The breadth/depth question is a central one in history education, but may be compounded in world history where there is so much breadth, and the possibilities for depth are seemingly endless. Teaching with cases (as you've been doing) can be an excellent strategy for tackling this dilemma in world history. However, case studies can sometimes seem episodic or isolated to students who do not fully understand what the cases they are studying are "cases of."

It is important, then, to also introduce students to the larger global or interregional patterns in world history. Understanding these patterns will allow students to make more sense of the cases that they encounter. However, classroom resources (such as the textbook) do not always provide a coherent global narrative that explains these patterns. Although there is no one agreed-upon story of the world’s history, there are several resources that can help teachers (and students) understand a big global picture. For example, the book This Fleeting World by David Christian presents a history of the world in 92 pages. Certainly there are things left out, but, in doing so, Christian has written a coherent history on the largest scale—a story that teachers can add to with investigations of events at smaller scales. Similarly the book World History: The Big Eras (a companion to the World History For Us All (WHFUA) website) includes essays focusing on large-scale global patterns that teachers can use to inform course design and assessments.

Understanding the big picture in world history is one thing, but how should we represent it to our students while also guiding them to go into more depth?

One way is to introduce an historical era, instructional unit, or even a school year by first teaching the larger global or interregional story. The World History For Us All (WHFUA) website has freely available PowerPoint slide shows that portray this type of global overview of a particular era (see here for an example). These slide shows can be modified for one's own classroom, and many teachers find them extremely useful for framing units of study. The patterns or themes that such a presentation sets up can then be used throughout the unit when discussing particular cases. Students can hold each historical case they study up to scrutiny based on the larger global or interregional patterns (e.g., is this a "case of" the larger pattern? Why or why not? How does this case compare to others?). Returning to the global patterns throughout a unit of study is crucial and this can be accomplished by frequently revisiting part or all of the opening presentation. By the end of a unit, students should be able to use the cases they have studied to provide examples and non-examples of the patterns and themes presented at the beginning of the unit.

An important aspect of this work is the use of questions. You mention having essential questions for each of the cases you present to your students. Essential questions can be extremely useful, but, perhaps surprisingly, when it comes to developing them, less can truly be more. Having one central question that can hook students and organize a unit, semester, or even a year can often be more effective than using lists of essential questions for each lesson or unit. Moreover, developing a central question that relates to a particular global pattern for a particular era can help students with their analyses of connected cases. For example, for a unit on global industrialization, you might ask, "How was the Industrial Revolution a global process?" As students explore cases of industrialism around the world, they can continually return to the question to see how the cases relate to the global pattern of industrialism (or not). The question also addresses a common misconception that the Industrial Revolution was solely a European and North American event.

Of course, you will always ask students additional questions in your lessons and units, but having students focus on one central question will allow them to better focus on making connections between unit content. Last, a well-designed central question can serve as a final assessment of students' understanding of the content of a unit, semester, or year.

There are several web-based resources that can help teachers decide what cases might be particularly rich for an historical era as well as what global or interregional patterns should be highlighted. The WHFUA website includes lessons at different scales: panorama (at a global or interregional scale), landscape, and closeup (often in-depth case studies). As mentioned above, the accompanying WHFUA book provides essays and discussion questions for each of nine eras in the curriculum. Although geared toward AP and college students, The Bridging World History website, can provide ideas for how to structure units for all students using large global patterns and specific case studies (the sample question I mention above is from the site). The site also includes interviews with historians around particular topics and provides primary and secondary source readings and images (click here for an example).

The key component to all of this work is to be able to move back and forth between smaller and larger scales so that students see how local or national events connect to larger interregional or global patterns. This is certainly not easy, but it is made more manageable by setting up global and interregional frameworks and then using carefully chosen case studies that provide examples or non-examples of the larger historical patterns.

Good luck with this important work!

To some extent the answer to this question depends on the age of the children you are teaching. Given the abstract nature of maps, formal introduction to map skills is likely best done after age six. For these young learners, I suggest that you look at the newly redesigned National Geographic Education website that includes a mini-lesson on "What is a Map." This lesson introduces the concept of a map as a simplified model of reality. From there one of the best ways to introduce map reading is to create a map of a familiar area (such as the classroom) together. That and other elementary geography projects can be found on this teacher-created site.

For slightly older students map skills should include learning the vocabulary of maps: words and concepts such as legends, scales, and compass roses. Instruction can also begin to focus on the concept that mapmakers must be selective and can show only a limited number of things on each map. Try this lesson from the United States Geological Survey that gets to this point. In any case, it is important to teach students about maps and how to use them before asking them to read and analyze content-specific maps.

Once students have a basic understanding of maps, teachers can begin to explore the use of maps to highlight important historical concepts. Elementary school is not too early to begin this type of lesson. A video example of using maps to teach history in a 4th-grade classroom can be explored here. The main goal in this lesson is to engage students in actively asking questions of the primary source document (in this case John Smith's map of Tidewater Virginia) and interpreting and understanding what they are seeing.

The Library of Congress has a large collection of maps that can be used for historical study. The site also has a self-directed professional development module for teachers about how to access and use maps in social studies lessons. This module is useful if you are new to using maps to teach history. To learn even more about what to look for in historical maps I encourage you to read the short demonstration essay "Making Sense of Maps" by David Stephens of Youngstown State University.

High school students with weaker geography backgrounds may require a review of terms and fundamental spatial concepts. But it is even more important for this age group for you to teach dynamic geographic analysis skills. See this Teaching Guide that includes an easy-to-use 12-step handout to guide questioning about a map. It not only lists what to look for in a map, but also engages students in asking their own questions about what is represented (and what is not) and how that influences our understanding of the map. As with other print media, students must learn to ask why was this document made, for whom, and in what context.

Finally, I am excited by the new uses for older maps that are afforded by the new Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies. An example of a high school lesson plan using interactive mapping features can be found here. This is just one of several history lesson plans based on GIS technology that are becoming available.

In sum, a myriad of historical maps can now be found on the Internet and their use is just beginning to be fully explored by teachers. There are so many kinds of maps. Let your imagination run free. Become familiar with the types of materials that are out there and the ways in which they might be used and then try them out with your classes. A good starting point for looking for maps can be found online here, here, and here as well as at the Library of Congress. As a geography buff, I love the number and quality of teaching materials that are now available. Kids like to work with maps and geography is fun to teach. Good luck!

Like most state standards, the California history-social studies content standards provide an outline of content and skills that all students should “know and be able to do.” The standards purposefully avoid pedagogy, leaving all decisions regarding how to teach the standards to teachers.

Pedagogy, however, is addressed in the Department of Education’s primary curriculum document for history education – the History-Social Science Framework. The latest edition of the Framework, stalled in the adoption process due to a lack of funding but available on-line, is meant to help teachers and administrators implement the standards. Check out the Framework’s new chapters on instruction and differentiated instruction as they provide several suggestions for “teaching the standards.”

Content Knowledge

When planning to teach any historical topic a good place to start is to develop your own content knowledge. Go beyond simply reading about the topic in the textbook and establish deeper contextual knowledge of the period. If possible, familiarize yourself with the historiographical debates surrounding the topic. This work can be done largely on-line. A good place to start is the Gilder Lehrman web-site, which includes several, short “guided readings” on World War I and the 1920s that are helpful for developing content knowledge. Similarly, you might also check out Digital History’s short essays on the Jazz Age.

Backward Planning
Before lesson planning, consider how you might embed this material in a larger unit of study - in this case, a unit on the effects of World War 1 or the 1920s. Follow a backwards design process by first establishing the learning goals and objectives for the unit. To do this, think about how post-war literature and art relate to other topics mentioned in standard 10.6 – for example, the “widespread disillusionment with pre-war institutions, authorities, and values” (10.6.3), and the “effects of the war on…population movement, the international economy, and shifts in the geographical and political borders of Europe and the Middle East" (10.6.2).

Lesson Plan: Investigating a Standards-Based Question

One approach for teaching this standard is to investigate it as a historical question: How did World War One influence literature, art, and intellectual life? Or, perhaps, How did artists interpret and depict the consequences of World War One? Begin by providing students some background content on pre-war art movements (e.g., realism and modernism) and information on artists who emerged out of the war. Next, have students examine a number of artifacts that address the question from different perspectives and genres. The standard includes some places to start searching for documents – namely, Picasso, Stein, and Hemingway. You might also take a look at T.S Eliot’s The Wasteland and Otto Dix’s painting, Assault By Gas (1924). Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) includes some vividly dark recollections of the war and Wilfred Owens’ Dulce Et Decorum Est (How Sweet It Is) (1921) satirically captures the horrors of trench warfare. It is important here to excerpt strategically - include short passages of written work that speak directly to the lesson’s historical question.

Collaboration
Finally, yet perhaps most importantly, this standard is unique in that it promotes collaboration between history and English classes. If you are teaching a 9th or 10th grade world history course, seek out the members of your English department to see if they teach, or might be willing the teach, any literature of the “lost generation.”