Historical Context and Roleplaying

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Teaching with Role Playing
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This website's videos document the practice of a 5th-grade teacher in New York teaching a unit titled Colonial New York: Developing Perspectives through Historical Role Play. This 14-week, standards-based unit covers colonial America up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The site provides a rich cache of materials documenting the teaching of the unit, including the teacher's initial plan; video clips of classroom activities and teacher reflections; classroom handouts and historical sources; and student work.

The site provides examples of two promising practices:

  1. Establishing an understanding of historical time and place before engaging in roleplaying activities or simulations; and
  2. Continuing to build student understanding of historical context as students elaborate roles and take on perspectives.
Understanding Daily Life

The teacher begins the unit with activities designed to establish a "sense of time and place" and help students understand colonial "daily life." Students then create colonial characters. Notably, the teacher structures activities so students are transported back into the colonial world before they are asked to identify and elaborate their imagined roles and lives.

To accomplish this, she plans trips to local historical sites, uses primary sources, and uses questions to frame individual lessons such as: What did colonial New York look like? What jobs did people have in colonial New York? How did people get what they needed?

Analyzing Issues and Events

After students create a colonial character, they learn about important issues and events of the time period, including the impact of the French-Indian War on British colonial policies, the colonists' responses, and the road to revolution. Students learn how taxes work, look at mercantilist laws, hold tavern meetings, and read Patrick Henry's famous speech and the Declaration of Independence. Threaded throughout this instruction is a back-and-forth between what happened and how students in their colonial roles would have experienced and thought about these events.

What's New?

Many history teachers use roleplaying activities. What is less commonly done, however, is what we find here: structuring learning activities so students' roles are closely tied to the time and place within which they are imagined. This website uncovers not only the deep exploration of historical context necessary to make roleplaying more historically accurate, but also some ways for teachers to structure and plan those necessary activities.

On the website, there are additional promising features, including a focus on the way the teacher adjusts her initial curriculum plan in response to what she learns about students' understanding through both formal and informal assessments.

Learn Outloud: Podcasts for Teachers and Students

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Learn Out Loud is an extensive site of more than 15,000 educational audio books, MP3 downloads, podcasts, and videos. The Quick Start guide steers the visitor through the resources of the site, including items for sale and self-publishing opportunities.

More than 250 free podcasts in American History include programs as diverse as The American Experience from PBS, excerpts from Old Time Radio dramatizations of moments in American history (includes an introductory commercial), teaching podcasts from an eighth grade social studies class, and primary source documents such as the Federalist Papers and Thomas Paine's Common Sense read outloud. Documents are sometimes read rapidly with little expression which may limit their usefulness with some age groups and kinds of learners.

Some materials, such as Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech (audio and video ) are accessed through the On-line Speech Bank and include transcriptions.

Learn Out Loud podcasts are mp3 files that may be downloaded or accessed through iTunes, streaming audio, and Feedburner. An Introduction to Podcasting explains various options and gives directions for using them. Free Stuff also includes accross-the-curriculum resources for teachers.

Picturing America Program Unveiled at White House

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The National Endowment for the Humanites recently launched Picturing America at the White House. The initiative offers 40 images of American art for use in social studies and history classrooms to K-12 schools and public libraries. Educational materials include an illustrated, 119-page teachers resource book as well as the web site containing additional information and lesson plans.

Images range from early North American archaeological artifacts to contemporary work and illustrate key eras and events in American history. Grant Wood, Normal Rockwell, Gilbert Stuart, Winslow Homer, George Catlin, and N.C. Wyeth are among featured artists. The 20 two-sided laminated posters are free and do not have to be returned. To apply to get these materials you have to represent a US school or library and complete an application on-line.

Applications are due by April 15, 2008. The press release of the White House launch summarizes the program. Further information and application procedures appear on the Picturing America website.

Blogs

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What is it?

What is it?

Blogs serve as a communication tools and discussion venues between teacher and parent, teacher and students, and students with students. Blogs encourage active involvement in sharing ideas and information and appeal to diverse kinds of learners. In the classroom, blogging is as valuable with directed assignments such as responses to document based questions (DBQs) as in ESL classes or informal conversations promoting writing skills.

Getting Started

A number of free blogging platforms are available that come with clear directions for setting up and using blogs. A few are listed below. Edublogs, powered by WordPress, offers free blogging sites to educators, directions for setting up, and tips for teaching with the blog. Managing Users is particularly pertinent for educators establishing a classroom blog. Instructions include important information about Creating Student Accounts Using One Gmail Address for students who do not have email. Free Edublogs are public; an advertisement-free, private blog with additional features is a subscriber option for about $4 a month. Gmail offers the free blogging platform, Blogger, which includes team blogging and privacy features. Blogger's own blog, Blogger Buzz, offers examples of Blogger-in-action and answers to technical questions and featured updates. WordPress is perhaps the most comprehensive online publishing tool. It is also more technologically challenging than Edublog and Blogger. An introduction to WordPress gives an outline of the possibilities of the system, and the site offers extensive question and answer sections and technical support, starting at WordPress for Beginners.

Blogging is about, first, reading. And it is about engaging with the content...reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting.
Examples

Teachers from elementary school through higher education are finding that blogging engages students in curriculum-centered conversations and that blogging encourages students who might otherwise be quiet to participate in discussions.  In the Classroom, Web Logs Are the New Bulletin Boards from the New York Times of August 19, 2004, demonstrates the use of blogs with second-graders in a Maryland school district. Teachers and administrators highlight why blogging is an effective classroom tool. Educational Blogging, by Stephen Downes, looks at blogging in an elementary school in Quebec, Canada. He discusses what blogs are and aren't; points to blog hosting sites; and explores the effect of blogs on teaching and learning. Stressing the value of blogs in fostering participation in communities of learners, he writes, "Blogging isn’t really about writing at all; that's just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting." In Digital Discussion: Take Your Class to the Internet, author Helena Echlin explains, "For some, a blog is an electronic notebook—one students can't lose (or claim the dog ate). For others, it's a forum where a class discussion can unfold 24/7. Either way, blogging can be a powerful educational tool." She includes suggestions for setting up a classroom blog and a sample eighth grade lesson plan that leads students to identify characteristics of good blogging. Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students, by Ruth Reynard on the blog Campus Technology, points to the importance of clarifying the role of the blog in the learning process: ". . . there must be concepts for students to think through, various resources and content segments to process, or ideas to construct." While the higher education community is the primary audience for this article, the concepts extend to all grade levels.

Social Explorer

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What is it?

Social Explorer provides easy access to census demographics about the United States from 1940 to 2000. The free public edition offers a collection of interactive demographic maps of census data that can be viewed, queried, and manipulated. Students can visually analyze and understand the demography of the U.S., their regions, and their neighborhoods, creating their own queries and parameters.

Tools include zoom-in capability, selection of variables, the option to create a slideshow enabling comparative dataset mapping, and printing. City University of New York (CUNY) developed the project.

Getting Started

When you first access the site you will be offered a tour to get a feel of the tools offered and learn how to filter and display data.  Even after the tour is complete, should you need assistance you can always re-open it on the top navigation bar. 

Once the tour is complete, the default map will display population density in the United States.  In the upper left-hand corner there is the option to change data, state, and how the results are displayed (shaded vs. dot density).  Data is categorized into different themes which can be further narrowed down by year or by survey. Although the map only shows information for the United States, it does include Hawaii and Alaska and  different regions can be compared side by side using the gray bubble at the bottom.

Examples

The Social Explorer blog offers several helpful examples of how the site might be used.  This video explorers more about Social Explorer's tools and resources.  They also offer different categories in which user submitted reports and stories are featured.  Take a look at this story that explored racial demographics in the U.S. around the time of the 2018 royal wedding.  This data report also offers interesting and detailed data on citizenship.

PrimaryAccess

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What is it?

PrimaryAccess at the University of Virginia is a web-based tool for constructing short digital movies using text, images, and narration. The goal: to guide students in effectively using, interpreting, and integrating primary source materials.  

PrimaryAccess gives project control to teachers who select and annotate the resources their students might use to create historical narratives for a 1 to 3-minute movie, a feature perhaps particularly valuable for elementary school classes where extensive web browsing is neither authorized nor available. 
 

Getting Started

PrimaryAccess requires teachers to create a personal account and a class account in order to initiate a project. Producing the narrative then provides a strong active learning experience. While the how to narration is clear, educators will want to create a couple of movies themselves to help adapt instructions to their own classrooms. 

Producing the narrative then provides a strong active learning experience.

The student must research the topic, construct meaning from the selected primary documents, craft a written story that conveys that understanding to others, and finally, create a movie that uses the documents to accompany the narration in a visually compelling manner. Teachers can guide students to construct these narratives following a typical story structure, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Directions are both concise and detailed including a Teacher's Guide and How-to video. (No software downloads are necessary in order to use PrimaryAccess, nor is it necessary to download selected materials. PrimaryAccess links directly to online resources.)  To create the narrative of the movie, an external microphone connected to the audio input of the computer is requisite, although the narration may be recorded in other programs such as Audacity and saved as an MP3.
 

Examples

The site includes example videos, including digital stories on the Civil Rights Movement and Japanese Internment

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has also incorporated PrimaryAccess, especially for teachers, into the online exhibit 1934: A New Deal for Artists with the goal of helping students (and other visitors to the site) to assimilate and present content in the documentary movie style. Access user-created movies by following the map embedded in the Flash presentation, Picturing the 1930s.

Google Docs

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Logo, Google Docs
What is it?

Google Docs is a free, web-based word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation program that allows users to create, share, and collaborate to develop materials. Users can create documents, tables, and other presentations within Google Docs or upload existing files or create materials within the Google Docs program.

The real-time, collaborative feature lends itself to student group projects as well as to faculty and administrative use. Users determine who has access and editing privileges through invitational emails, and files are stored online, safeguarding against hard drive or power outage loss. Usage requires a Google account.

One Teacher's Experience: Megan Fix, Middle School Teacher
As a professional educator Google Docs has enabled me to create a "school to home classroom" that provides students with the opportunity for continued education outside of the typical school day. Google Docs allow students and teachers to be in consistent contact and can even be used for communication over the summer. Students appreciate this tool because it keeps them from having to worry about where they saved an item or if they misplaced a zip drive, as it permits them to store and access documents on a web based server so that they can be reached from any location all over the world.

A student is never able to say "I left it at home!"

My students have found Google Docs to be especially helpful for group projects. The application allows students to share file access and therefore, supporting their busy schedules, creates an open forum online for them to contribute to an assignment at a time that is most convenient for them—making group projects much more efficient and considerate of a students' time.

Google Docs supports the fast growing inclusion of technology and web based programs in the classroom for our innovative generation of students. Google Docs is every teachers dream—there is no longer a need for discs or drives! A student is never able to say "I left it at home!"

One Teacher's Experience: Julie Nelson, High School Teacher
Three weeks ago, I discovered Google does a lot more than conduct a search. It affords educators with the necessary tools to both plan and incorporate not only technology, but a social media component into their curriculum. Fortunately, my district provides the necessary technological tools; and the implementation has been easier and more rewarding than any other method that I have in my repertoire of teaching tools.

Three weeks ago, I discovered Google does a lot more than conduct a search.

To implement, I researched my state‘s educational standards relating to information and media. After researching, I built a blog, and typed handouts using Google Docs that accompanied links to assignments. In addition, I added bonus opportunities related to video links to contemporary issues.

The weekend prior to launching, I shared with my principal my plan. Fortunately he was a supporter and that day I sent home a letter to parents explaining the curriculum’s purpose and benefits, as well as my expectations of responsible online behaviors. All of the handouts I created using Google Docs. Each document I linked off of Blogger, also a free teaching tool on Google, which afforded my students access to all resources, handouts, and deadlines in one location.

My students are actively collaborating with their peers on assignments. The students are learning about the rise of industry and are completing a collaborative research project using Google Docs‘ presentation creator. In addition, they are completing the section assessment questions with a partner using Google Docs’ document creator.

Due to the fact that Google Docs, Blogger, and Google Calendar are web-based, students are afforded the opportunity to access their assignments anywhere, anytime. They are meeting online to work on material outside of class, which is tracked by time stamping on all contributions. It is an extension of the classroom and every level of learner is benefiting. My students are actually reporting it is “fun.” The digital divide is being bridged between the content and their culture. Students are meeting deadlines, corresponding via Gmail, and demonstrating more interest in learning.

Examples

Google offers a tour and how-to of its own program. High school teacher and blogger Richard Byrne put together a 40-page guide on using Google Docs in education, and 4th-grade teacher Meg Griffin describes how she uses Google Docs in our blog. You can also view a 10-minute video of how Google Apps work for the K-12 classroom.

Zotero

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What is it?

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use, open-source research tool that runs in the Firefox web browser and helps users gather, annotate, organize, cross-reference, and share the results of their research. At its most basic level, Zotero is a citation manager that expands for multiple tasks and uses. Specifically, Zotero let's you collect, organize, cite, sync, and collaborate online. Capture online research data from books, journal articles, websites and other resources with a single click on your location bar; take notes and otherwise annotate saved items, archive entire web pages; store related PDFs, files, images and links; organize and export data, and plot items on maps.

Getting Started

Zotero works with Firefox (3.0 and up) and Flock (2.0 and up) for Windows, Mac and Linux. The first step is to download and install Zotero. The online users guide gives complete instructions for installation, troubleshooting issues, and step-by-step guides to creating your own research library, organizing it, generating bibliographies and reports, syncing data, and getting the most out of the program. Screenshots and videos illustrate and clarify directions. Zotero's group feature enable's users to share their own work with others, to collaborate with colleagues (publicly or privately), and to discover and join in with other people working on similar interests. Groups represent a wide range of interests and in some instances advanced classes and students use Zotero groups for to share course materials— such as this Purdue University class, 680Archives, a group library for the Archives and Digital Humanities.

Zotero staff and the Zotero community of users and technical developers troubleshoot questions and glitches.

Zotero is a compact, accessible, and excellent resource for researchers—and an excellent platform for professional development, for educators to share materials and resources. In the K-12 arena, the software may be most useful for advanced high school students. Regular blog updates keep users on top of new developments and uses for Zotero. Zotero forums help users (and developers) navigate issues and maximize use of various features. The free Zotero account offers 100 MB of free storage. Additional cloud-based storage solutions for PDFs, images, web snapshots, and any other files attached to your Zotero personal and group libraries are available for nominal fees ($20 annually for 1G in June 2101.) storage solutions for heavy users allow you to access your Zotero-attached files from any computer with a web browser, and you can synchronize these files to any computer with Zotero installed.

Typical in the 1930s

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Leathers family of Clarendon, Texas
Question

Who was the Typical American Family of the 1930s?

Answer

The Leathers family of Clarendon, Texas.

At least that was the conclusion of a panel of judges enlisted by the New York World’s Fair Corporation to make the choice out of forty-six families who had been selected by local newspapers across the United States as “typical” in their area. The contest was a promotional effort by the World’s Fair, which was in its second season. As research by Jon Zachman shows, the families chosen hardly represented a cross-section of America. None, for example, were African Americans; the largest group of winners by far were white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Moreover, the ground rules of the contest mandated a very traditional notion of “family” as a nuclear family with two parents, headed by a male breadwinner.

Whatever the obvious biases of the contest and the selection process, the quest for the “average family” was itself quite representative of 1930s American culture. As historian Warren Susman points out, the thirties were the heyday of the notion of “the people,” which suggested “that a basic unity underpinned the social and culture structure of America.” Out of the quest for “the people”—the single voice that united American society—came the birth of “the concept of the average,” what Susman calls “a kind of statistical accounting of the people seen as a unit.” Whereas American culture had previously venerated individualism, it now celebrated the Average American and the Average American Family. This search for the average American reflects a deeply conservative impulse within a decade that is often mistakenly seen as largely radical—a “red decade,” as it is sometimes called.

And what were the “average” Leathers like? Mr. Leathers was a thirty-nine-year-old stock farmer; Mrs. Leathers was a thirty-eight-year-old housewife. Both were Baptists of English descent. Their teenage son, Johnny, was president of the 4-H Club; their sixteen-year-old daughter, Margaret Jean, belonged to the Pep Squad as well as the Home Making and Natural Music clubs. Mr. Leathers’s ambition was “to become a more useful citizen and raise more and better Hereford cattle.” His wife wanted “to give my children the very best education possible and teach them to be good American citizens.” At the end of a decade of great social turmoil, what could be more reassuring than to consider the Leathers as the average American family.

Bibliography

Warren Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. Pantheon Books, 1984.

Jon B. Zachman, “The Typical American Family during the Great Depression,”unpublished paper, George Mason University, 1996.

Broadcasting Longevity

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Grand Old Opry in the 1930s over WSM radio
Question

What was America's longest-running radio show?

Answer

In 1925, Nashville radio station WSM went on the air. Like many early radio stations, it was the voice of a particular commercial enterprise—in this case, the Nashville-based National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which was looking to move beyond sickness and accident insurance into life insurance. WSM program director George D. Hay, who had previously been an announcer on the Barn Dance on a Chicago radio station, organized a Saturday-night show which was also called the "barn dance." Live performances ranged from minstrel acts to military bands, but old-time or traditional string bands performing country music dominated.

The show that preceded the barn dance was a classical music program called the Music Appreciation Hour. One night in 1927 Hay introduced the barn dance by saying, "For the past hour you have been listening to music taken largely from the Grand Opera, but from now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry." The name stuck, and it continued to be broadcast under that name for the next six decades.

Although some "proper" Nashville residents thought the show was not in tune with the city's genteel reputation, it soon became wildly popular. A new radio tower built in 1932 allowed WSM to reach most of the nation with the show, although southerners remained the core of the audience. Whereas commercial media like radio have sometimes been seen as a threat to "traditional" cultures, WSM and the Grand Ole Opry spread and preserved (while it also transformed) southern white rural music.

Bibliography

Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.