The Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History project offers teaching resources and guidance for conducting document-centered inquiry in middle and high school classrooms. This wealth of resources includes vast archives of documents, (for example Montreal is Burning) and several guides for teaching students to think critically about history. Materials are available in both French and English.
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.
What can we learn about the importance of population change and industrial development in Detroit, MI? What does the Detroit story tell us about industrialization in American history? Do upsurges or downturns in the population become permanent? Or do they change direction again? Where do the people come from who determine the population changes, and where do they go? The 2010 Census and other demographic data helped me answer these questions for myself. Students can use demographic data to answer questions in similar ways.
Detroit's volatile population changes drew media attention in the spring of 2011 as the 2010 Census figures were being rolled out. I became curious about the reasons for this population change. The overall U.S. population reached 308 million in 2010, about a 10% growth rate, from 2000. Most states and major urban areas grew at a 1% per year rate. There were, however, a few areas which did not grow, but declined. One of those was Detroit.
I wanted to know more about the situation with Detroit and why people came and left at different times in its history. I looked into Detroit's population history through the once-a-decade census reports that are available from the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2010 Census website, and the University of Virginia's Historical Census Browser. The Census Bureau also published the American Community Survey in the years 2005–2009 that covers occupations, social statistics, housing, mobility, language use, country of origin, and other data. These surveys are available on Detroit's Population and Housing Narrative Profile and in its American FactFinder.
To get a feel for the demographic volatility in the history of Detroit since 1850, I examined the Census figures for each year and the percentages of increase or decrease:
Now that I had the numbers, I looked for interpretations. An NBC analysis of Census figures attributes the Detroit population decline to "steady downsizing of the auto industry":
Detroit's population peaked at 1.8 million in 1950, when it ranked fifth nationally. But the new numbers reflect a steady downsizing of the auto industry—the city's economic lifeblood for a century—and an exodus of many residents to the suburbs. Detroit's population plunged 25% in the past decade to 713,777, the lowest count since 1910, four years before Henry Ford offered $5 a day to autoworkers, sparking a boom that quadrupled the Motor City's size in the first half of the 20th century.
This led me to ask, what did Detroit's actual population look like in earlier years? I examined some of these periods of time, using older census data. The 1950 U.S. Census found that the population of the city was 1,849,568. It had grown by over 200,000 from its 1940 population of 1,623,452. The foreign-born population was 276,000 from Canada, Poland, Italy, Germany, the USSR, England/Wales, and Scotland. The black population was 300,506. The 1910 U.S. Census revealed that the total population was 465,786. The native white population was 115,106, the black population was 85,000, and the foreign born was 156,555. The foreign born of this era came from Germany, Canada, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, and Poland.
Finally, I checked Detroit's pre-industrial censuses from 1850 to 1880 and found the area to be rural but commercially active as a Great Lakes port. It grew rapidly in these years, but had only a small fraction of the population it would later have during the rapid growth of the auto industry.
Now I had another question. Where did the people who contributed to this growth come from? The Detroit News' website, detnews.com, gave me an answer in an article by Vivian Baulch entitled "Michigan's Greatest Treasure-its people." This article presents an ethnic description of Detroit from the time that it was an important stop on the Underground Railroad through the boom years of the auto industry. The article concludes with a quote by historian Arthur Woodford:
Detroit has "the largest multi-ethnic population of any city in the United States. Detroit has the largest Arabic-speaking population outside of the Middle East, the second largest Polish population in America (only Chicago has more), and the largest U.S. concentration of Belgians, Chaldeans and Maltese."
Another source is the U.S. Senate's hearings in 1908–1911 on Immigration and Industry. Known as the Dillingham Commission, the hearings' 31 volumes have been digitized by Stanford University's e-brary. Volume 8 provides an insight into Detroit's diversity as shown by the children of immigrant workers in their school settings.
These population figures, when I connected them to the rapid growth and consolidation of the auto industry and the upsurge in immigration and internal migration, gave me an overview of what happened in Detroit. It showed a boom and bust cycle in industry and the apparent willingness of many people to leave the city and/or metropolitan area when economic conditions are bad. The rise and decline of the American auto industry helped me get a grip on industrialization as a major factor in population growth and decline. Other industries such as iron, steel, car parts, batteries, tires, and glass are at least partially dependent on, or tied to, the fortunes of the auto industry, and thus whatever happens to the auto industry in Detroit has an impact on the national industrial scene. Other nearby formerly industrial cities have demographics similar to Detroit's. However, the decline may not be permanent. The auto industry has begun a modest revival and may continue to grow in the near future. Detroit is still the center of this industry and may again rise to a greater position of prominence among American cities.
By exploring census and other demographic data, students can form their own historical questions and answer them by tracing quantitative and interpretative information, just as I did. Population and industry shifts can rarely be understood from one source. Ask a question and use the information you find to assemble you own answer.
Associated Press. "Census: Detroit's population plummets 25 percent". March 22, 2011. Accessed May 26, 2011.
Baulch, Vivian. "Michigan's Greatest Treasure-its people." Detroit News. September 4, 1999. Accessed May 26, 2011.
Intimidated by the thought of working with quantitative data (numbers)? Professor Gary Kornblith guides you through finding and interpreting such data.
If you're looking for some numbers to crunch, more than 50 websites we've reviewed feature quantitative data. Last year, our blog also suggested ideas for teaching with census data.
Note: Unpublished; converted to Examples of Historical Thinking entry
Scholars in Action presents case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence. These two speeches, one by Sojourner Truth (1852) and one by Frances Watkins Harper (1857) reveal the ways that African American women presented their cause and themselves. For many reform-minded men and women in the 19th century, the movement to abolish slavery was the most important cause in American society.
Radical abolitionists who sought to create a democratic and egalitarian movement allowed women and African Americans to have unprecedented influence and public roles. Some women within the abolitionist movement noted the links between the plight of slaves and the plight of women and thus became active in some of the first women's rights organizations. Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) was enslaved for 30 years prior to the abolition of slavery in New York. Once free, she was guided by spiritual revelation to change her name and become a preacher and an active abolitionist. Born to free blacks in Maryland, Frances Watkins Harper was a poet and a teacher who became active in the abolitionist struggle in the 1850s.
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.
I am a pre-service teacher in seventh grade social studies classroom in Arizona with struggling readers. I have never created a Unit Plan, and I am told by my instructors and mentor that I am unable to incorporate all of the State Standards for Imperialism and leading up to WWI into a unit. How do I as a teacher sort through Performance Objectives and decide what to cut out and what not to? Also, where can I find resources for activities for my students?
There are many factors to consider when planning instruction. It is great to see that you have your students in mind, as they are central to this process. Knowing your students’ range of skills and interests should help you select and prepare materials and design instruction and assessments.
When developing a unit of study, begin with determining what you want your students to know and be able to do. What are the key concepts, main ideas, and essential content related to 19th century imperialism? What are the skills students should develop? What central questions can help you organize these skills and content? How will you assess student learning? Some of this approach to unit planning, you may recognize as "backwards planning", Grant Wiggins’ useful approach.
Arizona’s state standards can help you get started in making these decisions. The four 7th grade performance objectives provide the following topics for study:
The standards also provide some guiding details to begin formulating objectives. These include:
- the impact of imperialism in Africa, India, China;
- America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War;
- the Boxer Rebellion;
- the Panama Canal, and
- the annexation of Hawaii.
Arizona’s standards document can also help determine the types of skills you might focus on in this unit—for example, analyzing cause and effect, considering the reliability of primary sources, describing multiple perspectives on the same historical event, interpreting historical data, and constructing time-lines, charts, graphs, and narratives using historical data and evidence.
Wow, that is a lot! Your instructors seem to be on target with the idea that you will have to pick and choose your focus and content. It is better to choose fewer topics and to study them in depth, than simply cover all the material in a short period of time. Likewise, it is better to focus on a few skills so students get many opportunities to learn and practice those skills.
It is important to develop your own content knowledge in order to develop unit objectives. Expanding your own understanding of imperialism will help you prioritize which standards to focus on. Several on-line sources can help with this process. World History for Us All, for example, includes an excellent overview of Industrialization and Imperialism in its introduction to Big Era 7.
The American Historical Association provides a teaching module on imperialism with essential questions, concepts, events, people and links to primary source materials
Create assessments to help you make these difficult choices. Following a backwards design approach, after you have determined objectives, consider how students will demonstrate what you want them to learn. The skills described in the Arizona standards provide some suggestions here. Further, creating a final assessment for the unit, as well as formative assessments that are aligned with the unit objectives will help you organize instruction and stay focused on student learning. For the final assessment, students could write an essay in response to a central question that demands that they use the unit’s concepts and texts to make an argument. For formative assessments, think mini-quizzes, exit slips, free-writes, and homework assignments.
Create a unit calendar once you have selected objectives and assessments. This is an iterative process that will include several drafts. Begin by organizing your learning objectives and assessments by days of instruction. To guide this work, consider how learning objectives relate and build off of each other. You can then fill out the calendar with materials and instructional activities. There are several places you can search on-line for primary documents related to imperialism. The Modern History Sourcebook’s imperialism page is a good place to get started. Consider a variety of approaches when developing lesson plans—for example, lectures, timeline activities, “opening up the textbook,” analyzing primary documents, historical inquiry, perhaps a structured academic controversy—and make sure your lessons clearly relate to the unit’s objectives. The National History Education Clearinghouse’s “Best Practices” tab contains helpful suggestions for each of these strategies.
When developing instructional strategies and materials, it is crucial to keep the interests and skills of your students in mind. Working with struggling readers should not preclude using an array of thought provoking documents and activities. These materials, however, need careful structuring and scaffolds; moreover, you will need to excerpt documents strategically and, in some instances, modify them so that they are accessible to the students in your classroom. For suggestions on adapting primary documents, see this NHEC teaching guide. The Historical Thinking Matters module on the Spanish American War provides a good example of using modified documents and structuring historical inquiry. See also, the Stanford History Education Group’s lessons on American Imperialism.
Finally, there are several units on imperialism posted on-line. Be wary as the quality of these materials varies wildly. However, you might check out the Age of Imperialism unit posted by the University of South Florida as a reference, for it includes many elements of unit design described here.
Good luck!
Nearly every student shares some connection with music. Whether students favor listening to today’s pop music by Justin Bieber or Rhianna; classic rock by the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen; folk music by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, or Bob Dylan; or jazz music from Charles Mingus or John Coltrane, they glean messages from music and the artists who create it. Moreover, music has been such a part of American popular culture and history that we are rich with music that has commented and reflected on the people and events of that history. As such, using music in a history classroom to foster student interest and content analysis can be part of an effective lesson. But incorporating music in such a way as to encourage meaningful learning requires some structure and forethought. In a previous posting I outlined four general models of incorporating music into a history lesson. I’d like to take this time to explore in a bit more detail how I have made effective use of music in my classroom.
My most common method for including music in my lessons was to present the music in a straightforward fashion, allowing students to respond to the lyrics, tone, and message of the song(s) based on the context of our content. For example, throughout a mini-unit about the labor movement of the early 20th century in the U.S., I would typically play selections from the time period, including more than a few songs by Joe Hill, “Bread and Roses” by James Oppenheim, and “Solidarity Forever” by Ralph Chaplin.
Although it is rare to find performances from these songwriters, I often find performances of these songs by various artists reinterpreting them. John Denver, for example, recorded and often performed “Bread and Roses. Many education and historical websites provide samples or entire performances of these songs. I have often used the PBS site Strange Fruit as a starting point for my research (incidentally, using the song “Strange Fruit” typically elicits emotional responses when dealing with race relations and the Jim Crow era, and I highly recommend its use for class).
Using this method, I begin class by handing out a guidance worksheet designed to get students to be keener listeners as we hear the song. This worksheet is divided into two distinct parts. In the first section, which I label as pre-listening, I provide students with some basic information about the song, including the genre, the songwriter, and about the interpretation as we are about to hear it. In my experience, giving students this information before we commence listening allows them to consider the message and tone with fewer distractions—including quibbles over whether or not the song was really a blues or jazz song, for example—which can take away from the foundational intention of the listening activity.
Once we are ready to listen to the song, I review the context once more. Just before listening to “Solidarity Forever,” for example, I would reiterate the travails of the labor movement and the methods unions and employers had taken in an effort to strengthen their respective sides. Upon completion of the pre-listening information and context, I project the lyrics onto the screen in the classroom and we then begin listening. While the students are listening, they write down on part two of the worksheet some of the meaningful lyrical passages as well as the tone set by the music and presentation. Additionally, in an effort to gauge effectiveness of the message, they are asked whether the song appears to be more of a call to action or a reflection on the historical event or situation. And finally, I also ask students to ponder for whom this song was written and whether the song effectively addresses those constituents.
With an inquiry-based approach, I eschew much of the pre-listening portion of my lesson and ask students to consider, in a more open-ended way, the message of the song(s) with little in the way of context, often at the beginning of a new topic.
This method allows students to discover meaning and make sense of a time period within the messages of the song(s). From that basis, we can draw on their conclusions as we progress through lessons related to the topic and beyond. In my experience, students often refer to the messages they first discerned in these songs. They find that their original understanding of the message may have been flawed or that the message in the song conveyed a point of view contrary to what they had learned otherwise. Either way, the analysis they performed and the context they developed from listening allows them to engage with the content with more prior knowledge and experience, thus allowing the possibility for deeper understanding.
Perhaps my favorite example of this method is with the song “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie. Students know the song, of course, but tend not to know all of the verses. When they hear the more controversial lyrics found in some of the verses, there is disbelief. Most never heard about the references to private property nor considered the implications of a rising tide of communism. As we delve into some of the components and implications of the Great Depression and the Cold War, reference back to those lyrics often moves students to comment, “So now I see why those verses were cut out of the song.”
With both of these simple methods, the teacher has the ability to employ a medium that likely has significant meaning for students. Music is all around us; providing powerful stories, inspiration, and joy in its messages. Harnessing some of the power of music to influence and convey messages can be a potent tool for teachers. Through some forethought and structure, the possibilities to foster meaningful learning are significant.
For more suggestions from Pellegrino on teaching with music, read his previous blog entry "Let the Music Play!...in Our Classrooms."
The University of Utah's Joe Hill Project includes primary sources on the life, work, trial, and execution of labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill, as does KUED's Joe Hill. Or read letters from Woody Guthrie at the Library of Congress's American Memory collection Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song: 1940-1950.
Try a search for the keyword "music" in our Website Reviews for online collections of sheet music, recordings, and other resources.
Professors Ronald J. Walters and John Spitzer introduce you to using popular song as a source in Using Primary Sources, and scholar Lawrence Levine demonstrates historical analysis of two blues songs.