Modify irregular punctuation, capitalization, or spelling

Every adaptation is a tradeoff, so when in doubt, consider whether a particular adaptation is necessary for your students to access, understand, and analyze the document. Work on presentation. Brevity is important, especially in making a document student-friendly. Other techniques to render a document approachable include:

• Use of large type (up to 16 point font)
• Ample white space on the page
• Use of italics to signal key words
• Bolding challenging words
• Providing a vocabulary legend

• Devise a focus question to use with prepared documents. Introduce the    question to your class and explain that reading each document will help    them to answer it. (The focus question used in the example is "Why is the    Homestead Act historically significant?")
• Explain that the document has been adapted to make it clearer and more    useful for today’s lesson. You can provide students with the original and    the adapted documents; or give them the adapted document, while    projecting the original on a screen.
• Direct students’ attention to parts that have been added to the document.    Show them the document’s source information—its author, and the    circumstances of its publication—while discussing how such information    can help them understand the contents of a document. Show them the    head note.
• Identify words that have definitions provided, reminding students to    underline or highlight other difficult words in the document in order to    build vocabulary skills.
• Encourage students to notice any italicized words which indicate    emphasis and to make notes in the margins as they read.
• Have students answer the focus question, using information and quotes as    evidence from the document to support their answers.

Extension: As students become more adept with using documents, discontinue some of the reading supports. A useful companion lesson is to let students compare the original document with the edited version, to make explicit the modifications and consider whether they changed the document’s meaning or not.

• Candidly explain that students are working with documents that have    been specially prepared for the classroom. A phrase such as "Some of the    language and phrasing in this document have been modified from the    original" posted at the bottom of the page may be useful. Make sure the    original document is available to students and allow anyone interested to    compare it with the adapted version.
• Do be careful, however, that the adapted document doesn't seem less    valuable than the original. Emphasize to students that all historians    struggle with using documents from the past. Adapting documents is    simply a tool to help novice historians develop their skills and access    rich content.
• Use this method also when students are using multiple documents. In this    case, instructional steps may be added to assist students in considering    how documents work together and to help them answer the focus    question.
• The focus question should require that students read and understand the    document, and use it as evidence in supporting their answers.

See here for original document, here for a transcribed version, and here for an adapted version of the Homestead Act of 1862.

See here for a transcribed version of "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" by Fredrick Douglass, and here for an adapted version of the document for use in a middle school classroom. To view the original document, see Foner, Philip. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, Volume II Pre-Civil War Decade 1850-1860 (New York: International Publishers, 1950).

See here for an original version of John Smith’s "A True Relation." See here for an adapted version appropriate for an elementary school classroom.

For more examples of modified document sets, see Historical Thinking Matters. Select "Teacher materials and strategies," select one of the four topics, and then select "materials" and "worksheets." For original and transcribed versions of milestone documents in US history, see 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Pre-writing strategies that help students understand content, think historically, and prepare for culminating writing assignments.

Typically, essays are written at the end of a history or social studies unit, if they are written at all. This structure misses opportunities to help students engage with the material and learn how to read and write about primary and secondary sources. Integrating writing throughout the curricular unit allows students to grasp the content, learn how to think historically, and practice writing.

In annotating a text, students become active readers, asking and answering historical questions, making connections both to prior knowledge and other texts, and summarizing—all widely endorsed reading comprehension strategies. Mini-writes give students the chance to think through a topic. Since writing is thinking, a series of mini-writes lets students build their understanding in achievable stages, one document at a time. During this process they become familiar with available evidence and deepen their historical understanding.

Annotating involves highlighting, underlining, and making marginal notes while reading a document. Some students have little experience annotating, or focus solely on reading comprehension. In such cases, explicit prompts to consider the source's author, perspective, and historical context can lead to better historical understanding. This may be done through teacher modeling followed by guided and independent practice. Ideally, informal writing exercises allow students to think through a historical document on their own, on paper. Mini-writes can be assigned at the beginning of class or as homework, and are used throughout the unit to develop student thinking and background knowledge.

• Choose a historical question to investigate over the course of a unit. It    should be open to interpretation, go beyond summarizing, and be an    appropriate focus for a final essay.
• Select documents to help students respond to the unit question.
• Identify aspects of each document that help students understand the    document and the larger unit question.
• Create annotation guidelines and mini-write prompts that highlight the    aspects of the document that help students understand the document’s    time period, and key historical actors, events, and issues central to the    unit question.
• Arrange students in pairs or groups to work on annotations and    exchange mini-writes.

• Model the best ways to annotate documents.
• Have students annotate individually, in pairs, or in groups.
• Ask students to complete mini-writes independently and then share    conclusions with a partner or the entire class.
• Invite students to explain why they reached certain conclusions, using    excerpts from the documents.
• Ask students to write a final essay in response to the unit question; if    annotations, mini-writes, and final essay are properly aligned, they will    serve as scaffolds for the final essay.

• Students may have little experience annotating, i.e., actively thinking with    pen in hand. Using an overhead, model how to annotate a document for    the purposes of increased historical understanding. Examples of useful    annotation include: asking questions and answering them while reading;    summarizing passages; considering an author’s point of view; analyzing    word choices; and making connections between a document and when it    was written. Good modeling can display a degree of expertise, while    demonstrating that even teachers learn by asking questions and    pondering a text.
• In their annotations or mini-writes, students may focus too much on    reading comprehension, by defining words or summarizing a document's    main idea. However, the point of writing about a document is to    understand the author and his or her times. To push students beyond    summary, prompt them to consider an author's purpose, the context of    the author's life, and their perspective.
• Students who are unsure of how to respond to a document can be helped    by highlighting phrases or asking questions like, "What does the author    mean when he says this?" or "Why would the author say this?" Breaking a    document into components is a more concrete and manageable approach    than trying to respond to an entire document. As students become more    comfortable with document analysis, increase the challenge by assigning a    full page of text or an entire document.
• If students make only vague references to a document in their mini-writes,    ask them to cite a particular passage and to explain their interpretation.    Teachers can get students into the habit of making specific references to    the text by prompting them during a discussion or in written feedback.

The Spanish-American War unit from Historical Thinking Matters investigates the question:

To answer this question thoughtfully, students need to consider a range of evidence, multiple causes, and perspectives from the time period. As they analyze documents in writing, students become familiar with the causes of U.S. imperialism in 1898. Handouts help students to use annotations and mini-writes in responding to three documents that relate to the central inquiry question and lead to an evidence-based essay. Handout 1 models how to annotate a document and offers sample guidelines. Handout 2 provides guidelines for annotating a second document. Handout 3 gives a mini-write prompt in response to an additional document.

I thank teacher Vince Lyle for helping me see the value of annotations and mini-writes in the history classroom. I thank Historical Thinking Matters for offering rich document sets, one of which I use here.