Teacher Presentations

Illinois Council for the Social Studies - Friday, October 11, 2024, Harper College

Session 1: Easy Ways to Engage Students in Controversial Discussions 

Link to the slides.

Session 3: Teaching the Constitution in Our Polarized Democracy

Link to the slides here.

Past Presentations

New Ideas in History & Social Studies: Teaching with the C3 Framework 
Wednesday, March 4, 2015, Northern Illinois University

Below are the links for the materials that were handed out at the above conference, including the PowerPoint and the full lessons.

For more info on using Essential/Compelling Questions & Big Ideas to tie units and lessons together, see the posts below from this blog:

• August 31, 2014 - planning Colonial America Unit
• November 19, 2014 (This is one I mentioned during the presentation that had the crazy drawing on it; deals with the Antebellum period)
• December 12, 2014 - deals with the post-Reconstruction period/last 1/3 of 19th century
• January 5, 2015 - how to organize 20th century US history
• January 8, 2015 - how to conceptualize the Progressive Era
• January 11, 2015 - more on how to organize the Progressive Era (plus thoughts about the attacks in Paris)

Here are the handouts/PPTs. Feel free to email me with questions!

• PowerPoint of the presentation
• Vietnam Online Discussion questions
• Solve the mystery: Vietnam timeline activity
• Vietnam DBQ with a twist - this contains all the documents, which were not given out at conference.
• Bibliography - for other (mostly print) resources that further develop ideas in the conference.
• For September 11th handout, see the post dated Wed. September 10, 2014 in this blog.
• Writing IDs - Tool for teaching historical significance.
• WWII Role Play worksheet
• Roles - this includes ALL 25 roles for the Will There Be a WWII role play
• 1930s News Flash PPT - to go with Will There Be a WWII? Lesson
• Also, for those of you looking for good materials on the U.S. Constitution, keep scrolling on this page to "Session B: Re-Imagining How to Teach the Constitution: Promoting Critical Thinking Using the Text" and you will find links to all the materials from that presentation. It's very inquiry/question based.

ILLINOIS COUNCIL FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 17, 2014

SESSION A: 
THE COMMON CORE AND METHODS FOR USING PRIMARY & SECONDARY SOURCES IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSROOM 
Presented at the Illinois Council for the Social Studies Conference - October 17, 2014

Summary: The Common Core emphasizes critical thinking skills using both primary and secondary sources. This session will offer teachers a variety of ways to use those sources in the classroom as well as offer a practical way to understand how to connect what they already do to align with the standards.

Presentation handouts:

• PDF of the complete ELA Common Core Standards. Page 60-61 are the relevant pages.
• Click here for the online version of the Common Core Standards.
• Chart demonstrating how to understand Common Core Standards and apply them to the teaching of history. 
• My handouts for the presentation, including primary sources.
• U.S. response to the Holocaust full lesson.
• Cold War cards for lesson similar to above lesson on Holocaust.
• Inquiry lesson technique for Holocaust & Cold War lessons that you can apply to other topics.
• Link to my annotated list of helpful websites for history teachers.
• Link to letter from Sullivan Ballou - the clip from Ken Burn's Civil War series is even better and is available on youtube. But don't forget to tell them that the letter was never mailed. The info about that is on the link.
• Link to Letters from Stalingrad.  Letters #1, 3, 17 and 20 are my favorites. Such tragic and beautiful letters.
• Link to observation on Triangle Fire.