Friday, August 14, 2020

The First Day of Online History Class:

How different should we make our first day this year? 

In a few weeks, I will be starting school remotely, teaching 8th grade U.S. history. Like most of you, I have never started a school year online. I've been on Twitter way more than I should be, clicking on links to anything that might be helpful in giving me guidance on how to start. I've attended more than half a dozen webinars since spring, from how to engage students on Zoom, to how to be culturally responsive online. And I've been reading. Oh, have I been reading. 

One of my recent reads is The Distance Learning Playbook by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Hattie. It is not the kind of book I usually buy (I mostly buy history books), but I attended a webinar they gave about a month ago which convinced me to buy the book. And lo and behold, I got to Chapter 5, about teacher credibility, and it said virtually NOTHING I didn't already know....

Which was an enormous relief! I've been so nervous about how to transform what I do in the classroom--especially that first day and the first week--to a completely virtual environment. But the answer, or so it seemed to me as I was reading, was keep doing what you always do! Well, mostly, anyway. 

That had been my thought back in the spring. However, as the summer began, and our district shifted from considering a hybrid remote/in-person model to a 100% remote model, the word on the street seemed to be, "it'll be different--better--than it was in the spring." The education twitterverse and the blogosphere are full of new approaches and advice to teachers everywhere about how to up our game. Much of this advice is well-taken. 

But going back to Chapter 5 of the Distance Learning Playbook, we still need to consider what we've always considered: teacher credibility. (Dave Stuart also does a nice job of explaining teacher cred here.) And, as is laid out in Chapter 6, we also need to worry about teacher clarity. Some of the stuff about teacher clarity is about organization, assessments, communicating lesson objectives and providing guided practice. These are not typically "first day of school" things. However, communicating the why--the point-- of your class is absolutely first day of school material.

With that in mind, I am going to republish a post I wrote back in August of 2014. It outlines my thoughts on what one might do on the first day of history class and why. I'm still ruminating about what I'm going to do this year. I probably will use some of the history quotations I've used in the past. See here for the version on Google slides with questions, which also includes suggestions for how to use them virtually. Instead of stations, one could put students in breakout rooms on Zoom. 

So what needs to change for the start of this very strange year? 

I think it is imperative that we address our current historic moment. After all, we are history teachers. I'm still mulling around ideas on this: 

  • an acknowledgement that we are currently living through history.
  • a discussion of presentism--a concept that they will all understand in a way that no previous students ever have.
  • George Floyd and the protests, and what that says about the fundamental contradiction of U.S. history (see my previous post that discusses this)
  • the raw materials of history--primary sources, and perhaps sharing some "artifacts" of the pandemic and asking them to do the same

So while those idea percolate, check out the oldie, but hopefully still goodie post below. And if I can pry myself away from Twitter long enough to write up my thoughts for this new school year, I'll try to publish a post on those. 


August 2014 post:


I am constantly amazed by the stories my own children tell me about the first day of school: time spent going over the rules, the teacher's grading system, labeling notebooks, filling out forms. When I ask them if such-and-such a teacher seems good, they tell me it is too early to tell.

And maybe that's true. Surely it isn't fair to "judge" a teacher after just one day.

But as a teacher, I would hate to think of my students going home and answering the question, "How was history class? How is Ms. Brown?" with an answer like "I dunno. Okay, I guess. Too early to tell." Or to the question, what did you do on the first day, an answer like, "I dunno. Nothing really. It's only the first day."

I want my class to stand out, and I want to inspire students from the beginning. Tweak their curiosity a bit. Why wait 'til the second day to do that?

So I eschew going over rules or my grading system. Consider the fact that if a student is a junior in high school when they take U.S. history, or a 7th or 8th grader, they have had many first days of schools. There is no 7th grader, let alone 11th grader that doesn't know how they are supposed to behave in school. That doesn't mean they will, of course. But going over the rules won't ensure compliance either. Now imagine that it is 8th period. Or the period right after lunch. Think about how many times they have heard a teacher explain the rules or a grading system already that day. How dull is that?

There are a gazillion ideas out there for what to do on the first day of class. The important thing, I think, is to do something that is inspiring and also gives students a sense of what YOU are like as a teacher, what you expect and what your class will be like. And I like to do that not by telling them (These are my classroom expectations, blah, blah, blah) but by showing them--by designing a lesson that lets them know I take my class seriously and have high standards, and that I love what I do and what I study.

How do I do that? Like many history teachers, I like to discuss with students why I think it is important to study history. And because I know many successful, creative and interesting adults who do not know anything about the Homestead Strike or why we fought World War I, I cannot tell students it is because it will be important to them as adults. And I know they will be still be able to get into college--even a good college--without getting an A in my class. So I think it is important to be candid about that.

Below are some links which can inspire you to create a first-day lesson about why one should study history. The topic has merit, I think, because if you don't have your own sense of why what you are teaching should matter, there is no way that your students will. And the number one question that all students have about every class...? The most essential of all essential questions? You know what is:


Why do we have to know this???


It really is a good question and warrants an answer. But it has to be your answer, not mine. So here are links to help you:

Click here for some quotations I compiled about history. These can be used as fodder for discussion and/or writing activities on the first day. Use all of them, use some of them, have students pick the ones they like best to discuss or vote. You could hand out a different one to each student in a group. I choose a handful, have students discuss them in groups, and then I use these slides to discuss more in depth the following day (we have short first day periods). Re-visit them on the last day of school. I'd love to hear other ideas....

For a bunch of other interesting quotes, (Quote or quotation?) check out this site: History is. . . or if you need more, click here.  Or if you’d prefer some quotations about the United States, try here or here.

If you’d like a longer reading, suitable for AP/honors students in high school or to give you ideas you can adapt for middle schoolers, try this reading I compiled for use with preservice history teachers. Also check out the responses given by historians William McNeill and Peter Stearns on the American Historical Association website. And, for a thoughtful answer to the broader issue of a liberal education, see historian William Cronon's essay, Only Connect.

For more ideas check out


Hope your year gets off to an inspiring start!

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