Milwaukee, WI, has an important civil rights history that not many people know about. In the 1960s, battles raged here over open housing and school desegregation, and teens led much of the movement. Decades later, we still suffer from racial and economic segregation, but how many of our students can explain why? And what would it mean to them to find out that in 1960s Milwaukee, youth protested such inequality?

In 2010, a project team of archivists, digital librarians, students, and historians launched the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project, an archive of primary sources and contextual materials. But how could we use this resource to help youth learn about their city’s past and feel invested in their communities? This question led to an unlikely partnership between the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee History and Archives Departments; an arts education nonprofit, Arts@Large; and a class of high school students with one very dedicated teacher. I say unlikely for two reasons. First, not everyone would combine social studies curriculum with the arts. Second, digital archives are valued for their accessibility, and instead of scaling our efforts up to reach the widest audience, we went the other way and decided to work closely with a dozen students from a school for at risk youth.

The goal of the project was for students to research, design, and build an exhibition on Milwaukee civil rights history. The students had little background in primary source materials, were not terribly fond of history, and knew nothing about museum studies. We started by bringing the students to the university campus and teaching them how to use primary sources. We directed them to certain sources but we also gave them time to explore the text documents, oral history interviews, film footage, and photographs in the collection. Over time it became clear to the students that the research was necessary for the more personally meaningful parts of the project to occur.

The students then worked very closely with museum educator Linda D’Acquisto, author of Learning on Display. She taught them to think in terms of big questions and ideas that could translate into visual displays. Their teacher, Kelly DiGiacinto, pulled in other resources, including local museums, and the students began to ask if they could interview some of the former activists themselves. It was at this point that the students started taking ownership of the project. Listening to recorded oral history was no longer enough; they wanted to take on the role of historian and start asking their own questions. By the time some of the local activists visited the classroom, the students thought of them more as rock stars than relics.

The students titled their exhibition "March to Equality." In addition to the humanities-based research and the construction of the exhibits, they also wrote poetry, created collage, and gave performances that included freedom songs, marching, and skits. The students wanted to make sure that their research showed, so they created QR codes leading viewers back to the primary sources on the archive website. During the exhibition opening, the kids stationed themselves at each of the displays and acted as docents for visitors.

Because the students became so deeply invested in the project, they now see their city in a different way. A social studies teacher who visited the exhibit said, "The passion and knowledge that the students . . . showed was truly amazing. I was also impressed by their poise and delivery of the information which connects to language arts standards.” The teacher goes on, “The student who was my tour guide said that this experience ‘gave her pride for the city she lived in and showed her that there are people fighting for what is right instead of just the horrible, negative things you see on the news.’ I thought she captured the success of the project in those words . . ."

To watch the students grow over the course of the project has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my career. They not only learned about local civil rights history through primary sources and oral histories, they have taken ownership of that history. They now see themselves as Milwaukee's new leaders. And they have not stopped. In December, they just finished leading a series of Milwaukee civil rights bus tours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The questions and answers begin:

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

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

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

There are four steps in conducting a Discrepant Event Inquiry:

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

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

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