tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75497790601765864542024-03-19T16:08:02.638-05:00U.S. History Ideas for TeachersHow to teach what matters and do it well: lesson ideas, pedagogical questions and other resources for U.S. history teachers that focus on essential questions, critical thinking and making history meaningful.Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-15267746844688329872020-08-23T12:30:00.004-05:002023-03-30T19:40:48.460-05:00Using Artifacts of the Pandemic to Teach History<div class="separator"><p style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><br /></p></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: inherit;">An Option for the First Week of Class</span></h2><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last spring, all of us had the opportunity to teach history <i>while living through it.</i> Suddenly, my next unit on the Great Depression was at once profoundly relevant, but at the same time, hard to focus on as we all grappled with the strange new reality of quarantining. So </span>I came up with this <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/42521/kids-journals-could-become-primary-sources/" target="_blank">journaling assignment</a> as a way to connect history to my students' personal experience. </p><p>Now, as I approach the first day of school (see my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-first-day-of-online-history-class.html" target="_blank">previous post on the first day of class</a>), I am thinking about how to leverage the historic significance of these times in a way that intrigues students and makes them want to work in my class. At the same time, I need to start connecting to students and finding a way to forge a relationship with them in an online environment.</p><p>Here's what I've come up with for a first day activity that will allow me to learn a little something about my students, their recent experiences and give them an opportunity to connect with each other while still building a foundation to teach historical themes and content. It is highly adjustable (groups, not groups, how much time it takes) and would work either remotely or live.</p><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">The Pandemic Artifact Project</span></h4><h2><span style="clear: right; color: #0b5394; float: right; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Face Mask Clip Art - Royalty Free - GoGraph" src="https://grid.gograph.com/emoji-in-face-mask-vector-stock_gg126116305.jpg" /></span></h2><p><b>Intro: </b>We'll start with a brief reminder of the definition of an artifact and primary source. Then I will use the face mask as an example of an artifact that defines this time period. We will discuss that for a few minutes: what can they tell us about this time in history? How were they used previously? How are they used now? What different kinds of masks are they and what can we tell (or not?) based on the kind of mask one wears. Likely, it will come up that some people don't want to wear them, which is perhaps a good spot to consider raising the question of rights vs. responsibility in a democracy, which you could also tie to voting.</p><p><b>Part 1: Choose an Artifact</b></p><p>Put students in breakout rooms of 4-6 people (or in groups if you are live) with the following task and instructions:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>What artifact might represent the larger experience of this time period and why? What is "universal" about it? In other words, why might a large percentage of people in this country or in the world identify with this artifact? In what ways does it speak to their experiences?</li><li>You must reach a consensus in your group about ONE item. </li><li>Develop an argument; you must defend your choice by being able to explain why this item represents something about the pandemic/what experience does it reveal.</li></ol><p></p><p>You can choose to provide them a template for explaining their item, such as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-wont-some-people-wear-face-masks-11596024001">this one in Google Slides</a>. They don't have to have an <i>actual</i> item; they can find a picture online. For example, maybe they came up with idea of PPE, but they don't actually own any. Or maybe they have the idea to have a newspaper article about the rising unemployment levels--I wouldn't make them find an actual article (unless the artifact they come up with is a meme or a video; in that case they would want to be more descriptive or include a link to it). </p><p><b>Part 2: Larger Discussion</b></p><p>One option is to put all the slides together (you can instead offer up one link to a shared Google Slide presentation and each group drops in their slide). Or you could simply ask students to share with the larger group. I'm thinking students might not be keen on doing presentations on Zoom within the first few days of school, so another option is to create a large group slide show, and either on their own or back in the breakout rooms, simply have students look through the choices of other students. You could offer up the following questions to discuss:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>To what extent or in what ways does this choice represent a more personal experience vs. a more universal experience?</li><li>In what way(s) is this artifact represent of the experience of ALL Americans, only SOME Americans (if so, who?), people all over the world?</li><li>Did this item come up in your group, too? </li><li>If it did come up, but you rejected that as your final choice, why did you reject it?</li><li>Is this item more reflective of the OVERALL problem of the pandemic i.e. the virus itself, or it does it represent a "byproduct" of it, i.e. the financial crisis, or something like a cancelled event, like a wedding or graduation? </li></ol><div><b>Part 3: Tie to a Bigger Theme in History-- <i>E Pluribus Unum</i></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div>One of the themes I normally make early in the school year is the theme of <i>E Pluribus Unum, </i>the phrase found on our dollar bills, meaning, "out of many one." There are several ways to think about and apply this idea in U.S. history. It can refer to the fact that we are a diverse nation of immigrants of many races, religions and ethnicities. It can suggest multiple perspectives. Take World War II as an example: there are the experiences of people in different parts of the countries, the attitudes of Democrats vs. Republicans, the experiences of soldiers vs. civilians, the impact of the war on the women, African Americans, Mexican immigrants, Jewish Americans, scientists working on the Manhattan Project.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, we might consider the impact the pandemic and Covid19 has had on different countries, those who work from home vs. essential workers, the unequal toll the disease has taken on people of color.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another key point to make here is how there are several <b>levels</b> of experience: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>the experience all over the world</li><li>the U.S. experience</li><li>the local experience of each state and town/city</li><li>and perhaps most important to consider this first week, students' individual experiences</li></ul>There are generalizations we can make about the larger experience. But individual experiences make up the collective and humanize our understanding of a broad historic moment. For example, if you are teaching about the Civil War, you would likely introduce students to the statistics about how many people total were killed. But you might also have students read an account from one, individual soldier to make it come alive for students. (See these two posts on Middleweb.com, <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/23997/how-do-we-teach-about-historys-tragedies/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/37353/teaching-the-holocaust-facts-emotions-morality/" target="_blank">here</a> for more on this.)</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Part 4: Using the Lesson to Develop Your Relationships with Individual Students</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Talking about <i>E Pluribus Unum</i> and the individual vs. collective experience is the perfect segue into an assignment that will allow you to get to know your students. Ask your students to choose another artifact that represents their <i>personal or family's</i> experience during the pandemic. You could do this in a variety of ways: as a written assignment to turn in, as a video they share with you (<a href="https://info.flipgrid.com/" target="_blank">Flipgrid</a> is handy for this), or--my likely choice--as an email. I like email because this can turn an assignment into an ongoing conversation with my students that will help me connect to them in a remote teaching environment. With some students, I imagine, this will turn into an ongoing email back-and-forth. With others, perhaps just a single exchange. </div><div><br /></div><div>I will start by sharing a few artifacts of my own (maybe using a <a href="https://jenniebales.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/book-bento-boxes/" target="_blank">"Bento Box"</a>). This will help students get to know me a bit and make me human. We will need to be human even if we are online. (<a href="https://davestuartjr.com/teacher-credibility/" target="_blank">See Dave Stuart</a> on <b>immediacy</b> as one of the 4 components of teacher credibility). I have one week until school starts. I will be thinking about my artifacts-- hair clippings of the home haircuts I have had to give my husband (at least they look okay from the front on Zoom!), the receipt from the first panic-induced grocery store shopping trip (rice, beans, flour, toilet paper), the Black Lives Matter yard sign I made on the reverse side of the sign we were given in honor of my daughter's virtual graduation from high school.</div><div><br /></div><div>And the front page of the New York Times from May 24, 2020 that announced that the U.S. had reached the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths from Covid19. Check out the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/24/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-100000.html" target="_blank">interactive</a>, which could be another powerful tool to use with students.</div><div><br /></div><div>This could become part of a longer assignment, or you could share it with your local historical society (see links below.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Please feel free to share other ideas, variations and adaptations in the comments.</div><div> </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">A few additional resources:</h3><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://wakelet.com/wake/xopAspcM_rszC0QZYrthj" target="_blank">#sschat on Object-Based Learning</a> - a recent Twitter chat that led me to the source below. Lots of other useful sources in this chat.</li><li><a href="http://behindthescenes.nyhistory.org/history-responds-collecting-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank">History Responds: Collecting During the COVID-19 Pandemic</a> - how the New York Historical Society is collecting artifacts related to the pandemic. Interestingly, they started this project in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, in order to capture the history that was unfolding so quickly. </li><li>Look up your local/regional historical society. Mine: <a href="https://www.chicagohistory.org/covid19history/" target="_blank">Chicago Historical Society's "In This Together"</a> and <a href="https://scalar.usc.edu/works/chmcovid-19/index" target="_blank">examples of text, image and videos</a> they've collected so far. If your community doesn't have a historical society, perhaps this is a project you and your students could coordinate on behalf of your community!</li><li>See the <a href="https://www.brooklynhistory.org/covid-19-project/" target="_blank">Brooklyn Historical Society's project</a> for a list of suggested materials.</li><li>Lesson ideas from the New American History - <a href="https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/a-public-calamity" target="_blank">A Public Calamity</a></li><li>My Middleweb post on <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/42521/kids-journals-could-become-primary-sources/" target="_blank">Journaling during the Pandemic</a></li><li>and thanks to Matthew M. Johnson's post about <a href="https://matthewmjohnson.com/2020/08/21/what-does-a-distanced-first-day-of-class-look-like/" target="_blank">what a distanced first day looks like</a> for additional inspiration.</li></ul></div>Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-87890076491947903822020-08-14T10:25:00.002-05:002020-08-14T10:25:53.228-05:00The First Day of Online History Class:<h1 style="text-align: left;"><span face="" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">How different should we make our first day this year? </span></h1><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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. </span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">One of my recent reads is <a href="https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/thedistancelearningplaybook" target="_blank">The Distance Learning Playbook</a> 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....</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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. </span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">That had been <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/42771/covid-19-is-testing-our-core-teacher-values/" target="_blank">my thought back in the spring</a>. 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. </span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">But going back to Chapter 5 of the <u>Distance Learning Playbook</u>, we still need to consider what we've always considered: <a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept18/vol76/num01/Boosting-Your-Teacher-Credibility.aspx" target="_blank">teacher credibility</a>. (Dave Stuart also does a nice job of explaining teacher cred <a href="https://davestuartjr.com/teacher-credibility/" target="_blank">here</a>.) And, as is laid out in Chapter 6, we also need to worry about teacher clarity. Some of the stuff about <a href="https://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/teacher-clarity/" target="_blank">teacher clarity</a> is about organization, assessments, communicating lesson objectives and providing guided practice. These are not typically "first day of school" things. However, <a href="https://edtechdigest.com/2019/08/21/teacher-clarity-finding-the-why/" target="_blank">communicating the why--the point-- of your class</a> is <i>absolutely</i> first day of school material.</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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 <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U11KDWyZ7Bagx6Q95gwktRyg2qaFx4WMeZy9P58Yi34/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">history quotations I've used in the past</a>. See <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1iRpn8i1vkXUuiuYsk-0FEK3yRwl-CoDhSWE-txuU0nQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a> 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. </span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span face="" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">So what needs to change for the start of this very strange year? </span></h2><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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: </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">an acknowledgement that we are currently <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/42521/kids-journals-could-become-primary-sources/" target="_blank">living through history</a>.</span></li><li><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">a discussion of presentism--a concept that they will all understand in a way that no previous students ever have.</span></li><li><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">George Floyd and the protests, and what that says about the fundamental contradiction of U.S. history (see my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2020/08/how-do-we-tell-story-meta-teaching-and.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> that discusses this)</span></li><li><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the raw materials of history--primary sources, and perhaps sharing some "artifacts" of the pandemic and asking them to do the same</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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. <span></span></span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span face="" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">August 2014 post:</span></h2><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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. </span><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">When I ask them if such-and-such a teacher seems good, they tell me it is too early to tell.</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And maybe that's true. Surely it isn't fair to "judge" a teacher after just one day.</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />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."</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />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?</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />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 <i>many</i> first days of schools. There is no 7th grader, let alone 11th grader that doesn't know how they are <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed</span> 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 <i>already that day.</i> How dull is that?</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />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.</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />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.</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstday"></a>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 <i>all</i> students have about <i>every </i>class...? The most essential of all essential questions? You know what is:</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span face="" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Why do we have to know this???</i></span></div><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />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:</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Click <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZAfnypsQdN-ZuiMCDZYql-WIdYZoEdFJaaGerS1R3jY/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a> 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 <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1iRpn8i1vkXUuiuYsk-0FEK3yRwl-CoDhSWE-txuU0nQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">these slides </a>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....</span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />For a bunch of other interesting quotes, <span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><a href="http://quotations.about.com/cs/quotations101/a/bl_quotquotn.htm" style="line-height: 18.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quote or quotation?</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) </span>check out this site: <a href="http://www.memphis.edu/history/about/history_is.php" target="_blank">History is. . . </a>or if you need more, <span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">click </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/history" style="line-height: 18.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Or if you’d prefer some quotations about the United States, try </span><a href="http://www.quotegarden.com/america.html" style="line-height: 18.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> or </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/united-states" style="line-height: 18.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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 <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aZnpDzVFyYAMDxBPIyWEErpPcX320clzgVc12Fp6B2Y/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this reading</a> I compiled for use with preservice history teachers. A</span>lso check out the responses given by historians <a href="http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/archives/why-study-history-(1985)" target="_blank">William McNeill</a> and <a href="http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/archives/why-study-history-(1998)" target="_blank">Peter Stearns</a> on the <a href="http://www.historians.org/" target="_blank">American Historical Association website</a>. And, for a thoughtful answer to the broader issue of a liberal education, see historian William Cronon's essay, <a href="http://www.williamcronon.net/writing/Cronon_Only_Connect.pdf" target="_blank">Only Connect.</a></span><br /><br />For more ideas check out<br /><br /></p><ul><li><a href="https://doingsocialstudies.com/2015/08/13/5-ways-to-start-the-year/" target="_blank">5 ways to start the year</a> - from Glenn Wiebe</li><li><a href="http://teachhistorywell.blogspot.com/2013/07/inquiry1-what-is-history-intro-ideas.html?m=0" target="_blank">what is history? lesson idea</a> - from Joe Taraborrelli, <a href="http://teachhistorywell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">teachhistorywell.blogspot.com</a></li><li><a href="http://www.middleweb.com/9522/teaching-how-historians-work/" target="_blank">Teaching how historians work</a> - from Middleweb.com; good beginning of year activity</li><li><a href="https://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2016/07/30/5-essential-strategies-for-the-first-day-of-school/" target="_blank">5 essential strategies for the first day of school</a> - from <a href="https://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/about-smart-classroom-management/" target="_blank">SmartClassroomManagment</a></li><li>also from SmartClassroomManagement (and newly added in August 2020) - <a href="https://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2013/08/10/the-first-day-of-school/" target="_blank">6 things you must do on the first day of school</a></li></ul><div><br /></div><p><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span face="" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope your year gets off to an inspiring start!</span></p>Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-45261063799953320062020-08-02T09:02:00.005-05:002020-08-04T08:35:37.996-05:00How do we tell the story? Meta-teaching and the Narrative Problem of U.S. History<span id="docs-internal-guid-a526e971-7fff-2351-de9e-1cc661664ad5"><font size="5"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></i></p><blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Again</span>st every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies. All perspective is removed, every virtue is skewed, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history urged in the record is disfigured beyond all recognition." </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mtz94gksqS0/XySD_hhnNKI/AAAAAAAAIiw/PLSNBBTZ9KQp-aiRPx24OrFADvEk7ADiQCLcBGAsYHQ/s284/284px-Mount_Rushmore_detail_view_%2528100MP%2529.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></i></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mtz94gksqS0/XySD_hhnNKI/AAAAAAAAIiw/PLSNBBTZ9KQp-aiRPx24OrFADvEk7ADiQCLcBGAsYHQ/s284/284px-Mount_Rushmore_detail_view_%2528100MP%2529.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="193" data-original-width="284" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mtz94gksqS0/XySD_hhnNKI/AAAAAAAAIiw/PLSNBBTZ9KQp-aiRPx24OrFADvEk7ADiQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/284px-Mount_Rushmore_detail_view_%2528100MP%2529.webp" /></a></i></div><p></p></font></span><p></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">President Trump, July 3, 2020, speaking in front of Mount Rushmore.</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">There is something unsettling about being accused of teaching students to hate their country by the President of the United States. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">But Trump’s accusation is an old one among politicians. </font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was there when I first started teaching in the 1990s. I laughed to myself as I watched my high school students fog over at the same moment I knew U.S. representatives and senators were <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/8418" target="_blank">arguing heatedly in Congress</a> about whether we were spending enough time on George Washington or not enough and whether the curriculum was too “grievance-based.” If only you knew, I silently told my students, how </span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">political</span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this was--what is going on in this classroom right now. If you only knew that there were senators and representatives that thought I had so much power.</span></font></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">They are right, of course. We do have power, although it's not so simple as they make it seem. The Republic will not come to an end if we fail to teach the Second Great Awakening or spend too much time on Martin Luther King, Jr. or not enough time on George Washington. But it does matter.</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">George Orwell understood this better than anyone: </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”</span></font></p><font size="5"><br /><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 351px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="351" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4e5e2B2cyBINWuCMWCBOh7wXjd3VgdNuIYPmlv3LLnets0IaF4uE1F68h1QkUosZJx1a85yzVAQUj73yqYjHFEv3oertuuhrqIdSZhixn4MjYH0eJA5KLxUM0y3CUmuosi5YqqTT" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Orwell understood that the stories we tell shape our understanding of the present moment. If learning about the past always reflects the concerns of the present moment, it is no wonder that our present moment presents challenges for history teachers--even before the pandemic and George Floyd. The challenge is how do we present the “story”--the narrative--of United States history in a way that is responsible to truth, that allows for interpretation and difference of opinion and that doesn’t crush the souls of young people?</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I threw in that last part because, frankly, the more I read about things like systemic racism and voter suppression, the harder it is for me personally to be optimistic about our country. But that is </span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my</span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> political point of view. And in addition to avoiding politicizing my teaching, I have a responsibility to imbue my students with a sense of hope, power and optimism about their ability to influence the future. </span></font></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I recall an interaction with a student from six years ago, when I first made the shift back to middle school from teaching high school. I made some statement about President Johnson (we were nearing the end of our Vietnam unit), and afterwards, a student blurted out loud, “oh phew, I thought you were going to tell us something else bad about what Johnson did.” She was referencing the lesson on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Her comment made me realize how careful I had to be--both about how I presented historical facts and about cynicism. (Consider using this edited-for-brevity version of a </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uevfkmLJQShQZ3CxoMvODcUL8N7oXP8PhQhgpKh6qhg/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times article about the Vietnam War and cynicism</span></a><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with your students.)</span></font></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Two years later, I was teaching 19th century U.S. history to 7th graders. My unofficial motto for the year became the Russian proverb below.</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 351px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><font size="5"><img height="351" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gm40xYURC_9LrUOxAV1LN5HcBIVlY0LSCfvZ8OiPXtWGOQ0sxTlcxY6oyi9uuGqj4eR0jkaKBU4QIHchz8u5B3uxrFUdnk_7M1I94Sfi9-zAyVbJpIVjiOndjBKJymD_3_2g_6ao" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></font></span></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">It was imperative to teach about slavery honestly and fully, but in a way that didn’t “dwell.” I didn’t want the horrors of slavery, and the Trail of Tears and the Blackhawk War to impede students’ ability to see promise and possibility in American ideals. </font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">So what is a teacher to do?</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">A strategy that has worked well for me is to make the “battle” about narratives visible to students. In other words: meta-teaching. Let them know how you are thinking about what you are teaching them. They will likely be surprised to hear you talk this way; most teachers don’t tell students about their internal struggles about what to teach and why.</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Let students in on a “secret”-- historians, politicians and educators argue about these things. This will intrigue them: kids love to be let in on the arguments adults have. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">It is also a great way to let your students know that you spend time thinking about how to teach them, which also sends a subtle message about your </span><a href="https://davestuartjr.com/teacher-credibility/" style="font-family: times; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">credibility</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></font></span></p><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Lesson idea: When does U.S. history "start?" </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">There are lots of places to introduce this to students. One place is at the beginning. Craft a lesson that asks students to consider the “messages” and symbolism of the dates below and what they suggest about when American History begins. Perhaps students could be put in groups and present an argument for why a date below should be considered a “starting point” for our country’s history? Of course, they would require some background information. You could add a few sentences about what occurred in each of these years to help them out or have students look it up, depending on timing. If you like, have students vote on the best choice.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WgO989p7_u8/XybB3fl6ePI/AAAAAAAAIjY/VJr8g7GhccY8FoEqdoGYgsFmJXDG2xypwCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/when%2Bto%2Bstart%2BUS%2Bhistory%2Bdates%2B-%2Bfor%2Bblog%2Bpost.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WgO989p7_u8/XybB3fl6ePI/AAAAAAAAIjY/VJr8g7GhccY8FoEqdoGYgsFmJXDG2xypwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/when%2Bto%2Bstart%2BUS%2Bhistory%2Bdates%2B-%2Bfor%2Bblog%2Bpost.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">* Inspired by the New York Times 1619 Project, 1619 is a new option. It engendered considerable <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248" target="_blank">controversy</a> about the narrative it presents when it was first published a year ago. And <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/27/tom-cotton-faces-backlash-saying-founders-saw-slavery-necessary-evil/5523063002/" target="_blank">more controversy recently</a>, as the editor, Nikole Hannah-Jones debated Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) on Twitter last week.</font></span><p></p><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><div><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>If you need fewer groups, you can combine Jamestown or the Mayflower, or omit the latter. If you need more groups, consider an outlier: 1865 as the culmination of the "Second American Revolution."</font></span><div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><br /></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">An activity like this can be a useful entry point into grappling with the overall “narrative problem” of U.S. history: is it a story of progress? of the continually widening base of who can vote and hold power? Or is it one of constant oppression? What does starting with Columbus and/or just before tell us? What do they make of the term, "genocide" that has been used to describe contact with indigenous peoples? What do students think about the taking down of statues of Columbus?</font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><h2 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">The Usefulness of Gray: Nuance and Messiness in American History</font></span></h2><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin: 0pt 30pt;"><font size="5"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #181818; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #181818; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: 2pt solid rgb(102, 102, 102); display: inline-block; height: 351px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="351" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/VdVN1qCKnhN0gHwN1e72JzAGOE87LhXXtRnaYQWzSJSRBhwM2wNP3P1IKqj7hXahDHEVSrrIgyR9wQbZLN1hNFvc32VJJjlkGIDY1VuEP7dK7wYtCUqaSIADhea2ZKX0U94lEhK3" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.62; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"> </font></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Since I <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-villain-no-idiot-no-saint-thinking.html" target="_blank">first encountered</a> the quotation above by W.E.B. Du Bois about Reconstruction, I have turned it into a reoccurring theme in my class. I introduce the idea at the end of our first unit, on the post-Civil War West. The phrase, "no villain, no saint" then becomes shorthand for the complication of history: for the problem of presentism, of judging the past based on the present. You can use it when analyzing how Lincoln came to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. It is another way to address the Captains of Industry vs. Robber Baron argument about the <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/biography-and-history-rockefeller-and.html" target="_blank">industrialists of the Gilded Age</a>. It is useful when they encounter Alice Paul, forging forward with the National Women's Suffrage Parade of 1913 and confronting the challenge of how to involve Black women without alienating Southern women. It is useful whenever we are confronted with the fundamental question of did the U.S. government <i>do the right thing?</i></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Sam Wineburg wrote, </span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">"History as truth, issued from the left or the right, abhors shades of gray. Such a history atrophies our tolerance for complexity. It makes us allergic to exceptions to the rule. Worst of all it depletes the moral courage we need to revise our beliefs in the face of new evidence.” (Quoted in <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/december/wineburg-historiography-zinn-122012.html" target="_blank">this thoughtful essay</a> about the flaws in countering the "Patriotic/Consensus approach to U.S. history with Howard Zinn's conflict approach.)</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">As Wineburg suggests, perhaps the most responsible thing we can do as history teachers is introduce our students to the messiness of history. I sometimes joke with my students that the reason I prefer history to current events is that it's been hashed out. But I shouldn't suggest that, because any good history teacher knows that it while it may have been "hashed out" there are a wide variety of "answers." </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><font size="5"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iancRNB2E_c/XySFWXuI2xI/AAAAAAAAIjA/0X8Tr9RmYEA6tUE07Ze0z2nlfApn8bUTQCLcBGAsYHQ/s226/download.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><font size="5"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="223" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iancRNB2E_c/XySFWXuI2xI/AAAAAAAAIjA/0X8Tr9RmYEA6tUE07Ze0z2nlfApn8bUTQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/download.jpg" /></font></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif;"><b><font size="5">Using September 11th as a Case Study</font></b></span></span></h4><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif;"><font size="5"> </font></span></span></div><div><font size="5"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is convenient that 9/11 comes early in this school year. I have been using the </span><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/lesson-ideas-september-11-history-memory.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lesson described here</span></a><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for the past few years with my 8th graders. I use it on September 11, or whichever Monday or Friday come the closest when it falls on a weekend. It is a great way to discuss with students what should and should not be taught. When I mention that the 9/11 Memorial Museum has a gift shop, they are usually somewhat shocked and sometimes offended. But, I tell them, every museum has a gift shop. Every Civil War battlefield has a gift shop. At this point, I pause to show them the mug I use at school. It looks like the one above and on the other side, you can see that it is from Ford’s Theatre. </span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This mug, I tell them, commemorates the fact that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. That’s sort of weird, don’t you think? They usually nod. This helps all of us grapple a bit with presentism, with the challenging questions of how to recognize, study, or memorialize upsetting events from the past. (See #4 </span><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/04/dos-and-donts-for-teaching-great.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for a similar thoughts about FDR, his disability and the debate over whether or not to depict that in his memorial.) </span></font></div><div><font face="" size="5"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><font face="" size="5"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>So what is the narrative?</b></span></font></h3><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><font face=""><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Current protests and discussions about systemic racism emphasize that conflict, racism, oppression and inequality have existed from the beginning. Last year in a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-1619-project-details-the-legacy-of-slavery-in-america" target="_blank">PBS NewsHour interview about the 1619 Project</a>, </span></font><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nikole Hannah-Jones said, "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if you believe that 1776 matters, if you believe that our Constitution still matters, then you also have to understand that the legacy of slavery still matters and you can't pick and choose what parts of history we think are important and which ones aren't. . . . And that narrative that is inclusive and honest even if it's painful is the only way that we can understand our times now and the only way we can move forward." </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">Trump and other conservatives clearly feel that this is degrading to our country's history--that it is a negative look at our history. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">I do not support that view, yet I do worry, as I said earlier, about crushing my student's souls. I have always ended my class at the end of the year with an idea borrowed from one of my college history professors who compared U.S. history to a rose: beautiful, but with thorns. That metaphor works for me, even as I struggle with how to put it into practice. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">It is not dissimilar from the view of history presented by Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address. He described the work as "unfinished," and spoke of a "new birth of freedom." </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="" size="5"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">That view--that our nation is flawed and imperfect, but has hope and possibility is echoed by Nikole Hannah-Jones. She points out that "no one values freedom more than those who never had it." It is what Congressman John Lewis fought for his whole life. And that is echoed in the eulogy former President Obama gave last week at Lewis's funeral.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5"></font></span></p><blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">"Now, this country is a constant work in progress. We were born with instructions: to form a more perfect union. Explicit in those words is the idea that we are imperfect; that what gives each new generation purpose is to take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further than anyone might have thought possible."</font></span></p><div></div></blockquote><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">We all have a narrative, if not explicitly, then lurking in our heads when we teach. Whether you are in charge of your curriculum or it was handed to you, every history curriculum has an implicit narrative. It lurks in between the lessons you teach and the lessons you leave out. The amount of time you spend on one topic at the expense of another. How you introduce each of your units and how you conclude them. As you organize your curriculum for this fall, consider what you will tell your students. And what you won’t. And why.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><br /></font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="5">A few other resources: </font></span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li dir="ltr" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've mentioned it before, check out Bruce Lesh's wonderful book, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7549779060176586454/4526106379995332006#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer?" Teaching Historical Thinking in Grades 7-12</span></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from Stenhouse. I don't spend a lot of money on education books (it all goes to history books) but this one is worth every penny. I have adapted his lessons on Nat Turner, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Roosevelt and the Panama Canal and Civil Rights with much success. Many of his lessons ask students to think about the hidden narrative and how the ways we remember the past have a lot to say about the meaning we give the past. You can see a sample lesson on John Brown that is not in the book </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7549779060176586454/4526106379995332006#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you've never perused the materials on the <a href="https://sheg.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">SHEG</a> (Stanford History Education Group), stop everything and check them out. <a href="https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons" target="_blank">Reading Like a Historian</a> and <a href="https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-assessments" target="_blank">Beyond the Bubble</a> have lesson for US and World history and are adaptable--I've used parts of these lessons, whole lessons. Such great material for getting students to see the meaning beyond the "facts."</span></font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Check out this recent article by Kenneth C. Davis: <a href="https://www.socialstudies.org/social-education/84/2/american-contradiction-conceived-liberty-born-shackles" target="_blank">"The American Contradiction: Conceived in Liberty, Born in Shackles"</a> in <i>Social Education. </i>In it, he offers 5 helpful ways to "correct" the narrative about slavery as a subplot and that once it was ended, all was well.</span></font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="font-family: arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7549779060176586454/4526106379995332006#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Teaching the Highs and Lows of American History</span></a><span style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - a blogpost I wrote for Middleweb.com.</span></font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="font-family: cambria, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font size="5"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven't turned it into a lesson or used it with students, but former Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, gave a thought-provoking </span><a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mitchlandrieuconfederatemonuments.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">speech on the removal of Confederate monument</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">s which is just as timely today. What an interesting way to start off the school year or a unit on the Civil War! For help with creating a lesson on this (if you do, please share it with me!) see this recent <a href="https://medium.com/new-american-history/explaining-today-4b0b0ab54cad" target="_blank">provocative piece by Ed Ayers</a> and check out the work by the <a href="https://onmonumentave.com/" target="_blank">American Civil War Museum about Monument Avenue</a> in Richmond, Virginia. There's a section on this website that collects voices of people in the past and present talking about the monuments. See <a href="https://onmonumentave.com/reader" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://onmonumentave.com/share" target="_blank">here</a> for those.</span></font></p></li></ul></div>Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-30795953002995039412020-06-24T09:47:00.000-05:002020-06-24T09:55:34.627-05:00Reconstruction: THE topic of our times?<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PeD8PSq2PrQ/XvKZ2HouYgI/AAAAAAAAIdY/MLYaikb-jswMskML0XQs7SOanrm5SVayACK4BGAsYHg/s960/Intro%2Bto%2BReconstruction%2B-%2Bfor%2Bblog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="351" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PeD8PSq2PrQ/XvKZ2HouYgI/AAAAAAAAIdY/MLYaikb-jswMskML0XQs7SOanrm5SVayACK4BGAsYHg/w625-h351/Intro%2Bto%2BReconstruction%2B-%2Bfor%2Bblog.jpg" width="625" /></a></div>
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Reconstruction is a challenge for many teachers for many reasons. For many of us, this unit falls at the semester point or at the end of the year, resulting in a unit that is often rushed and sometimes omitted altogether. It is not "exciting" in the way that the Civil War is exciting. And the end of the semester or school year comes with final exams, assemblies, anticipation of the holidays or summer vacation, which detract from the seriousness of the topic. But with the recent killing of George Floyd at the hands of police, careful consideration to the teaching of Reconstruction takes on an added urgency.</div>
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Perhaps the biggest problem with teaching Reconstruction is best explained by Eric Foner, one of the preeminent historians of the topic. I heard him speak last fall at the Chicago Humanities Festival, and during the Q&A after his lecture, he summed up what I think is the biggest problem. To paraphrase, he said it is imperative to teach, but difficult to determine the emphasis. There are the positive aspects which include the temporary success of African Americans in politics and the permanent, revolutionary change in our Constitution with the addition of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. And there are the negative aspects which is the failure of Reconstruction to prevent the rise of Jim Crow and the unfinished business that we are all living with today. </div>
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I think I could handle that, but then Foner quoted the American writer William Howell Deans, who said, "What the American public always wants is a tragedy with a happy ending."</div>
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Yes, I thought, that is exactly the problem. Clearly the protests regarding the killing of George Floyd demonstrate that Reconstruction did not have a happy ending. Reconstruction did not reconstruct America. Many of us as teachers are guilty of craving a happy ending. Especially if we are ending our school year with this topic. </div>
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I have a serviceable DBQ on the success and failures of Reconstruction. It asks students to wrestle with this tug-of-war between the positive and negative aspects of Reconstruction. Perhaps this partly solves the "problem" of Reconstruction: acknowledge fully that there are both positive and negative aspects. It was an imperfect revolution that left unfinished business. And let your students reach those conclusions on their own, with the guidance of well-chosen primary and secondary sources.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">HOW TO INTRODUCE OR CONCLUDE A UNIT ON RECONSTRUCTION</span></b></div>
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Recently, I had to teach a one day lesson on Reconstruction. (Yeah, I know. Weird. Long, irrelevant story). I decided to introduce it in a broad way by asking students to consider what is meant by the terms "freedom" and "equality." </div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CkRQJZjAKQU/XvKZ-5cgECI/AAAAAAAAIdk/VkVjYTjzw_YvAnpumWRbr4pIbHlB5MFqACK4BGAsYHg/s960/Intro%2Bto%2BReconstruction%2B-%2Bfor%2Bblog%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="281" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CkRQJZjAKQU/XvKZ-5cgECI/AAAAAAAAIdk/VkVjYTjzw_YvAnpumWRbr4pIbHlB5MFqACK4BGAsYHg/w500-h281/Intro%2Bto%2BReconstruction%2B-%2Bfor%2Bblog%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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I wanted it to be mostly a discussion, guided by <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LAvz8W2K44WSWz7Ogqej7u5_U1Mt_MC6RHsrPftI3uU/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">these slides</a> (and at right). I also wanted to have students wrestle with a primary source to consider the issue I explained above about success and failures of Reconstruction. It also contains a 2 minute video clip, which I like as it sets up the problem of Jim Crow. If you are using this as a lesson just to introduce Reconstruction, you'd probably want to hold off on that video and the 2 slides that follow and simply conclude the lesson with slide #12. In that case, you'd probably move on to a lesson on the Freedman's Bureau that addresses education and some of the other kinds of equality (see <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Af9815c7dCo4vkYTP1Cbm7RgfvsTXkxM8UdiZhANCXI/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this document</a> for that, or the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/15rYy77M66T6HFaIbi8DgHsvsunwCp18h3d2oPY_a6-Q/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">middle school version</a>). </div>
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Reconstruction is part of the 7th grade curriculum at the school where I teach. I teach 8th grade, which picks up after that. Because of both Covid 19 and the events of late May/June, it seems like a 1-3 day "refresher" on Reconstruction might be in order for the start of this year with my 8th graders. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here is that lesson: <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LAvz8W2K44WSWz7Ogqej7u5_U1Mt_MC6RHsrPftI3uU/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">slides</a> and <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O3zXG2sreGlW186qR80HvJyHm2QHAmYx3cTl34EUmlQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">document</a>.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">A FEW SELECTED RESOURCES:</span></b></div>
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<li>See my previous posts on Reconstruction <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-villain-no-idiot-no-saint-thinking.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/reconstruction-continued.html" target="_blank">here</a>. There, you will find the link to my "serviceable DBQ" and a helpful (even though slightly outdated) <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/how-to-teach-kids-about-whats-happening-in-ferguson/379049/" target="_blank">resource from Marcia Chatelain</a>, professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University.</li>
<li>PBS 4 hour documentary with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. <u><a href="https://www.pbs.org/weta/reconstruction/" target="_blank">Reconstruction: America After the Civil War</a></u></li>
<li>Wish you took a course on Reconstruction in college? Well, now you can. See <a href="https://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-119" target="_blank">this course</a> from Yale University Professor David Blight (another renowned historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction). If you click on "sessions" you can find the lectures on Reconstruction and listen to them. Or read a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/slavery-did-not-die-honestly/411487/" target="_blank">summary</a> in this article from <i>The Atlantic</i>.</li>
<li>Speaking of <i>The Atlantic, </i>check out its <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2020/06/atlantic-reader-race-and-racism-us/613057/" target="_blank">compiled list of 163 years of writing on race and racism in the United States</a>, starting with an article from 1857 (when the magazine was founded) to the present moment.</li>
<li>Facing History's unit on <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/reconstruction-era" target="_blank">The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy</a></li>
<li>Scene on Radio's podcast by John Biewen with Chenjerai Kumanyika continues to impress me. If you haven't listened to <a href="https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/" target="_blank">Season 2, "Seeing White,"</a> check it out. Season 4, <a href="http://www.sceneonradio.org/the-land-that-never-has-been-yet/" target="_blank">"The Land that Never Has Been Yet"</a> is about democracy, and there is an episode on Reconstruction called <a href="http://www.sceneonradio.org/s4-e4-the-second-revolution/" target="_blank">The Second Revolution</a>.</li>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-80946372491368849442020-06-12T16:41:00.001-05:002020-06-24T09:50:24.481-05:00From Ferguson to George Floyd<div class="separator"><br /></div>
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<span style="color: #695d46; font-family: "open sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="text-align: center;">If you ignore the present, how can your students trust you to teach the past? </i></span></div>
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I first started this blog in August of 2014, just weeks after Michael Brown's murder led to protests in Ferguson, Missouri. At the time, I remember thinking that perhaps this would lead to systemic change in the United States. Nearly six years later, I am now hopeful that the murder of George Floyd will lead to the kind of change we need.<br />
<br />
I also remember being aghast that my children's teachers did not discuss Ferguson and what had happened AT ALL. At the time they were in grades 9 and 7. At the time, I was working at the university level, teaching and advising pre-service teachers in social studies. Now I am back in the classroom. I teach 8th grade U.S. history, which picks up where the 7th grade leaves off after Reconstruction.<br />
<br />
On social media, I have read a lot of posts recently such as, "why didn't we learn this stuff in school?" or "Schools need to do a better job of teaching the truth about our country's history."<br />
<br />
Well....<br />
<br />
As a teacher, I feel this <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2018/10/keeper-of-meaning-responsibilities-of.html" target="_blank">responsibility</a> deeply. I have been feeling it intensely for the last 6 years as so many <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/08/tips-for-teaching-about-current-events.html" target="_blank">current events</a> have intruded into the classroom since I returned to teaching. And even more so in the last 2 weeks.<br />
<br />
I returned to the classroom in the fall of 2015. Beginning with the attacks in Paris that November, the rocky primary season of spring 2016, the election of 2016, the school shooting at Parkland, the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, the impeachment of Trump (yeah, I know, seems like forever ago now, doesn't it?) and right on up to our present moment.<br />
<br />
Since I began remote learning this March, I have found it impossible to ignore comparisons from the past to the present, as I taught about the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RRmRPVjuPswHG1z-HrBpbLqaukdU7yIkdTY6AXs2tB4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Great Depression and the New Deal</a> and <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RI2iR60iCxO2LO2JaXc0TqkT0Nf32hPw7G4k5oMCYFo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">World War II</a>. I did not know, of course, when I taught about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the end of April how closely that would echo our current moment.<br />
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I have learned throughout these experiences that while it can be challenging, there is tremendous benefit to be gained from connecting the present to the past. It has everything to do with why we teach and study history (though it is not just about making it <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/32479/should-we-try-to-make-history-relevant/" target="_blank">relevant</a> to students' lives). If you ignore the present, how can your students trust you to teach the past? You are fundamentally ignoring the question that underlies everything students wonder:<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<i>Why do we have to know this?</i></h3>
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As I work this summer to prepare for an uncertain fall, I think it is high time to make some revisions on this blog. I will try to update some of my posts to include new things I have done since 2014.<br />
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I have had to ask myself, if there are so many <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/p/a-few-selected-web-resources-for.html" target="_blank">outstanding resources</a> (and <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/p/annotated-list-of-websites-on.html" target="_blank">here</a>) available online for history teachers why would anyone need my blog? I'm not a professional historian.<br />
<br />
But I am a professional teacher with high standards and nearly 20 years of experience. I owe much of my success to long conversations with colleagues. In particular, I own an enormous debt to my dear friend and department chair when I taught high school. Most of what I do well, I do well because of his help during those early years of my career. It is the outcome of those kinds of conversations I am trying to recreate on this blog. The kind of discussions you have with a colleague who you trust, who has some good ideas, who helps you tweak your own and make them better.<br />
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Sometimes I find the resources online <i>too </i>overwhelming. Sometimes, you just need to know how to teach about <u><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">insert any topic here</a></u>. Preferably before 3rd period tomorrow. That is what I hope you will find on this blog.<br />
<br /><div style="text-align: left;">At this historic juncture, we need to teach in order to bring light to the truth. As the <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ida-b-wells" target="_blank">now Pulitzer Prize winning</a> journalist, Ida B. Wells said, </div><div><br /></div>
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<span style="color: #695d46; font-family: "open sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;">The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.</span></div>
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<img alt="Mary Garrity - Ida B. Wells-Barnett - Google Art Project - restoration crop.jpg" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Mary_Garrity_-_Ida_B._Wells-Barnett_-_Google_Art_Project_-_restoration_crop.jpg/200px-Mary_Garrity_-_Ida_B._Wells-Barnett_-_Google_Art_Project_-_restoration_crop.jpg" width="139" /><br />
Please check out the post I did last fall about <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/41152/why-students-need-black-history-all-year/" target="_blank">why students need Black history all year long</a>, not just February, on Middleweb.<br />
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Please follow me on Twitter (<a href="https://twitter.com/USHistoryIdeas" target="_blank">@UShistoryideas</a>) and check out <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/author/laurensbrown/" target="_blank">my other posts on Middleweb</a>, where I have been doing most of my blogging for the past few years. For those of you who teach high school, there is much to be learned from middle school teachers.<br />
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Updated post of the day: <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/teaching-about-colonial-slavery.html" target="">colonial slavery</a> (Some new links in here to other resources; check 'em out!)<br />
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Post I'm working on next: Reconstruction. Stay tuned.<br />
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-64481767305400720512018-10-28T21:18:00.000-05:002020-06-12T15:57:11.109-05:00Keeper of the Meaning: the Responsibilities of History Teachers in Difficult TimesI devote very little time to current events in my class. Alas, there is so much to teach and so little time. But occasionally, there are events that occur that simply must be acknowledged. I went back to full-time teaching in the fall of 2015. The first such event in which I interrupted my "regularly-scheduled curriculum" was on a Monday. Monday, November 16, 2015. This was in response to the attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed. We didn't spend more than 5 or 10 minutes on it. But it felt too tragic not to bring up. And Obama gave a speech that tied in to the lesson I was planning on the Bill of Rights.<br />
<br />
I also devote a small corner of my white board to the occasional current event or "this day in history" if it connects to something we have studied recently or currently.<br />
<br />
But I have struggled about whether or not to note every shooting, every attack. There are so many. What does one say? Last year's shooting at Parkland was another event too big to ignore, though I didn't write anything on the board. (What would I have written?!) Students wanted to talk about it--briefly--and so we did. I have written about this problem--how to handle current events in history class <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/08/tips-for-teaching-about-current-events.html" target="_blank">on this blog</a>.<br />
<br />
And so this brings me to tomorrow....<br />
<br />
The attack in a synagogue in Pittsburgh also seems too big to ignore. It came at the end of week of pipe bombs sent to prominent politicians. And an attack on two African Americans in a grocery store after attempting to enter a predominately African American church. I did not bring up either of these events last week. But now I feel compelled to tomorrow. I don't know what I will say tomorrow. But I know I will not be fulfilling my responsibility as an educator if I don't say something. People are attacking citizens of my country based on their racial, religious and ethnic identity. How can I teach about Haymarket and the Pullman strike--injustices that happened so close to <i>where</i> I teach--when these other injustices are happening so close in time?<br />
<br />
The post below was published this summer by <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/" target="_blank">MiddleWeb</a>, where I have been doing some writing over the past year or two. I plan to add to this blog in the future, too. Perhaps a bit this year, and hopefully more next year. In the meantime, the post below, despite its "back to school" theme, seems relevant right now.<br />
<br />
Below, originally published on <a href="https://www.middleweb.com/38523/teachers-have-a-role-as-keepers-of-the-meaning/" target="_blank">MiddleWeb on August 28, 2018</a>. (And if you're looking for teaching material, check out <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/educator-resources/current-events/responding-pittsburgh?utm_campaign=current%20events&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=67030393&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-98nlulN3pOfZhSVdz3s3Wxg5STge7b3jMEbYhLt6zVGgGwt7F1D3fzXJUOd8Rf6ZVj4duVt0UX0B-AOTwrvYhyCWgj0g&_hsmi=67030393" target="_blank">this post</a> from Facing History that came out today. And <a href="https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/pittsburgh-shooting-reminds-us-why-we-must-talk-about-hate" target="_blank">this one</a> from Teaching Tolerance.)<br />
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Keeper of the Meaning: How a History Teacher Psychs up for Back to
School</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Lauren S. Brown</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I want to be clear about two things. First, I truly love teaching
with all my heart and soul. Second, I really dread the thought of going back to
work at the end of the summer. I work so hard during the year, that summer is
such a welcome relief and chance to catch up on all the things I let go during
the school year. So when August comes around, I find myself sort of dreading
it. All this, despite the fact that I love my job and once I get started, I’m
happy to be back.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Are you feeling this right about now? How do we avoid this?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Last year, I celebrated a milestone birthday. Half in jest, a
friend sent me an article to read about growing old happily. This summer, after
my milestone birthday plus one, I gave it a re-read. The article mentioned the
work of the American psychiatrist, George E. Valliant. Valliant identifies
several factors that contribute to living a happy life. Two are especially
relevant to the work we do as teachers. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The first of those factors is <i>generativity,</i> a concept
developed by the famous psychologist, Erik Erikson. It involves looking out for
the next generation by investing one’s self in work that will outlive the self.
It can include serving as a guide or mentor to young adults. According to
Valliant, masters of generativity triple their chances of enjoying their
seventies. (While still quite a ways from 70, I am now closer to 70 than I am
to the age of my students!) Clearly, teaching is all about investing ourselves
in work that will outlive us. And we know when we have former students reach
out to us and come visit, sometimes it takes awhile before students acknowledge
the value of what we have taught them.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The second related concept leading to happiness is being a <i>keeper
of the meaning.</i> This is a stage of adulthood that Valliant added to </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.learning-theories.com/eriksons-stages-of-development.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Erik Erikson’s stages of
psychosocial development</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">. Becoming a keeper of the meaning involves the teaching of the
values of the past to future generations. The purpose is much broader than the
stage of generativity, as it is less focused on teaching individuals and more
focused on justice and wisdom. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Reading this struck a nerve with me. Never, in my 19 years of
teaching have I felt a stronger sense of urgency to the task of teaching
history to the young. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The last few summers have emphasized the wisdom of Faulkner’s
oft-quoted, “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">August 2014 - the unrest in
Ferguson after the shooting of Michael Brown</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">June 2015 - the shooting at
the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston which led to the
taking down of the Confederate flag in South Carolina</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Summer 2016 - Brexit and the
nomination of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">August 2017 - the riots in
Charlottesville, Virginia following the Unite the Right rally</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Summer 2018 - the separation
of migrant families to the U.S. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">These stories are just a few that demonstrate so clearly the
dangers of forgetting the past.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">So while I mourn the passing of summer, I am also fired up. This
past spring, my introduction to my unit on the Depression and the New Deal
included a discussion of the two slides below. The second slide are all books
published in the first few months of 2018 and do not include a bevy of
additional books published around the same time and since. They clearly suggest
a common theme to this current moment.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-56f7e837-7fff-372b-78ec-06d2068d1d9a"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="263" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/7RYIJ_KLCco0eySgGig2rDzlG2XPiRy_lBdJIcPgcwqvuYU1mbdiQb_57oyCGzjt72Sjo93h0hNwNpEAYuhdSv5K_UlvnXfUnFojuD1AIPETXMphFzoMmza9L1Tx-CiVCyER5y9S" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="463" /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><img height="254" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_6RmSPJTk4bcBr_qvX28PcjeJzkgQMMmmzqvF5NipVzWdbhdMVgYOOXGzW1HBI2N2JYxg5MlNnzzmb5Ai4asZ4mql0xFQm3rHPIPiHEsXRF4ETsWwervuxovWbRnEmaoBZhm_Igx" style="border: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="474" /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This summer I have been reading excerpts from two of the above--
Cass Sunstein’s <i>Can It Happen Here? </i>and Yascha Mounk’s <i>The People vs.
Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It. </i>These books,
along with the news, remind me why our job as history teachers is so important.
We must be careful not to be preachy or partisan, but we must be the keepers of
meaning. As the above authors suggest, the fate of our nation may be at stake.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">If you need further convincing, consider what </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/07/26/its-back-in-the-age-of-alternative-facts-lies-my-teacher-told-me-everything-your-american-history-textbook-got-wrong/?utm_term=.99af8d9df345"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">James Loewen has to say</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> about the responsibility we
have as history teachers in the age of “alternative facts.” In a new (2018)
introduction to his groundbreaking 1995 book, <i>Lies My Teacher Told Me:
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, </i>Loewen writes</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">[T]here is a reciprocal relationship between truth about the
past and justice in the present. When we achieve justice in the present,
remedying some past event or practice, then we can face it and talk about it
more openly, precisely because we have made it right. It has become a success
story. . . . </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Conversely, a topic that is mystified or distorted in our
history...usually signifies a continuing injustice in the present, like racism.
Telling the truth about the past can help us make it right from here on.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">So help turn that dread of the end of summer into a recognition of
our calling. Our students need us. Remember why we do what we do, and why it is
more important than ever. You are a keeper of the meaning. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-42204467269040238922017-07-13T16:16:00.000-05:002018-03-07T20:04:20.961-06:00Story Time: Reading Aloud in History ClassI started reading aloud to my students from time to time for two key reasons:<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kZfTw2yqLVs/WWVMtnmlaqI/AAAAAAAADZ4/uNLVCDM02OgOuc82YKtlfhOHy0hXw9kzgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-07-11%2Bat%2B5.09.04%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="98" data-original-width="234" height="132" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kZfTw2yqLVs/WWVMtnmlaqI/AAAAAAAADZ4/uNLVCDM02OgOuc82YKtlfhOHy0hXw9kzgCLcBGAs/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-07-11%2Bat%2B5.09.04%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
1. I liked doing it, which was reinforced by the fact that they seemed to enjoy it.<br />
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2. Practical reasons. There were longer things I wanted them to read, but for one reason or another I didn't want to assign for homework. </div>
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You might wonder why I wouldn't have students take turns reading. And the answer is that sometimes I do. There are students who really love reading aloud. Some of them are good at it, and some are not. I admit, that there are times when I will call on the "good readers" because I don't have time for the slower readers. But I will also make times for all to read who choose to. When I do that, I will usually just go around the room in order. I always allow a student to pass. I don't see the point in forcing a student who really prefers not to read. </div>
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But for longer readings, especially of the narrative/story type, I simply loathe having students read aloud. I hated it as a student and I dislike it as a teacher. I found my reasons well summarized in a Edutopia article, <a href="https://www.edutopia.org/blog/alternatives-to-round-robin-reading-todd-finley" target="_blank">11 Alternatives to "Round Robin" (and "Popcorn") Reading</a>. Here is an excerpt from that:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Round Robin Reading . . .</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><br />
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<li style="line-height: 20px; margin-left: 15px;"><strong>Stigmatizes poor readers.</strong> Imagine the terror that English-language learners and struggling readers face when made to read in front of an entire class.</li>
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<li style="line-height: 20px; margin-left: 15px;"><strong>Weakens comprehension.</strong> Listening to a peer orally read too slowly, too fast, or too haltingly weakens learners' comprehension -- a problem exacerbated by turn-taking interruptions. </li>
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<li style="line-height: 20px; margin-left: 15px;"><strong>Sabotages fluency and pronunciation.</strong> Struggling readers model poor fluency skills and pronunciation. When instructors correct errors, fluency is further compromised.</li>
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The article goes on to list 11 alternatives to having students take turns reading aloud. I have mixed thoughts on some of the 11 alternatives. But one of them is having the teacher read aloud. </div>
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If you want to delve into why round robin/popcorn reading is not such a great technique, check out the articles below.</div>
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<li><a href="https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/ineffective-teaching-methods/" target="_blank">5 Teaching Practices I'm Kicking to the Curb</a> - from one of my favorite blogs, <a href="https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/" target="_blank">Cult of Pedagogy</a>, by Jennifer Gonzalez. One of the 5 practices she mentions is Round Robin/Popcorn reading. The others are worth reading about, too.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2014/05/07/what's-really-wrong-with-round-robin-reading-" target="_blank">What's Really Wrong with Round Robin Reading?</a> - from the International Literacy Association</li>
<li><a href="http://www.effectiveteachingpd.com/blog/2012/11/20/just-say-no-to-popcorn-reading.html" target="_blank">Just Say "No" to Popcorn Reading</a></li>
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So why <i>should</i> you read aloud? One of the best authorities on this topic is <a href="http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/" target="_blank">Jim Trelease</a>. I first became acquainted with his work after I had my own children. I was in the children's library with my two toddlers and saw Trelease's book, <i>The Read-Aloud Handbook</i> on display. I was hooked. You can read a brief overview of his work in <a href="http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/read-aloud-brochure.pdf" target="_blank">this brochure</a>. Also check out the New York Public Library's <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/12/20/booktalking-read-aloud-handbook-jim-trelease" target="_blank">discussion of the book</a> for more info. <br />
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Another benefit of reading aloud is it might convince students to read more from whatever it is that you have chosen. I have had students ask to borrow my book afterwards or show me that they bought their own copy of the book. I haven't followed up to know whether or not they actually have read it, but this is an encouraging first step.<br />
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Alright, so hopefully now you are convinced that this is something you should be doing. What should you read?<br />
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<a name='more'></a>There are all sorts of wonderful things out there to read. For starters, I like to read aloud the famous documents, especially those that were speeches. All the famous things -- the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address, Wilson's War Message to Congress, F.D.R's inaugural address--you get the idea. I've mentioned this site before, I hope, but if you haven't seen it, be sure to check out the website, <a href="http://ourdocuments.gov/">OurDocuments.gov</a>. I have found it useful for stressing to students the significance of things they might not have realized were so significant (hey, students, note that <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=72" target="_blank">Executive Order 8802</a> is one of the 100 documents on that website we looked at).<br />
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But you probably already read the famous stuff. So what other kinds of things can you read aloud?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Excerpts from actual history books.</span></b></h3>
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I think this sends a powerful message to students, one that they need to hear: your history teacher reads history books. And, surprise, surprise, most history books are far better written than the textbook you use. Many books are complex and too challenging for the average high school student, and certainly for middle schoolers. But students can understand things orally at a level above that which they can read themselves (this is supported by some of the research I mentioned above). Reading a paragraph or a page or two can really add to the content of what you are teaching. And if you read aloud, you can edit. I like to read from the ACTUAL BOOK, not a photocopied section. I have been known to bring in a book just to show students they exist ("The material for this lesson comes primarily from this book."). It stresses the importance of citing the source. Students should know that my lessons don't just materialize from the air. It also subtly sends an important message about being a "lifelong learner."<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>You can edit what you read</b> <b>aloud.</b></span></h3>
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Just as you may give students an edited version of a text to read for themselves, you can edit what you read aloud. Especially after I have read it aloud to myself, I sometimes find that a particular paragraph is unnecessary, or slows things down too much. Or I might skip a few sentences that are too complex or describe something disturbing in ways that might be too graphic. (See <a href="https://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-villain-no-idiot-no-saint-thinking.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">here</a> for a time when I made this mistake.) I always tell students I am reading them an excerpt. If students have a copy of the reading that they are following along on, this would be noted on that copy. As I read aloud from <i>All Quiet on the Western Front, </i>(see below for more info on this) I skipped a few passages. Students had the entire thing in front of them, and I told them in advance that I would skipping parts because I felt they were too disturbing to read aloud. I am sure that there were some students who then tuned me out in order to read those parts. I did not have a problem with that. I just didn't want to be the one reading that part.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Do students follow along with the reading or do they just listen?</span></b></h3>
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It depends, but most of the time, students are following along. If it is a longer text, I usually just photocopy a class set, or post it online to our school's learning management system. If it is something like a key document, I would want students to have their own hard copy so they can annotate. Other times, they are just listening.<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Do I really have to read aloud every period? That's a lot of reading aloud, multiplied by all my classes.</span></h3>
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Yep, this is the downside. Drink lots of water and keep throat lozenges in your desk.<br />
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Three alternatives: first, you can also use audio books. Sometimes they read better than you do, and it certainly is a good break for your voice.<br />
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Second, invite in an administrator, your librarian or a parent! (Just make sure they are a good reader and understand the purpose of the text you have selected. And give it to them in advance.)<br />
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Third, I know students get tired of hearing me talk. So I have also asked student volunteers (in advance, and give them a copy ahead of time) to read. You know who the strong and eager readers are, and they might welcome this opportunity. I have done this quite successfully with an excerpt about Ernest Green and the Little Rock from Ellen Levine's, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Children-Rights-Activists-Stories/dp/0698118707" target="_blank">Freedom's Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories</a>. </i>(Pages 42-49 from the hardback edition. It's soooo good. Find this book!). In fact, I prefer having a student do this because it was the story of a student. I like the idea of a young person reading this instead of me. Note that there a lot of great stories in this book that would be suitable for reading aloud.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Some other examples I have used in my classroom:</span></b></h3>
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<li><i>All Quiet on the Western Front, </i>chapter 6 - this is something that all the history teachers at my school were doing, which is why I did it. And I loved it. I asked the students how they liked it on the written assessment they did at the end, and over 90% of students found it a worthwhile experience. Some of those 90% qualified their response by saying the reading was sad, and some students felt that three days was excessive. I read aloud chapter six from the book, as students followed along, for three days. We paused often to discuss, and give them the opportunity to write about various themes developed in the book. Personally, I found it rather grueling to read aloud for 5 periods in a row for 3 days, but I discussed that with the students. The point of the chapter (and the whole book) is that war is hell. And so in a way, the reading "simulated" this experience. We discussed the merits of reading something that was painful and dreary for so many minutes, and that in and of itself was a "teachable moment." </li>
<li>A related piece, we read the famous poem by Wilfred Owen, "Dulce Et Decorum Est." And rather than reading it myself, I found a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4cdRgIcB8" target="_blank">video of the English actor, Christopher Eccleston, reading it aloud on youtube</a>. Check it out. And if you are interested, here is the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/10mgV8ThrsWymu1x7uMEe9VIgtun3ZLcASccUFGezzcI/edit" target="_blank">introductory handout</a> I created.</li>
<li>Chapter 9 of <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin - </i>my 7th graders just ate this up last year. Seriously! They begged me to keep reading. I wrote about using this in more detail <a href="https://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/search?q=seneca+falls" target="_blank">a post about Seneca Falls</a>. Check it out for links to <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dEI_Ch7bzdHMSIuy6qMop60EmEnXCURK-rWMInD5ERo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">discussion questions</a> and other resources. </li>
<li>As <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin </i>was to the Civil War, Upton Sinclair's <i>The Jungle</i> was to the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. What teacher doesn't read this aloud, right? The part about the rat droppings.... </li>
<li>Excerpts from Frederick Douglass's <i>Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass</i> have also worked well with both high school and middle school students of mine. I especially like the part about he learns to read and write. You can find that <a href="https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Douglass/Narrative/Douglass_Narrative.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> or a longer excerpt <a href="http://sscwriting.kellimcbride.com/pol_ereader/pol_douglass_learning.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>For the Harlem Renaissance, there's some good excerpts you can pull from Langston Hughes's autobiography, <i>The Big Sea</i> in the chapter called, <a href="https://engl152s2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/whenthenegrowasinvogue.pdf" target="_blank">"When the Negro was in Vogue."</a> I also love <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/grand-jean/hurston/chapters/how.html" target="_blank">Zora Neale Hurston's </a><i><a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/grand-jean/hurston/chapters/how.html" target="_blank">How It Feels to Be Colored Me</a>. </i> And of course, you should read poetry when you teach about the Harlem Renaissance. See my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/history-one-of-humanities.html#LHughespoetry" target="_blank">earlier post about Langston Hughes's poetry for some examples</a>.</li>
<li>And for the flappers, check out <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hRwCkRiMSP9-TCyZXWe1GKCeRadhNw6MomfUnYqmtxM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">"Me and My Flapper Daughters"</a> - this copy is my edited version. I used this with high school students, but opted not to use it this year with 8th graders. (A little too PG13, I thought.)</li>
<li>Dr. Seuss, "Yertle the Turtle" - I like to read this storybook style-- tell the students to gather round and show them the pictures. I do this during my World War II unit. After having seen a number of political cartoons by Seuss, they have no trouble figuring out that this is an allegory of totalitarianism.</li>
<li>Stephen E. Ambrose, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Day-June-Climactic-Battle-World/dp/068480137X" target="_blank">D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II</a>-</i> the very beginning of the Prologue tells a good story about Lt. Den Brotheridge who is the first soldier to be killed on D-Day. It's a great way to get students to empathize with the soldiers before going on to study the facts about D-Day. (pp. 19-21).</li>
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As you read, whether for school or for pleasure, be on the lookout for excerpts that would work for your students. For example, when reading David M. Kennedy's <i>Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 </i>I noted a wonderful couple of pages (pp. 41-42) about the "typical American" man of 1930 that would make a good introduction to the Great Depression. The Prologue of this book, titled "November 11, 1918" is also fabulous. It tells the story of what Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and FDR were all doing on that day. I haven't tried it myself, but it could be a way to start the Depression or World War II. At least, that is the note I scribbled to myself in the margin when I read it!<br />
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It occurs to me that biographical accounts make especially good topics to read aloud. Reading a short section from a biography, or a few paragraphs that describe a historical figure would work well. Things that are descriptive or tell a story are two of the key things to look for...the details that draw them in.<br />
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Happy reading!<br />
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-14307893589620142382016-06-29T11:11:00.002-05:002016-07-05T08:45:10.366-05:00The First "Half" of U.S. History: How to Get through Reconstruction by the End of the Year/First Semester<h2>
<span style="color: #0b5394;">While Keeping in Mind How to Make It Meaningful for Students</span></h2>
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This post is for all of you who struggle to get through Reconstruction by either the end of 1st semester (for those who teach high school and/or U.S. history in one year) or the end of the year (for those who, like me this year, teach the first "half" of U.S. history in one year in middle school.<br />
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My initial inspiration for this post was from a comment someone made on an earlier post of mine, <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/second-semester-importance-of-good.html" target="_blank">Second Semester & the Importance of a Good Syllabus: How to Help Students Find Meaning in U.S. History</a> and a post this January by Glenn Wiebe on his excellent blog, History Tech, <a href="https://historytech.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/what-should-your-kids-know/#more-24425" target="_blank">What Should Your Kids Know?</a> In that post, he raised a question I was dealing with at the time, how much time should I spend on the War of 1812? And if we have to make choices as history teachers, how do we compare the significance of the War of 1812 to Reconstruction? <br />
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Last year, I spent approximately 5 days on the War of 1812. A week. Kind of a lot. Part of the problem was I was interrupted by winter break. (The post-winter break part focused on long term results of the war, rather than the war itself, and I used it as a segue to Andrew Jackson). I spent 10 days on Reconstruction. To me, this ratio seems a bit off, given the importance of Reconstruction towards an understanding of the Civil Rights movement and race relations today.<br />
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My point is not to debate the number of days one should spend on the War of 1812 vs. Reconstruction. My point is that we DO need to think about what is most significant in the study of U.S. history and how best to incorporate it into our plans for the school year. In Glenn Wiebe's post, he links to an article, <a href="http://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/blog/what-every-american-should-know" target="_blank">"What Every American Should Know,"</a> from The Aspen Institute that raises the issues brought up by E.D. Hirsch in 1987 that helped fuel the flames of the "culture wars." (See also <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/what-every-american-should-know/397334/" target="_blank">this article by Eric Liu</a> in the Atlantic Monthly). They are both worth a read, as they raise the most important question our students ask:<br />
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After reading these articles, think about what you teach. To what extent are these things that every American should know? Why? If you can answer those questions, think about how that can transform your teaching, not to mention your crowded syllabus. Consider the things that students really don't need to know. Because you're going to have to make cuts.<br />
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I have said it before and I'll say it again, the only way to "cover" U.S. history is to make tough choices. These are my guidelines:</div>
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<li>You cannot, nor should not, try to teach everything.</li>
<li>The textbook can help guide you, but textbooks DO try to cover EVERYTHING, so you can't rely on the textbook to make all the choices for you. This might mean that you skip whole chapters or even units in the textbook, replacing them with other resources.</li>
<li>You need to decide where you want to end and work backwards, so you don't find yourself cramming the Civil War into the last two weeks of school. </li>
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The above are overall guidelines. But there are many other things to take into consideration. Most importantly, does your syllabus "tell a story"? Does each lesson lead logically to the next and does each unit lead logically to the next? Does each unit have a major topic/central issue/essential question? Or is just "Unit 4" because that's what comes next in the textbook? This is why you should read the articles I mentioned above. This is what makes the difference between history that is "one damn thing after another" vs. history that helps students understand how our past shapes our world today. <br />
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In a few paragraphs, I will include a link to the calendar of what I taught every day this past school year. It is different from the calendar with which I began the year. That one contemplated less time on the American Revolution and the War of 1812, but more on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Like all of you, I ran out of time and other things took longer than I thought. You will also see in my calendar all our institute days, holidays and testing days. These impact how and when we teach certain topics. For example, do you really want to start a new unit the day before a break? Perhaps it is better to add another day into the previous unit. What do you teach on days when students will have been PARCC testing all morning? Do you allow time for reviewing in class before a test? And what does one teach on a day when half the class is out on a orchestra trip to St. Louis? Those are good days to either allow students "catch up" time to complete homework or to do something "extra"--like on May 20, when I did a lesson on Civil War music.<br />
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Sometimes you don't finish things because real life intrudes: I spent a good chunk of the day on November 16 discussing the shootings in Paris. September 11th fell on a Friday this year, and so I decided to spend the day discussing that. (See <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/lesson-ideas-september-11-history-memory.html" target="_blank">this post</a> for those resources.) Next year September 11 falls on a Sunday. So maybe I will teach about it on the following Monday. Or not at all. Not sure yet.<br />
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So below is the link to my calendar, warts and all. I include it in hopes that it might help others formulate a plan for the year.<br />
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M1DezbCvZAcG8a7Kz3Mz6N46Stb-YBjHRDyQ4z4NDL4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Lauren Brown's 2015-2016 syllabus</a></div>
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Below are some other issues to consider when planning out the school year: </div>
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<li>How are you going to start the year? I note that I spent 4 days on Columbus. I chose to do that because I really liked the lessons, and they seemed to be a good way to introduce some overall themes we would come back to throughout the year. But it was a bit of a time suck. Perhaps I would reconsider this to buy more time later in the year. Perhaps I could find a way to introduce those same themes using the content of the American Revolution instead. </li>
<li>What do YOU especially like to teach and what are you especially knowledgeable about? The best way to engage students is if you yourself are engaged. I have a special interest in the problem of slavery in American history and my syllabus reflects that. My syllabus also reflects areas of weakness. U.S. policies and the attitudes of white Americans regarding Native Americans is incredibly important. I have struggled for years about how to better include this in my curriculum with little success. You will see in my syllabus that there is not nearly enough there. Obviously, to do so, would require that I cut elsewhere. These are cuts worth making, but I haven't figured it out yet.</li>
<li>Sometimes I left things out because I couldn't figure out any meaningful way to incorporate them into a larger "story" or unit. So while I mentioned Irish immigration a few times in passing, the whole topic of immigration in this first half of U.S. history was not something we covered. Things like the Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Temperance movement and other reforms also hit the cutting room floor. We did spend time on the reform movements of women's rights and abolitionism. And students will spend time on immigration in 8th grade (the second "half" of U.S. history). But just because the textbook mentions the Second Great Awakening doesn't mean that I have to. Other times, I sort of "threw things in" that probably should have been left out. For example, I spent January 14 on the Marshall Court. In hindsight, I'm not sure that a day on the Marshall Court did justice (no pun intended) to the topic. While it "fits" in terms of growth and expansion and how the decisions of the Marshall Court, I think in the future I would either need to spend a few more days on it in order to make it more meaningful, or cut it out entirely. </li>
<li>We have to consider the impact of things like parent-teacher conferences, standardized testing, field trips, the days immediately before and after school vacations, and our own personal lives. One wouldn't know from looking at my syllabus why I have 3 Fridays in December titled "First Amendment Fridays." This came about because, as I wrestled with the newness of classroom teaching after years out of the classroom, I occasionally struggled with figuring out how long it would take to successfully teach topics to 7th graders that I had been used to teaching to 11th graders (more on the specifics of that in <a href="http://www.middleweb.com/category/futureofhistory/us-constitution/" target="_blank">this post for MiddleWeb.com</a>). So when I realized I was running out of time, I postponed some of the details of the First Amendment for after the Constitution test. (This was also helpful when, toward the end of the unit, I fell and broke 2 ribs and had to miss a few days of school!) The advantage of this series of "First Amendment Fridays" also revealed itself as we got closer to winter break and my students got a little restless. Having "fun" activities for Fridays in December made a lot of sense on a practical level. The students liked it so much, I did the same at the very end of the school year with a series of "Fourteenth Amendment Fridays" and "The Fourteenth Amendment <span style="color: blue;">T</span>oday <span style="color: blue;">T</span>uesday" on the 2nd to last day of school. </li>
<li>Sometimes--perhaps especially so in middle school--things take more time because we also have to focus on skills, not just content. I spent a lot of class time on the Mexican War because we did a DBQ from the <a href="http://www.dbqproject.com/" target="_blank">DBQ Project</a> on "Was the United States Justified in Going to War with Mexico?" Spending more time developing these skills earlier in the year would have made this project easier for my students. It wouldn't necessarily <i>save</i> time, but it would better redistribute the time.</li>
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Additional resources:</div>
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<li>Eric Lui, <a href="http://democracyjournal.org/magazine/38/how-to-be-american-1/?page=all" target="_blank">"How to Be American</a>: Why cultivating a shared cultural core is more important than ever--and why such a project serves progressive ends."</li>
<li><a href="http://www.whateveryamericanshouldknow.org/" target="_blank">whateveryamericanshouldknow.org</a> - the website/project that developed from the essay above. I haven't figured out how, but I think one could do something really interesting with this website with students...have students come up with their own lists? Find a way to do this as a summative activity at the end of each unit, or the year? If you have ideas, please comment.</li>
<li>I have earlier mentioned how helpful I have found James Loewen's advice about how to plan out a school year. You can read it for yourself in chapter 1, "The Tyranny of Coverage," in James W. Loewen's, <u><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-What-Really-Happened-Multicultural/dp/0807749915" target="_blank">Teaching What <i>Really</i> Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students <i>Excited</i> About Doing History</a></u>. It is well worth a read.</li>
<li>An <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-gets-lost-in-controversy-over-new.html" target="_blank">earlier post</a> I wrote about the new APUSH standards that considers what we mean when our curriculum should cover such-and-such or so-and-so.</li>
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Also, see my previous posts about the challenges of unit planning:</div>
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<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-practical-problem-of-coverage-or.html" target="_blank">The Practical Problem of Coverage, or How to get past WWII by May</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-method-for-how-to-plan-unit-using.html" target="_blank">A Method for How to Plan a Unit Using Essential Questions: Colonial America</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-new-nation-problems-pitfalls-of.html" target="_blank">The New Nation: the Problems & Pitfalls of a Challenging Period in American History</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/11/seneca-falls-womens-movement-and-tying.html" target="_blank">Seneca Falls, the Women's Movement, and Tying It All Together with Essential Questions</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-to-handle-post-civil.html" target="_blank">How to Handle the Post-Civil War/Reconstruction Period</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/progressivism-big-ideas-for-beginning.html" target="_blank">Progressivism: Big Ideas for Beginning Your Unit</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-us-enters-world-stage-shift-in-us.html" target="_blank">The US Enters the World Stage: Shift in US Foreign Policy, 1890-1920</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-end-year.html" target="_blank">How to End the Year...Making Sense out of the Seventies to the Present</a></li>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-60105942998157305612016-05-25T18:20:00.000-05:002016-05-25T18:20:21.943-05:00The Last Day of School<br />
As any of you know who have been following this blog or giving it the occasional visit, I have not posted anything new since last August. How ironic, to have my last post be on current events!<br />
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But as you can read in my bio, I went back to full-time teaching this year. And so I have been BUSY.</div>
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I have learned so much, and I hope to put some of that back into this blog over the summer, and on Middleweb.com, where I will be writing as well. </div>
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Like most of you, I have summer on the brain and am counting down 'til the last day of school. During these last few days, I have been challenged by students who come into class saying, "Ms. Brown, can we just do nothing today?" "Ms. Brown, are we REALLY starting another unit?! School is almost over." "Ms. Brown, it's Friday...can't we just play a game?"</div>
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I hear them, loud and clear. And I share their exhaustion and eagerness for a change in the routine. So I am doing the best that I can, trying to shake things up a little. Offer the occasional element of fun and surprise. Find ways to get them up and moving. Stuff like that. <br />
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But, still...this is school. This is U.S. history class. And we are going to LEARN stuff. Even on the very last day of school.</div>
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A recent conversation I had with a high schooler who had just finished his last day of school before finals mentioned that on his last day, "we did nothing." A few parties, a little review for finals, and then "have a nice summer."</div>
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We owe our students a more thoughtful way to close out a year of study and reflection. Sometimes I think I spend half of August planning my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/08/why-study-history.html" target="_blank">first day of school</a>. First impressions are important and set the tone. But aren't final impressions important too? Shouldn't we provide some sort of closure? If <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-7-things-all-good-lessons-have-in.html" target="_blank">all good lessons should have a beginning, middle, end and a point</a>, shouldn't our school year have that too?</div>
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I like to end each class--when I can--with a zinger, or a "tune in tomorrow, when we will learn how the Freedmen's Bureau will solve these very problems that you've just identified" or some kind of cliff-hanger, such as "now that we've gone through the Declaration of Independence, tomorrow we will look at the very provocative passage that Thomas Jefferson left out of the final version." (See idea #5 in <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/ideas-for-teaching-declaration-of.html" target="_blank">this post</a>).<br />
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I want my class to end with a flourish, too. Larry Ferlazzo offers a thoughtful analysis on the problem of what to do on the last day in <a href="http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2009/05/20/051309tln_ferlazzo.h21.html?r=873980197" target="_blank">this post</a> in <a href="http://www.edweek.org/tm/" target="_blank">Education Week Teacher</a>.<br />
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One of the things he does, which I like to do also, is to turn the table and have students evaluate the teacher. If you set it up right, students can offer you feedback that will help you become a better teacher. Remind them to grade you as you have tried to grade them: with helpful feedback. Give them room to write comments, but ask multiple choice questions as well. I signed up to to have the computer carts in my room, so I can do this using Google Forms. But paper works, too. <br />
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After that, I like to "wrap up" the class by reminding them of some things we've studied throughout the school year. I like to remind students of themes we've studied throughout the year, harking back to some of the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZAfnypsQdN-ZuiMCDZYql-WIdYZoEdFJaaGerS1R3jY/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">quotations I use on the first day of class</a>. </div>
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I always share with them the story about one of my American history professors in college. The one that made me shift from an English major to an American Studies major at the end of my freshman year. In his last lesson, he compared U.S. history to a rose. It is beautiful, but has thorns. I like to discuss this imagery with students. You could even have students write about this. If you do, you can save the more thoughtful responses to read aloud to students next year. Have students reflect about all the injustices of the past--slavery, discrimination, the mistakes in the Philippines and Vietnam. But also have students consider the efforts to do better as a nation--the abolition of slavery, women's rights, the reforms of the Progressives and the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement. You could ask, is the glass half full? Or half empty? Have we as a nation lived up to our highest ideals?</div>
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When I taught the Revolution through Reagan in U.S. history, I liked to conclude the last day with one of my favorite quotations from Robert Kennedy:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #073763;">Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.</span></span></blockquote>
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Students often come to like RFK and so I find him a good choice to offer some last thoughts about the positive impact they can have on the world. I wanted to leave them with a positive thought.</div>
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At the front of my classroom, flanking the left and right sides of my white board, are large posters of Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass. Each has a quotation. The one by Thomas Jefferson is from the Declaration of Independence. It's the famous part: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."<br />
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I chose it, I will explain to students, because it is our national creed. It represents our nation's highest ideals. As Lincoln noted in February, 1861:<br />
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<i><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this [nation] so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. (See <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/philadel.htm" target="_blank">here</a> for source).</span></i></blockquote>
After the Emancipation Proclamation, this is what the Civil War became about.<br />
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But my students have learned that Thomas Jefferson was--and remains--a complicated historical figure. He is a man of high ideals, but also a slaveowner. And they are learning right now about the shortcomings of <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/reconstruction-continued.html" target="_blank">Reconstruction</a>. Before the last day of school, they will have learned that while black men technically got the right to vote with the passage of the 15th Amendment, the Women's Suffrage movement was not successful (yet), and that Jim Crow and other racist legislation undermined true equality, including suffrage. And we will have had discussions about the long way we still have to go as a nation to insure that all men--and women--really do have equal rights. This is where we come to the Douglass quotation. It is from October 22, 1847. (Full speech <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/american-slavery/" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RJ92P1Gv1BI/V0YlTBWdV-I/AAAAAAAACZg/U5_pDE1a4WsB05q1DLuGlVVWnM_hyAITgCK4B/s1600/imgres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RJ92P1Gv1BI/V0YlTBWdV-I/AAAAAAAACZg/U5_pDE1a4WsB05q1DLuGlVVWnM_hyAITgCK4B/s400/imgres.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.</span></i></span></blockquote>
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I will read them this quotation that has been on the wall all year. I will tell them I hope they will emulate Douglass, by being critical and not excusing nor tolerating injustice. I will tell them that I hope my class has helped mold them into the kind of citizens who will do right by their country and, like Douglass, put pressure on our nation's leaders and themselves to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. </div>
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And then I will wish them a good summer.<br />
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-7217139335417200802015-08-14T09:55:00.000-05:002020-06-11T18:01:25.742-05:00Tips for Teaching about Current Events in US History ClassEvery teacher handles current events in the classroom differently. Some assign students the task of bringing in current event articles to present to class or write about. Others ignore them altogether. And there is everything in between.<br />
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There are times when it is impossible to ignore the news: September 11, 2001 as an obvious example. But other times, the news may be significant, but not necessarily relevant to your class. I have developed the list of questions/issues below to help you consider how to handle current events.</div>
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Is the event so significant or newsworthy that it cannot be ignored? </h3>
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Some are (see next point). Some aren't. I don't think we should be compelled to address every headline. If we did, we would never make it through the curriculum. However, if the story is really important, it is hard to advise marching on ahead with Andrew Jackson or the New Deal if something Really Big is happening Right Now.<br />
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How Much Time to Allow?</h3>
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If the answer to the question above is yes, the next question is to consider how much time to give it. Is this a 5 minute sort of thing? 15? the whole period? The answer will, of course, depend on the event, your schedule, as well as the ages and interests of your students. Even if the event is not Super Significant with a capital S, it is still a good idea to talk about what's going on in the world every now and then. Our students, and Americans in general, are woefully deficient in this sort of awareness. Part of our job as social studies educators is to correct this. While I don't think 5 minutes every week is the answer, it is a start. </div>
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Students Ages and Interests</h3>
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It is important to remember--no matter the age of your students--that precious few of them pay significant attention to the news at all. Most every class will have a handful of kids who are exceptions and keep up with news. Sometimes you have a few of those students who are SO interested in current events that there is the risk they will dominate the class. While you want to encourage such students, you have to remember that not everyone else in the class will be able to follow what is going on without some background. Be careful of getting into a conversation with just one or two students. When that happens, it is time to move on. </div>
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Another point...I was teaching high school juniors when Bill Clinton was impeached. We were in the midst of Reconstruction and Andrew Johnson's impeachment, so it was wonderfully relevant. But there were plenty of students who wanted to ask details about Monica Lewinsky and dwell on issues that were decidedly less appropriate for classroom discussion. That is when, as the teacher, you need to steer the discussion back to the central issues at hand. Had I been teaching middle school at the time, I still would have felt compelled to teach about this, but with even more caution.</div>
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What about events that don't really "fit" into the U.S. history curriculum?</h3>
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Because the U.S. is in the world, and a major world power, there is little that happens in the world that doesn't affect us in some way. And remember, that your class is likely the only social studies class students are currently taking. So if there is a major event that happens in the world, it is not likely being discussed in math class or science, so it falls on you. Let's say, for example, that there is a major news story about conflict between India and Pakistan. If you are teaching world history, such an event fits much better. U.S. history....not so much. If you are in the middle of your post World War II /Cold War unit, then it might be a great opportunity to spend at least a few minutes on the issue. But if it is September and you are deep in the American Revolution, well...maybe you wouldn't. Then again, what if you have a significant population of students with Indian/Pakistani roots? Then, no matter what unit you are on, it maybe wise to spend a little time on this. But even if you don't, this is an opportunity to at least introduce students to important issues in the world.</div>
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What if it fits, but not until later in the year?</h3>
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Happily for my syllabus, if not for the world, when Putin began messing around in Ukraine back in the spring of 2013, I had just started a unit on the Cold War with the 8th graders I was teaching. So it was very relevant and worth spending some time on. But let's say that happened when you were still on the Civil War. It is more difficult to make the connection. In that case, you might want to spend a few minutes on the topic, letting students know that this is something you will be getting to later in the year. Then, pay attention to events, saving some relevant articles or news clips for when you do get to that point in history. <br />
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So think about current events and ask yourself, is this issue relevant to what I am teaching today? If so, can I make a valuable connection before moving on to today's lesson? If not, and the issue is really important, can I limit discussion to a few minutes and then move on?</div>
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Tragic events elsewhere in the world</h3>
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Say there is an earthquake. Or tsunami. Or other natural or human disaster somewhere in the world. Should you mention that? Depends. But one thing I would consider is whether or not you may have students who have family or ancestry from a particular place. This is something to be careful about. Many students do not want any sort of attention paid to the fact that they might be from somewhere else. And if you don't know for certain a students' ancestry, it would be insensitive to make an assumption. On the other hand, if you know a students' parents are from the Philippines and there is an earthquake there, you may want to just quietly ask/acknowledge the issue privately before or after class. Keep in mind that the Philippines is a large place, and your students' family might be from nowhere near where the earthquake took place. Or it might have devastated your student's grandmother's house. Or your student might not even know about it.</div>
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Events close to home</h3>
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Sometimes an issue comes up in your town, or nearby. Depending on the issue, you might then want to shift your usual curriculum to discuss the issue. I was also teaching high school when the shooting occurred at Columbine High School in Colorado. Though I was in a suburban district of Chicago, the issue hit close to home emotionally. <br />
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Controversial Issues</h3>
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Sadly or thankfully--I'm still not sure which--it was during my planning period when the results of the OJ Simpson trial were announced. Most teachers in the school had the news on, and in the hallway, I could hear the emotional reactions of students to the news. In a school with significant populations of both black and white students, the reactions fell sharply along racial lines. It was one of those issues that simply had to be acknowledged as a teacher of U.S. history. Honestly, I don't remember how I handled it or what I did during my classes that followed, but these are the suggestions I would give anyone facing such an issue (or something current, like the recent shooting that occurred in Ferguson on the anniversary of the death of Michael Brown):</div>
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<li>If you sense that students need to talk about it, l feel strongly that you need to let them talk about it. But there is a world of difference between a respectful discussion in which thoughtful questions are addressed vs. a shouting match. So set guidelines about the discussion. Remind them to be respectful of the opinions of others and to avoid personal attacks. Your job should be to moderate and raise questions. Not having answers is okay. In fact, it's probably best not to have answers.</li>
<li>Keep in mind--and help students recognize--the difference between <i>fact, opinion, judgement, </i>and <i>emotion.</i> (See also my point on <i>historical context</i> in number 4 below). This is useful with any issue, really. Take, for example, something like the Supreme Court's decision in June about gay marriage. You are teaching a history class, not a religious class. While we must be respectful of students' personal and/or religious views, the issue as debated by the Supreme Court is a <i>constitutional</i> one. By helping students understand the <i>constitutional </i>issue you can keep yourself out of hot water. If a discussion starts getting uncomfortably emotional, you can redirect the conversation by asking questions such as, "what might a person who _____ think about this issue? Why?" Or, "how might a senator from _____ state vote on such and such an issue?" Or, "what effect would ______ have on small businesses?" I don't mean to suggest that our classes should never get emotional or that we can't have intense discussions. On the contrary, I hope we do. But we also want an environment that is respectful, one in which no student feels ostracized because of his or her view, sexual orientation, race, gender or other identity. And we should aim for class discussions in which students offer reasoned viewpoints, not one in which they lash out at others (at worse) or merely blather about an issue without sufficient background or critical analysis.</li>
<li>It is quite possible that a discussion could take up a whole period. Or more. Use your best judgement. You could, for example, begin class with a discussion and let students know up front that you are allotting X minutes. If at the end of that time you feel you need/want more, you can reevaluate. Or, if the test on World War II is coming up and you need to finish something, you could shift the discussion to the last 10 minutes of the period. Or let students know that you will allow time on Thursday. Or whatever.</li>
<li>Your job as the history teacher is to provide the historical context. In either the example of OJ Simpson or Ferguson, remind your students about the long history of police violence and injustice in courtrooms. Help them to understand that all of us process current events through our own experiences and past history. Compare current events to past ones when appropriate (e.g. Bill Clinton to Andrew Johnson). How is the Great Depression similar/different to the economic downturn of 2008? Are we in another "Gilded Age?" (see <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/biography-and-history-rockefeller-and.html#current%20events" target="_blank">my earlier post</a> on this).</li>
<li>Your opinion: I would keep this to yourself, if it's a controversial issue. Personally, I think your own race/gender/religion/etc. matters in these cases. I didn't want either my black or white students to think that because I was white I automatically "sided" with a white perspective on the OJ Simpson case. But they all know I'm white. So focusing on different sides of whatever issue (and obviously, it doesn't have to be a black/white thing), focusing on historical context, and facts (versus opinions) are really important here. Be a role model. Especially if the event is a complex one that is currently unfolding, you (wisely) may not have an opinion yet. Explain <i>that</i> to students.</li>
<li>If the issue is an unfolding one, there are other things to keep in mind. The first few days when a story breaks can have lots of unanswered questions. You don't want to be in a situation like the one in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Many early news reports <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing#Media_coverage" target="_blank">speculated on this as a plot by Islamic terrorists</a>. If a story is so important that you choose to spend time on it in class, make sure you either stress that <i>no one knows yet if blah, blah, blah </i> or wait until you do know. Remind students not to leap to conclusions. </li>
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Last thoughts: Anniversaries and #ThisDayinHistory</h3>
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One year, I coincidentally began my unit on the New Deal on March 4, the day F.D.R. was inaugurated. Stuff like that is really neat, if you're a geeky history teacher like me. But students appreciate this too. I wouldn't redo your syllabus to do stuff like that or teach stuff out of order. Some teachers like to start every period with a "This Day in History" sort of thing. Personally, I'm not fond of this, because unless the event naturally relates to what I'm going to teach, I don't think it makes a logical introduction. But you should check. You can find out what happened today in history <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history" target="_blank">here</a> or on Twitter, using the hashtag #thisDayinHistory. It's handy to look that up every now and then because we don't always remember those dates. Wouldn't you kick yourself if you taught a lesson on the anniversary of something and didn't realize it until afterwards? <br />
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Also, take advantage of the really "big" anniversaries, i.e. the last few years have been big anniversaries of the Civil War and World War I. Even if you weren't teaching about the Gettysburg Address or even the Civil War on November 19, 2013, the fact that it was the 150th anniversary of this milestone document may be worth a mention. Or maybe you end class with something about it. One of the great things about these anniversaries are the articles that commemorate them. I have never enjoyed teaching about the War of 1812. But some of the articles and podcasts made me completely rethink that. (Check out <a href="http://backstoryradio.org/shows/the-war-of-1812-3/" target="_blank">this one</a> from Backstory with the American History Guys. They also did some excellent ones in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War). The great thing about articles written on 50th, 100th, etc. anniversaries is that they are often well-written, broad overviews well-suited for classroom use. So pay attention--if not to teach on the actual day--but for when you get there. The past few years and the next few years ahead, for example, have/will bring lots of attention to 50th anniversaries of Civil Rights issues and Vietnam War events. So keep your eyes open for those....<br />
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Additional Resources</h3>
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<li><b><a href="http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson072.shtml" target="_blank">"Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events"</a> </b>- Not all 25 of these ideas are relevant for social studies teachers and not all of them are great, but many are good. They are more designed for middle school students than high school students. Some, in my opinion, are more for elementary school level, but could be adapted.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.middleweb.com/22894/current-events-helping-kids-live-the-questions/" target="_blank">Current Events: Helping Kids Live the Questions</a> - This article by Sarah Cooper on the <a href="http://www.middleweb.com/category/futureofhistory/" target="_blank">MiddleWeb Future of History blog</a> (for which I am also writing, full disclosure) is a thoughtful reflection for high school teachers as well as middle school teachers. Especially in light of the ongoing issues raised by Ferguson. See also <a href="http://www.middleweb.com/23997/how-do-we-teach-about-historys-tragedies/" target="_blank">my recent post there</a> on thinking about grim statistics of history, which may be useful if a current event is tragic.</li>
<li><a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/50-ways-to-teach-current-events/?_r=0" target="_blank">"50 Ways to Teach with Current Events"</a> - this article is from the New York Times Learning Network, which is a great resource for all kinds of things. Also check out their <a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/?module=BlogMain&action=Click&region=Header&pgtype=Blogs&version=Blog%20Post" target="_blank">blog</a>.</li>
<li>There are probably a gazillion other blog posts/resources on this topic out there. If you find anything really good, please share!</li>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-90972637555545969522015-07-01T20:33:00.000-05:002015-07-01T20:33:43.388-05:00Patriotism for grown-upsThe title for this post comes from Eric Liu, the founder of <a href="http://www.citizenuniversity.us/" target="_blank">Citizen University</a> and former White House speechwriter for President Clinton. It comes at the end of an article he wrote back in October of 2014 at the height of the fury in one Colorado school district over the new AP US history framework. It is my understanding that the College Board intends to review the feedback they received this year and will announce a new edition of the AP US history framework. But I don't feel like waiting for that.<br />
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Saturday is the 4th of July. And this has been an historic month-- the shooting in Charleston, Obama's <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/barack-obamas-second-inaugural-in-charleston" target="_blank">intense eulogy</a>, the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/gay-marriage-supreme-court-politics-activism/397052/" target="_blank">historic Supreme Court decision of last Friday</a>, and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/07/arson-churches-north-carolina-georgia/396881/" target="_blank">another black church in flames last nigh</a>t, even as <a href="http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/making-a-confederate-flag-invisible/?_r=0" target="_blank">Confederate flags have come down</a>. All these events occurring just as we get ready to celebrate our nation's ideals as expressed in the Declaration of Independence....<br />
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And so I write this post to echo the points made by Eric Liu in the article mentioned above (which you can read <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/opinion/liu-can-america-handle-the-truth/index.html" target="_blank">here</a>). His point is that is rather childish to hold to a view of our nation as one that can do no wrong. True patriotism cannot simply point out where our nation has gone wrong. But neither should patriotism lead us to blindly extol our nation's virtues and triumphs without mention of its flaws and defeats. If we are responsible for teaching patriotism to children, he suggests, we must "behave like adults. Which means admitting that even though we Americans have done good things, and still do, we have also done bad things and still do."<br />
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If you think about it, even kindergartners can understand that. Which makes me wonder why so many politicians and pundits think AP high school students wouldn't.<br />
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So whether you are teaching college students, high school students--in an AP class or not--or middle school, you are teaching young adults. And our young adults can handle the fact that our history has highs and lows, heroes and villains, and everything in between. If pretend otherwise, we are insulting their intelligence. <br />
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Furthermore, we risk losing their trust. Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident who became the first president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism, writes, "Lying can never save us from the lie. Falsifiers of history do not safeguard freedom but imperil it."<br />
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Sometimes I think it is precisely because of the high ideals of the Declaration of Independence that Americans have such a hard time admitting the bad stuff. Every nation and every group of people has its dirty laundry. The U.S. is no exception. But the idea of American exceptionalism has perhaps made it harder for us to come to grips with that. The Declaration of Independence promises so much. It is uncomfortable when we see evidence of not living up to it.<br />
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Particularly this 4th of July, because of recent events, there will likely be quite a few interesting articles popping up about this American exceptionalism,and the meaning of liberty. Here is one --<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/1/celebrate-liberty-month-wanted-american-exceptiona/" target="_blank">"Celebrate Liberty Month: Wanted: American Exceptionalism"</a> worth a read. So keep a look out throughout the holiday weekend, as there are sure to be others. Perhaps one of them will be appropriate for sharing with students in the fall. It could even be a good first day/week activity: to what extent has the U.S. lived up to its ideals? Discuss. Revisit the question at the end of the year.<br />
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For ideas about teaching the Declaration of Independence, check out my post, <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/ideas-for-teaching-declaration-of.html" target="_blank">"Ideas for Teaching the Declaration of Independence: Text, Storytelling and Long-term Significance."</a> I'm especially fond of idea #6 and 7 in that post. But there is other good stuff there. Like the great story about Jefferson and Adams both dying on the same day, which happened to be the July 4th, 1826--the 50th anniversary of what became Independence Day.<br />
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I will conclude this post with a final thought from Frederick Douglass. In honor of the 4th, check out his famous speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July" <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/" target="_blank">here</a>. But the words I want to end this post with are from an earlier speech he gave in Syracuse in 1847. He defines--most brilliantly--the meaning of a true patriot. A grown up patriot.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #0b5394;">I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.</span></i></h4>
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Happy Fourth of July. Here's to becoming an ever more perfect union.<br />
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And to a World Cup victory from the U.S. Women's team on the 5th!Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-28034245275629250522015-06-22T16:50:00.000-05:002015-06-22T16:53:45.921-05:00Now that it's summer...What to Read?<h2>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Thoughts on Summertime PD for the U.S. History Teacher</span></h2>
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It is officially summer now. If you are reading this post, you are likely the kind of teacher who has a big list of Things You Are Going To Do This Summer To Make Next Year Better. And it is probably a long one, isn't it? Probably too long. After all, we are only human, and we also want to spend time this summer with our family and friends, getting some chores done around the house, maybe a little travel. And maybe do some reading that doesn't have anything to do with U.S. history or education. Right?<br />
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Right. But summertime, as you know, is a great time to get caught up on stuff, revise old things, get inspired by new things and do some learning for yourself.<br />
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I started off thinking this post would be about a variety of summertime PD--focusing on online courses (<a href="http://members.socialstudies.org/Scripts/4Disapi.dll/4DCGI/events/127.html?Action=Conference_Detail&ConfID_W=127" target="_blank">check out this one that started today</a>!), other great blogs to follow, and getting organized with web bookmarking sites (Livebinders, Evernote and the like). But as I got going on books, I realized this topic merits its own post.<br />
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There is so much to read, and so little time (not to mention all those house projects), so how do you decide what to read?<br />
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<b>For starters, review those weak lessons/units.</b></h3>
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This is probably the least fun thing to do, but so important. Why? Because the reason the unit or lesson is weak in the first place is likely because it is not a subject that YOU find all that interesting. Maybe you would find it interesting if you knew much about it. The reality of being a teacher of U.S. history is that there is so much content, that even if you have been following my suggestions in earlier posts about paring it down by focusing on essential questions, etc., there is still a lot to learn. <br />
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So before you delve into "fixing" your weak lessons or units, ask yourself whether the reason for them is your own lack of content knowledge or interest. No one said you have to be an "expert" (whatever that means) of Every Single Thing in U.S. History. And you certainly don't have to like it all. (War of 1812 and the New Deal, that means you.) But, as I tell all the student teachers I work with, if all you know is what is in the textbook, it is hard to create a good lesson. (For more on good lesson planning, see my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-7-things-all-good-lessons-have-in.html" target="_blank">last post</a>.)<br />
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Once you have figured out where your weakest lessons and/or units are, that is where I might suggest beginning your reading. Even if it is a topic you don't like so much, there is probably a book or an essay out there somewhere that will help you like it more.<br />
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<b>Finding Great Books </b></h3>
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I assume some of you are avid readers and don't need any help in this category. If anything, you need help in winnowing your list. But in my work with student teachers, I have found that beginning teachers do not always know where to look to decide what to read. I usually find books by browsing at the bookstore, the library, or Amazon, as well as getting recommendations from friends and colleagues and book reviews in the paper or online. But the tips below may also be useful.<br />
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<li>While I certainly do NOT advocate a president by president approach to the study of U.S. history, I stumbled across <a href="http://bestpresidentialbios.com/background/" target="_blank">this blog</a>, when googling "best books about Andrew Jackson," just to see what I could find. It's a blog by Stephen Floyd who is chronicling his efforts to read through--not just one, but "all of the best" presidential biographies. He's currently up to TR. Apparently, he's not the only out there doing this, so check out his links to other folks. And <a href="http://bestpresidentialbios.com/curriculum/" target="_blank">this page</a>, where he lists all the books he has read/or is planning to read. This seems like a great place to go if you are looking for suggestions on presidents.</li>
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<li>The tip above reminds me of how much I love reading biographies to get a better understanding of a historical period. It makes the period come alive for me in ways that I hope to convey to students. So check out biographies of other folks, not just presidents. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9594.The_Best_American_Historical_Biographies_of_All_Time" target="_blank">This list from goodreads.com</a> has some other suggestions, though it mostly lists biographies of presidents. I always like to read biographies of people whose lives spill over into more than one unit. Gives you a double bang. People like Benjamin Franklin (and some of those early presidents, too) give you insight into the Colonial period, American Revolution and through the early years of the nation. Henry Clay is another good one. FDR and Eleanor gets you through the Depression and WWII, while LBJ gets you through Civil Rights and Vietnam. You get the idea. Just beware of focusing only on the big guns and ignoring less obvious choices. Not to mention ignoring regular everyday people who matter in history just as much as Jefferson, Lincoln and the Roosevelts. That's why this summer I plan to read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/1776-David-McCullough/dp/0743226720" target="_blank">David McCullough's <i>1776</i></a> instead of his biography on John Adams (though I'm hoping to watch the HBO dramatization of the latter). </li>
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<li>Amazon also has lists of best-<i>selling</i> (not necessarily best) historical biographies. </li>
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<li>Poking around on Amazon's list led me to find the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Power-Faith-Fantasy-America-Present/dp/0393330303/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=19F27QZ9226R17EDMT1C" target="_blank">Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present</a>. I've only read a few reviews online and the write up I linked to on Amazon, but I am intrigued by the idea that our relationship with the Middle East begins well before World War II or the 1970s which are probably the first times most of us would bring it up in our classes. I list this book here also because it reminds me that in addition to biographies, another good way to get a big bang for your buck if you're a newer teacher or have limited time is to read books that cover a whole issue or group of people over time. For example, if you feel like you'd like to add more on Hispanics, women, African-Americans, economic issues, etc. to your class, there are books out there on that. See the few below for examples. (Just scratching the surface here.) These kind of books are often long, but are also the kind of books in which a few chapters might be all you need.</li>
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<li><b>Native Americans:</b> Check out the books I mention at the end of a previous post on Indian Removal. Find those books listed <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-challenges-of-indian-problem-for.html#booksonIndians" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li><b>Women in U.S. history. </b>An exception to the rule I mention above about these books being lengthly: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Womens-History-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0199328331/ref=sr_1_2?" target="_blank">American Women's History: A Very Short Introduction</a>. I haven't read it, so I can't personally vouch for it, but the publisher (Oxford University Press) is reputable. See <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/nav/p/category/academic/series/general/vsi/R/browse+within+this+series/history/n/4294921811.do?sortby=bookTitleAscend&thumbby=10&thumbby_crawl=10&page=7" target="_blank">here</a> for a list of all the books in the series. Most are world history, but there are a few others on U.S. history topics. Also check out see <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Women-Drudges-Helpmates-Heroines/dp/0061227226/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1434985805" target="_blank">America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines</a>. Organized chronologically, it's easy to dip in and out of, if--for example--you're looking for a chapter to read on women in the abolition movement.</li>
<li><b>Other groups:</b> see Ronald Takaki's classic, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Different-Mirror-History-Multicultural-America/dp/0316022365/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1434985991" target="_blank">A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America</a>. </i>He also has a book just on Asian Americans: <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Different-Shore-History-Americans/dp/0316831301/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434985991&sr=1-2&keywords=takaki" target="_blank">Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans</a>. </i> I haven't found a good overview of Hispanic American history, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, I've got the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/about/" target="_blank">6 hour PBS series on Latino Americans</a> on my to-watch list (vs. the to-read list) for this summer.</li>
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<li>Just looking for a good book on one specific topic? Try asking other teachers on twitter, with the hashtag #sschat or #histed chat for suggestions. And if no one responds right away (it is summer after all), re-tweet. Repeat.</li>
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<li>One last hint. Go to your college alma mater website. Or any college or university. Check out the syllabi for U.S. history classes. See what college students are reading.</li>
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<b>Book Reviews</b></h3>
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If I had all of the time in the world, it still wouldn't be enough to read all the great books out there. When expediency is what you need, try book reviews. Sometimes a good book review in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal gives you at least a hint of interesting material that you can file away in your brain. But you can also listen to interviews with authors. I have been especially fond of the interviews <a href="http://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444908/fresh-air" target="_blank">Terry Gross of Fresh Air </a>conducts with authors of history books. I listen to her podcasts in the car. The <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/02/16/385756875/the-politics-of-passing-1964s-civil-rights-act" target="_blank">one she did with Todd Purdum</a>, author of <i>An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964</i> was so chock-full of interesting info that I had to pull the car over to take notes! I still haven't read the book, and I might never read it. But I have learned from it.<br />
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<b>Once you've read a good book...</b></h3>
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Now go back to that weak lesson or unit. I don't promise magic, but I bet you will now have some ideas on how to make it better.<br />
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<b>A Few Other Things to Read</b></h3>
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In the course of writing this blog, I have come across so many amazing websites that I have linked to in my posts. If you are anything like me, you probably clicked on some of them and thought, "Wow, great website! I'll have to check this out later." Later is now. So go back and check them out. Read my old posts to find them. Click also on the tabs above where I have "Other useful links" and "Links to Constitution/Govt websites." Check out some of those. Check back later in the summer, as I hope to update some of these and reorganize them a bit.<br />
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And check out other blogs. I'm hoping to spend some time this summer reading <i>other</i> people's blogs that I have come across while writing this one. I started to list them, and then realized that there were too many! So I'm going to put them into a link at the top. Look for that soon.<br />
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Read books about current issues too. A plug for an incredible book I recently finished: Robert Putnam's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Kids-American-Dream-Crisis/dp/1476769893" target="_blank">Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</a>. Whether you work with low income students or not, if you live in the U.S. and work with kids, this is one of those must-reads. (I'm just throwing this into this post because I feel so strongly about it, I didn't know where else to put it.)<br />
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Time in the Car</h3>
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While I like to spend as much time as possible soaking up the outdoors in the summer, sometimes I end up spending a fair amount of time in the car to get there. I have mentioned before how much I love <a href="http://backstoryradio.org/" target="_blank">BackStory with the American History Guys</a>. Those long hours in the car on the way to the beach, the park, or your vacation can be filled with their podcasts. And whenever I say, "Oh, I heard the most interesting thing on" my family cuts me off and says, "Fresh Air!" Which I already mentioned earlier in this very post, didn't I?</div>
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And lastly...</h3>
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It is summer. Don't just work. I have been reminded by <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/four-ways-to-spot-a-great-teacher-1409848739" target="_blank">this article</a> that great teachers are also usually interesting people, with rich intellectual lives and interests that go beyond whatever subject they teach. So I will end here, so I have time to go to the store to get what I need for dinner before the Women's World Cup match tonight! And don't be surprised if my posts for the rest of the summer are a little more sporadic. After all, in addition to all that reading I've just mentioned, there are bike rides to take, concerts to hear, movies to watch....</div>
Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-83750958282226033702015-06-11T22:57:00.000-05:002015-06-11T22:57:19.405-05:00The 7 Things All Good Lessons Have in Common:<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">A Checklist for History Teachers</span><br />
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Last month I finished a semester of teaching the social studies methods course to would-be secondary social studies teachers. And before summer gets too far along, I figured this might be a good time to review some of the things I did and share them in the hope that they are useful for readers of this blog.<br />
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While this post is written from materials designed for new teachers, I have found the checklist I describe a useful reflection tool for any teacher, myself included. As I dig through old lessons when I write this blog, I ask myself whether or not my lessons fit my own checklist for what makes a good lesson. I came up with this list after years of evaluating student teachers. The 7 items on the list reflect things I saw student teachers do or forget to do. These were the things that helped make a lesson succeed, or the things that made the lesson miss the mark.<br />
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As you review and revise the lessons you taught this year, try asking yourself whether or not your lesson meets this test. And if you think I have left important things out of this test/rubric/checklist, or whatever you want to call it, do leave a comment.</div>
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Also, keep in mind that when I say, "All" good lessons should have these things, we all know that sometimes a lesson is a work day in the library or getting straight into groups to finish a 3 day project, or something like that. So I don't mean that you have to do all 7 of these things on days like that.<br />
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Here's my 7 point checklist for what all good lessons should have:<br />
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<span style="background-color: yellow;">#1: All good lessons, like a good paper, should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.</span></h3>
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So right out of the gate, I know I'm cheating a little bit because this is really 3 things. Sort of. Together, they make the point that a lesson cannot consist of doing a bunch of random things until the bell rings. A good lesson must be PLANNED. And it should have an introduction, which sets up the main body of the lesson, and the whole thing should be wrapped up in a conclusion. Does that mean all lessons have to fit into a 40, 45, 50 or 80 minute period? Of course not. But the bell will ring at the beginning and end of each period. So even if you are planning a 2 day (or longer) lesson, you need SOME kind of intro and conclusion for each day.<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">The beginning, or intro: </span></b>In the educational literature, some folks call the beginning of a lesson a "hook," others describe it as a "set induction" or an "anticipatory set." While each term has subtle differences, the point is that good lessons have a thoughtfully created introduction. Ideally, it should pique students' curiosity and get them excited about what they are going to do today. It should also remind students about where they've been and where they are going. (More on this in number #3, below.) See <a href="http://changingminds.org/explanations/learning/set_induction.htm" target="_blank">this link</a> for a brief, but effective general explanation.</div>
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There are practical reasons for a good beginning or introduction, too. Diligent teachers have usually spent a lot of time creating a lesson, so they know what their lesson is about. But they forget, sometimes, that their students have just come in from a rough math test, or an argument with their best friend, or lunch, or a million other things. Do your students remember what you did yesterday? Do they have any clue that today you are reviewing the factors leading to the American Revolution? The answer is that most do not. So a good lesson should have a clear beginning that reminds them about what is going on, makes them forget about that math test for now and gets them to focus on history.<br />
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How do you do that? Well, I spent the better part of a 2 hour class on that this semester, so I really should write a separate blog post on this (note to self). But in case you want ideas NOW and I forget to write a post about this later, you can always do something like have students respond to an intriguing quote, or a piece of art or music, or a visual like a map, chart, political cartoon or photograph. They can do this by writing in their notebooks, adding to an online journal or blog (or twitter maybe?), or simply discuss with a partner.</div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>The middle:</b> </span>This whole blog is about stuff that goes in the middle. Points #4, 5 and 6, below, are also more specific about what happens in the middle.</div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">The end or conclusion:</span></b> This is the number one thing missing from over half the lessons I observe from student teachers. In all fairness to them, most student teachers <i>have</i> a conclusion in their lesson plan, but they often run out of time. That, of course, is the difference between a lesson <i>plan</i> and an actual <i>lesson</i>, as all teachers know. (More on this in point #7, below.) </div>
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But when teaching methods this semester, I found that students didn't always know what should be in a conclusion. There is more to this than I can fit in this post, but the short answer is that the conclusion should "conclude." It should tie up the lesson into a sort of package that addresses #2, below. It could refer back to your introduction, or sum up what you did in the body of the lesson. But don't just end because the bell rings. Ideally, you are sharing the burden of concluding the lesson with your students, eventually handing it off to them entirely. If the teacher is the one always summing up, we know the teacher will have learned the material. The key thing is to get our students to do it.</div>
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<b>A few links regarding conclusions:</b></div>
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<li>Here is a <a href="https://edc448uri.wikispaces.com/file/view/40_ways_to_leave_a_lesson.pdf" target="_blank">link to a bunch of ideas for ending a lesson</a> compiled by Ann Sipe of Grandview School District in Washington. I don't necessarily endorse all of these ideas. Some of them just don't work for my personal teaching style. Others are better suited for elementary school. But there a lot of suggestions to get you started if this you're looking for ideas on ending lessons.</li>
<li>Also, check out this post, <a href="http://www.teachingushistory.co/2013/09/teaching-like-we-write-introduction-and-conclusion-in-the-lecture.html" target="_blank">"Teaching Like We Write--Introduction and Conclusion in the Lecture."</a> I came up with the idea for #1 on my checklist long before I read this post. And this post is specifically about coming up with conclusions for college lectures. But there is still useful material there for any teacher and any kind of lesson, not just lectures. I have linked to this blog post before, so you may have already seen this.</li>
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Your lesson might have a spectacular introduction and conclusion, but the most important part of a lesson is really #2.<br />
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#2 All good lessons should have a point.</span></h3>
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This should go without saying, you may think. But think a little harder. Can you give an "elevator speech" for every lesson you teach? More importantly, can your students? Does your lesson clearly address an essential question or an important concept or idea? While it is true that some ideas are far too big for one single lesson (federalism, sectionalism, Civil War, industrialization, immigration, etc.), each lesson within a unit should build to some larger point. (e.g. you might have a few days about immigration but one of those days would focus specifically on the problem of assimilation.)<br />
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The point of "the point" is that there should be some reason why you are teaching this lesson. Something which addresses the number one question that all of our students ask,<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><i>Why do we have to know this???</i></span></h3>
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The pre-service teachers I work with typically teach at least a few lessons in the semester before their student teaching. They sometimes tell me things like, "My cooperating teacher wants me to do a lesson on ___________ " and then they fill in the blank with a random topic, such as the legislation of the New Deal or comparing the North and the South before the Civil War or the five pillars of Islam (not all my students are in U.S. history). And then they want to know where they should start. </div>
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And realistically, that's what a lot of us do. We know what we did last year, and yesterday, and so what comes next is <a href="http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/american-civil-war/resources/north-south-comparisons" target="_blank">comparing the North and South</a>. But we should--every year--ask ourselves <i>why</i> do students need to know about the similarities and differences between the North and South? What is the point? How does this understanding help us better comprehend both the onset of the Civil War as well as its outcome? Do any of these <a href="https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/americas-northsouth-divide-other-regional-data/" target="_blank">differences still exist</a>? In what way(s) does studying this topic improve the quality of our students' lives?<br />
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Did I lose you on that last one? Agreed, it's a little "out there." After all, we all know adults who live happy and successful lives who may not realize how many miles of railroad track the North had compared to the South. But thinking about the "bigger" questions behind the main topic of a lesson can help us consider why it may have mattered that the North had more railroads than the South in the first place. And then we can turn the question around and point out that the British had far greater resources than the colonists during the Revolution, and yet in that case, the advantages did not result in a British victory. Nor did the superior weaponry the United States had compared to the Vietnamese. (FYI, the last chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, <a href="http://gladwell.com/david-and-goliath/" target="_blank">David and Goliath,</a> has a great chapter on the Vietnam War that touches on this very point. It also good stuff on the Civil Rights movement and things that make you think about education in general. A good summer read.) So your lesson about differences between North and South can lead students to thinking about war and winners and losers in general. And how big guys beat little guys but not always. And that is an idea that students can really sink their teeth into.<br />
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Many of us went into teaching to make a difference in our students' lives. And, as I pointed out in an <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-passion-for-history-key-to-great.html" target="_blank">earlier post about my high school chemistry teacher</a>, we can make a difference even if our students don't love history the way we do.<br />
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If we ask ourselves the same questions our students are wondering--why do we have to know this--our answers will help us make our lessons more meaningful. Easier said than done, I realize. One of the ways to think about the point of each lesson is to ask ourselves how it connects to the larger unit of which it is a part. Which brings me to #3...<br />
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#3 All good lessons should make a connection with the lesson before and the lesson after.</span></h3>
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As I have emphasized repeatedly in this blog (see <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/11/seneca-falls-womens-movement-and-tying.html" target="_blank">here</a>, for example, or my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-end-year.html" target="_blank">recent one on the end of the year</a>), we have to work hard as history teachers to prevent our class from becoming an endless trudge through Every Single Thing That Is In The Textbook. To do that, we have to conceptualize what we teach into clearly defined units that address key issues and essential questions.<br />
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That kind of planning should be made visible to our students. We should find ways to make it clear to them how and why each lesson logically follows to the next. Whether we do this through a syllabus, through our intro/conclusions for each day, or some other method, it is important that students make these connections. Taking time at the beginning, middle or end of each lesson to have students make these connections is a key part to making sure students get the big picture.<br />
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And yet, we need to elaborate on the big picture. Put some flesh on the bones. To do that, you need #4...<br />
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#4 All good lessons should have a few cool facts.</span></h3>
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This is maybe the more controversial point of my 7 point checklist. After all, if we are supposed to avoid a history class that emphasizes fact after fact after fact, why should we even bother with this point at all?<br />
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The answer is what I call, "The Fjord Factor," after an experience I had my first year of teaching. It was in a 7th grade world geography class in central Wisconsin, where there are no fjords. I can't remember if the lesson was on Scandinavia or geographic features, but somehow fjords came up and my students wondered what those looked like. This was pre-Google and before 1:1, let alone any computers in class, and I hadn't come prepared with a picture. But I found one and brought it in the next day, and all at once, the whole class went, "whoa!" because <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord" target="_blank">fjords are really cool looking</a>.<br />
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What's the takeaway from this? Students get excited when they learn, hear or see something interesting. Now, what is interesting to those of us who have chosen a career in teaching history might not be as exciting to a jaded high school junior, but it is a big, wide world out there. And if we are teaching about it, surely there is some interesting or unusual tidbit of information that will make even a second semester senior say, if not "whoa" like my seventh graders, at least "hmm, that's kinda interesting."<br />
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That's why I include "cool facts" as something that a good lesson needs. Because school should be interesting. Who wouldn't want students to go home at night and tell their parents, hey, did you know that....? Hopefully, that will get them thinking and talking more about the point of the lesson.<br />
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<h3>
<b>An important caveat about "cool facts"</b></h3>
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Emphasizing "cool facts" if you've left out "the point" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For more on this problem, see my description of what I call, "The Problem of Andrew Jackson's horse" in <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/biography-and-history-rockefeller-and.html#AJhorse" target="_blank">this earlier post</a>, keeping in mind that the name of Andrew Jackson's horse is NOT really what I mean by "a cool fact." A better example might be the bit about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams dying on the same day which happened to be on July 4th, 1826. (More on that in <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/09/ideas-for-teaching-declaration-of.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">this earlier pos</a>t).<br />
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So remember that a few cool facts does not a good lesson make. It would be incomplete without more substantial material. Which brings us to point #5...<br />
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<span style="background-color: yellow;">#5 All good lessons should have interesting material appropriate to your students' level(s).</span></h3>
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This is for the bulk of your lesson. If a lesson only includes a textbook, I'd say you better keep looking. This is where you find the outside reading, the primary source(s), the film clip, the questions students will debate or discuss, etc. Throughout this blog, I have tried to present interesting material and links to websites where you can find more. Also, check out the "Other Useful Links" tab at the top of the page for more. Over the summer, I hope to update this annotated list of useful websites, but really, that's just icing. You've got Google. If you found this blog, you can find a good reading on the War of 1812 or Spanish-American War or McCarthyism or whatever else you're looking for.<br />
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Keep in mind that while the "interesting material" can certainly include your brilliant lecture on Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States, it may not be brilliant enough to capture your students' attention for an entire period. Which brings me to #6...<br />
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<h3>
<span style="background-color: yellow;">#6 All good lessons should strive to have students actively doing something other than simply taking notes.</span></h3>
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Students tend to be rather passive during a lecture, even if they are taking notes. There are ways to make lectures more interactive, for example by pausing to ask open-ended questions, or having students turn and discuss something with a partner. Or including a visual and having students spend some time reacting to what they see through discussion or a written exercise. But ideally, a lecture will only take up part of a lesson. And not every day. Because there are so many other things to do. That is a topic far too broad to cover within a post, although I tried in <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/to-lecture-or-not-to-lecture-that-is.html" target="_blank">this one</a>.<br />
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Certainly some lessons are going to be more student-centered than others. And sometimes you can make the balance come out during the week as opposed to the lesson. But ideally, students should have the opportunity to read, write, think and/or discuss something EVERY DAY. They cannot be passive recipients of material all period.<br />
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And moving around a little is always a good idea.<br />
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If you want a sobering picture of what happens when we our lessons don't meet #6, read <a href="https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/a-veteran-teacher-turned-coach-shadows-2-students-for-2-days-a-sobering-lesson-learned/" target="_blank">this post that went sort of viral</a> last fall by the daughter of the late Grant Wiggins on his blog. Read especially key takeaway #1 and #2 in that post.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="background-color: yellow;">#7 Timing: advance consideration should be given to how to expand or contract the lesson as necessary.</span></h3>
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This is especially a challenge for beginning teachers who don't have the experience in understanding how long something is going to take. But even those of us who have been teaching for years encounter the problem of running over or under. Running under is a problem easily solved by good planning. I have never had a problem simply extending the discussing, having students write a reaction to something we did in class, reviewing how this lesson connects to yesterday's or some other kind of activity. But any loquacious or energetic teacher has the problem of running over. In part, this problem can also be solved by careful planning and by remembering #6 and making sure we don't talk too much.<br />
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Of course, sometimes it's not our fault. Fire drills, announcements, and nosebleeds can ruin the best laid plans of mice and men and teachers. But my advice to my student teachers has always been, know ahead of time what you can cut so you don't run out of time for your conclusion, in point #1. Because all good lessons, and all good blog posts, should have an ending.</div>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-6344141990010488522015-06-06T11:13:00.003-05:002020-06-23T14:58:47.443-05:00Pass the Popcorn: the Use and Abuse of Film in History ClassSomewhere about at the Civil Rights movement or the first nice day in April, whichever comes first, is when my students first begin to suggest that we watch the film <i>Forrest Gump</i> in class. By the time we get to the escalation of the Vietnam, the requests have escalated as well. "It's historic!" they plead.<br />
<br />
No offense to anyone who loves this movie, but <i>Forrest Gump</i> is NOT a good movie to show in U.S. history class. It tells the story of a man <i>during</i> historic periods, which is not the same thing as informing us <i>about</i> the historic periods. (And as I recently read in <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/two-thumbs-up/" target="_blank">this guide to films/documentaries to use when teaching about Civil Rights</a> by the Hasan Kwame Jeffries, history professor at Ohio State University, it does a terrible job of portraying the Black Panther Party and Black Power.)<div><br /></div>
The amount of time I have devoted to showing film (usually clips of no more than 15-20 minutes, but sometimes longer) <i>does</i> go up as the school year goes on. Not because the days are getting warmer and the students are getting antsy or because I am tired of teaching, but because the films show LIVE footage. I remember once showing a film clip about World War I and students noticed right away, "Hey, it's the actual people."<br />
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We don't have films of George Washington. Not till the invention of film do we get.... well, films! So any event occurring before the turn of the 20th century or so are going to be still footage or dramatizations. Ken Burns has demonstrated the power of applying film to still pictures. And films like <i>Glory </i>demonstrate the power of a well-done dramatization. But there is something about seeing actual footage of people and events we are studying that makes history come alive. That's why I like documentaries like <i>Eyes on the Prize </i>(Civil Rights) and <i>Vietnam: A Television History</i> so much.<br />
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But the issue of actual footage vs. dramatization is just one of the first in a series of considerations I'd like to raise in this post about how, when and why to show video in class.<br />
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The first question we have to ask ourselves as educators, when deciding whether or not to show a film in class is where the film falls on the continuum below:<br />
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This is why <i>Forrest Gump </i>doesn't make the cut. It is 2 hours and 25 minutes. That is a LOT of class time for a few scenes about Vietnam. (Not to mention a few scenes that are not school-appropriate.)<br />
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The second question we have to ask ourselves is whether the film is at all interesting for kids. If it is informative, but it puts them to sleep once the lights go down, there is little point.<br />
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While I don't think the first question we should ask ourselves when we make educational choices is, "is it entertaining?" we are kidding ourselves if we think this doesn't matter. And with so many video choices out there, why <i>wouldn't</i> you find one that was as entertaining as it is informative?<br />
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So if you put these two questions, like I did below, you might ask yourself where a film falls in this diagram. Ideally we should only be choosing films in the top left corner.<br />
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The questions above focus on what kind of video to choose. But we should really take a step back and ask ourselves,<br />
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<h3>
Why use video in the first place?</h3>
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a. to replace a lecture.<br />
b. to give yourself a break.<br />
c. to give the students a break.<br />
d. to illustrate something in a concrete, visual way that would be difficult to teach in another way.<br />
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While the ideal answer is "d," answers a, b, and c can be acceptable reasons from time to time. We've all been there. The reality of teaching is that sometimes you are just overwhelmed and a great 10 minute video can give you a ten minute break. Your students are just as likely ready to take a break from you. Films/videos can provide much needed variety in the classroom. But rather than think about "negative" reasons to show a video, such as "I need a break," consider some positive ones. There are lots of things that films can do that you can't.<br />
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<h3>
#1 Pictures can be worth a 1000 words</h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes, for example, a picture is really worth a 1000 words. For example, in an <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/another-great-resource-for-teachers-and.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">earlier post on Vietnam</a>, I provided the link to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xLOwu-anQA" target="_blank">this video</a> of the Cu Chi Tunnels used by the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong. It is only a minute and a half, has catchy music, subtitles that explain what students are looking at, and gives a great overview of the tunnels. You could be the most fantastic teacher in the world and still not be able to describe the tunnels the way this video can.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's another example of what film can do. In an earlier post about <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/biography-and-history-rockefeller-and.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">Rockefeller, Carnegie and the Gilded Age</a>, I offered the link to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slTF_XXoKAQ" target="_blank">this video clip</a> about income inequality. It is not quite six and half minutes long, and explains a series of charts and graphs that are pretty mind blowing. Again, it would be a challenge for you to explain this on your own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are SO many amazing videos, documentaries, shorts, etc. out there online that you could probably find one for every single topic in your class. I don't recommend that, but my point is that there is a lot of great stuff out there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<h3>
#2 Humanizing History</h3>
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But there is one more thing a video can sometimes do better than you can, and that is making history come alive. There is a reason why kids are always clamoring for <i>Forrest Gump</i> (besides trying to get you to show a movie for 3 days). They like it. They like the story, they like the characters. Characters and stories make us care about history. There are lots of ways to incorporate character and story into our history classes besides showing movies, but showing movies is certainly one of them. And it doesn't have to be a full-length feature Hollywood film either. The 3 1/2 minute excerpt, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3zUhgFEe9I" target="_blank">Honorable Manhood</a>," from Ken Burns' <i>The Civil War </i>will go a long way towards humanizing the sacrifices made by soldiers. Before Burns' series on <i>The Roosevelts</i> came out, I would "humanize" Theodore Roosevelt by providing students with background on his life and reading some of the letters he wrote. But now we have Ken Burns again: see <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-steam-engine-in-trousers-teaching.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">my earlier post on Roosevelt where I describe the useful links</a> from Burns' series<i>. </i>Be careful that you don't OD on Ken Burns. There are stories out there (hopefully not true) about teachers who just pop Ken Burns DVDs in and hit play, day after day.<br />
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One of my favorite films to show in a class--hard to describe as "entertaining" because it is so sad--I mentioned in my post on the Holocaust. It's called <i>I'm Still Here </i>and you can read about that <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/04/could-us-government-have-done-something.html#Holocaustfilm" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<h3>
Long vs short films</h3>
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That last film I just mentioned runs about 47 minutes and can be edited to fit within a class period. But this raises questions about how long any film that you show should be. As I mentioned above, there are lots of videos that run as little as a minute or two. Anything less than 10 minutes long fits easily into standard class periods. (I have taught on a block schedule, in the past, and 80 minute periods give you a lot of flexibility!) But what about using longer films? Whether or not to use longer films depends entirely on the film and your purpose in showing it. I would suggest the following points to consider:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Cost-benefit analysis: is the film worth taking up a whole period? or a whole period for a few days?</li>
<li>If the film takes an entire period, or almost an entire period, is it memorable enough that you can hold off discussing the film until the next day? Are you showing the film on a Friday? If so, will students remember it until Monday?</li>
<li>Would it be better to discuss it right away? If so, can you cut parts of the film out to allow more time in class to discuss it? Or would that leave out something important from the film? Should you pause the film part way through to discuss?</li>
<li>How will you handle student absences? If you postpone discussion of the film until the next day, can the students who missed the film watch it on the day you discuss it? (i.e. in the library or in the back of the room on a computer with headphones?) Can students watch the film at home?</li>
</ul>
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<h3>
Full-Length Feature Films</h3>
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While I wouldn't show <i>Forrest Gump</i> in class, that doesn't mean I wouldn't ever show a full-length feature film. Like many U.S. history teachers, I have used the film <i>Glory</i> with much success. My own 7th grader has just watched the film in her history class. It is a great movie for middle school or high school as long as you cut out the early gruesome shot of a soldier getting his head blown off. That, and some of the swearing makes it rated "R," so you either have to edit those parts, or get permission from parents. And if you teach high school, make sure they didn't already see it in middle school, or it would be repetitive. There are other useful feature films. See the links at the end of this post for suggestions.<br />
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Keep in mind you don't always need to show a whole feature film. There may be a part of film that is useful. For example, there is a good 20-30 minute clip towards the beginning of the 1975 film, <i>Hester Street,</i> that I have used as a way to discuss the challenges of being an immigrant to the U.S. in the early 20th century. (In case you are interested, the clip begins when Yankel, a Russian Jewish immigrant, arrives at Ellis Island to meet his newly arriving wife and son, whom he hasn't seen since he emigrated just after their son was born. It's about 15-20 minutes in from the beginning of the movie.)<br />
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If you use a fictional film, consider some of the questions below. I raised these questions in an <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/history-movies-selma.html" target="_blank">earlier post about the recent film </a><i><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/history-movies-selma.html" target="_blank">Selma</a>.</i> Since I wrote that post, I have seen the film. And here's my take for history teachers: we could go on and on about the questions below. And that might be a really interesting activity for our students and worthwhile. But <i>Selma</i> is 2 hours and 8 minutes long. The <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/10_march.html" target="_blank">episode from <i>Eyes on the Prize</i> that covers the march from Selma</a> is 55 minutes long--easily trimmable to fit a single class period--and most importantly, it shows the Real Deal. I thought David Oyelowo was wonderful as Martin Luther King and the scenes on the bridge were filmed beautifully. But why not--in a history class--show the <i>real</i> Martin Luther King and the <i>real</i> marchers? For another, similar view about this, see <a href="http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/2015/01/civil_rights_worker_judy_richardson_eyes_on_the_prize_documentary_is_more.html" target="_blank">this commentary</a><i> </i>about <i>Selma. </i>If you are looking for a copy of <i>Eyes on the Prize</i>, a lots of public libraries own it. If yours doesn't, see if it can be ordered from another library.<br />
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<h3>
<b>Questions to ask about a fictional film</b></h3>
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. How historically
accurate is the film?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. What inaccuracies
are there and do they matter?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. How does the film
compare to a documentary about the same subject? Is the documentary more informative? Is the documentary "boring?" Will students see the feature film as "truth" and then
question the story told by the documentary (keeping in mind that documentaries,
just like history books, also have their own "versions" of history
and leave certain points out and others in)?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">4. Who will students
respond to more, the real historic characters? Or the actors? Does that matter?
Is this more of an issue with historic events that have occurred after the
invention of film? e.g. We might find Daniel Day Lewis believable as Lincoln because we don't see Lincoln in film, versus Martin Luther King who we have seen a lot? Or even consider a character like John Adams, played by Paul Giamatti in the <a href="http://www.hbo.com/john-adams#/" target="_blank">HBO miniseries on John Adams</a>, who we haven't even seen in photographs (unlike Lincoln)?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">5. When we
internalize fictional accounts of history, what is lost? what is gained?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">6. What larger
questions does this raise about who "owns" history? How do the
stories and versions of history we tell ourselves shape our understanding of
the past?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Worksheet or no worksheet? </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">What are your students doing during the film?</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></h3>
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Hopefully watching, of course. The question is whether or not you should give students A Worksheet. When discussing this with my own kids, they practically shouted, "no worksheets!" But there are good worksheets and not-so-good worksheets. The kind I would encourage you to avoid are the ones where students have to listen super carefully in order to fill-in-a-blank with a word narrated in the video. Or lots of short answers. What tends to happen here is that you see about half the class starting to write and then the other half realizes they missed the answer. They then turn around and ask another student, "what was number 3?" and then they all end up missing #4. Teachers usually give these kind of worksheets to ensure that students are paying attention. But they backfire when they cause students to have to write so much that they miss parts of the video.</div>
<div>
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<div>
If you choose not to give any worksheet or assignment, there is the concern that students will just tune out, or--once the lights go out--fall asleep. This is a very real problem (compounded by the lack of sleep most of our students get these days). It should go without saying that you have to pay attention to students while you are showing the film. While it might be a good time for you to update your grades or catch up on emails, you do have to look up every now and then to be sure students are on task. Worksheets do not solve this problem. In fact, in a dimly lit classroom, it can be hard to tell if they are taking notes on the worksheet you gave them or doing their math homework. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Good videos that are carefully chosen will reduce the need for worksheets designed merely to enforce compliant viewing. There are some videos that are so good you really don't need to do anything to make sure students watch. But even if the video you selected is that good, you decided to show it for a reason. So it is a good idea to, at a minimum, to introduce the video by telling students what they should look for, or pay attention to, or what you will be discussing afterwards. The complexity of those things, the length of the video, and the number of points you want students to note will dictate whether you provide them one overall question or a few on a written handout/worksheet. Consider providing students with a list of questions at the beginning, instructing them to look over it <i>before</i> you start the video, and then have them write their answers <i>afterwards</i>. Or, if they are the kinds of things they will forget afterwards, you can pause the video at appropriate points to have students take notes or write their answers before resuming. </div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few final thoughts on the use of film in the social studies class:</span></h3>
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Don't overlook the idea of using documentaries as background for you, the teacher, without even needing to show it to students. You aren't going to show all 9 episodes of Ken Burn's <i>Civil War</i> series to students (at least I hope you aren't). But <i>you</i> can watch them over the summer on a rainy day to give yourself some background info. (And then, if appropriate, decide on excerpts that you want to show students.) What's on my summer watch list? <a href="http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/" target="_blank">The PBS series, </a><i><a href="http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/" target="_blank">Latino Americans</a> </i>that I mentioned in <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/celebrating-50th-anniversary-of-another.html" target="_blank">my post on immigration after 1965</a>. </blockquote>
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Remember that you can use clips from movies, commercials and music videos as a "hook" for a lesson. For example, the title sequence for the 1962-1963 TV show, <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjy-fnsmWR4" target="_blank">The Jetsons</a>, </i>would be great either for a lesson on 1950s culture or to set up a lesson on feminism (check out the stereotypical way the wife is portrayed). Or show a video of a Vietnam protest song. Or check out my lesson on how rock and roll influenced the modern Civil Rights movement <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/history-one-of-humanities.html#civilrightsmusic" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Where can you find good videos? First try the obvious: search Google and youtube. Ask other teachers. Don't just ask teachers you know personally--try asking on twitter! Use the hashtag #sschat, and ask if anyone has a video they recommend on whatever topic. Below are some links to websites where you can find good films. And don't forget your public library--great source for finding documentaries.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.teachertube.com/" target="_blank">teachertube.com</a> - Some of the problems with youtube (aside from some questionable copyright practices) is that you can have streaming issues, or you may be forced to show a few minutes of an ad that may or may not be appropriate. Teachertube.com solves this.</li>
<li><a href="http://history.com/video">history.com/video</a> - short ones, long ones, and everything in between. This is a good source for documentaries.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/" target="_blank">PBS</a> - this is the link to the site for teachers. From there, you can browse by subject, age, topic, etc.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.historyteacher.net/HistoryThroughFilm/FilmLinks.htm" target="_blank">historyteacher.net</a> - Has a list of topics in U.S. history and names of feature films that go with them. At the bottom of the page you can link to the world history site, if you want movies for world history.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.helpteaching.com/blog/use-movies-in-social-studies-classroom.html" target="_blank">How to use Hollywood movies in the social studies classroom</a> - a thoughtful post about using Hollywood movies judiciously in the social studies classroom. Plus the author William Campione includes a suggested list of full-feature films suitable for U.S. and World History.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.learningliftoff.com/best-american-history-movies/#.VXMLCGRVikp" target="_blank">learningliftoff.com</a> - This page has links to mostly feature films (but some documentaries and made-for-TV films) about American history organized by period. I note ruefully that the site recommends <i>Forrest Gump</i> under the topic Civil Rights. </li><li><a href="https://www.tolerance.org/podcasts/teaching-hard-history/american-slavery/film-and-the-history-of-slavery" target="_blank">Film & the History of Slavery</a> - a podcast from Teaching Tolerance's Hard History series.</li>
</ul>
Blogging about videos in the class has reminded me about the flipped classroom. That is one of the topics on my "things to look into over the summer," so stay tuned. But in the meantime, if you haven't already read about flipping the class, check out <a href="http://www.edudemic.com/guides/flipped-classrooms-guide/?utm_content=buffer849d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">Edudemic.com's Teacher's Guide to Flipped Classrooms</a> as a starting place. And to see the videos made by two of the best social studies "flippers" out there, check out:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL47F868B521713645" target="_blank">Hip Hughes video</a> - in his words, "these lectures are designed for broad based conceptual review for studying for eager middle school students, worried high school students and lost college Freshman." They range from 4 minutes to 35, but most are in the 5-10 minute range.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s" target="_blank">John Green: Crash Courses in U.S. History</a> - Green also has videos for world history, fyi. The ones I have seen are quite good overall, in that they are thorough, and historically accurate. The down side to them is that in the attempt to be short, they are DENSE with material and therefore really go too fast to be useful <i>in class,</i> unless you pause it every now and then<i>.</i> And they are better for high school than middle school. They are good for review.</li>
</ul>
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<br />Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-13958517098931360872015-06-01T20:20:00.001-05:002023-07-06T08:32:49.802-05:00How to End the Year...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">Making Sense out of the Seventies to the Present</span><br />
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Note: This post is dated--I wrote this a couple of weeks before Trump announced his first bid for the presidency. Now I'm fairly confident that this time period will get a name that references the era of division, but I will leave this to professional historians. And I will let them debate whether it will be the "long era" of division and start with 1968, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, or the "shorter" era starting with Reagan. And what it will end with is perhaps still in our future. I am not going to update the post below because I think it is still helpful for thinking about the post-Watergate era. So here is the original post:<div>
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I have at least 3 posts that I have started now and haven't published. I started them, and then did the digital equivalent of crumpling them up in a ball and tossing them in the wastebasket. Why, you ask? Because, like so many U.S. history teachers, I have trouble figuring out how and when to "end" U.S. history class.<br />
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The problem is not the literal "end" or last day of class. I have a lesson for that. (See <a href="https://ushistoryideas.blogspot.mx/search?q=last+day" target="_blank">this post</a>).<br />
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The problem is what do to about the period 1970ish through, well...through what exactly? The nineties? September 11, 2001? The second Gulf War? Obama's election?<br />
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And is this time period going to be covered in one unit? Or two...perhaps one unit focusing on domestic and one on foreign policy? And in either case, what would this unit or units be called?<br />
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That last question might seem like a rather silly one. Why should the name of the unit matter?<br />
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I would argue that it matters a great deal. Deciding on a <i>name</i> for a unit <i>makes</i> it a unit, with an overriding essential question as opposed to just one isolated lesson after another, emphasizing one historical fact after another. For example, most of us don't teach units called "the 1950s," followed by "the 1960s," right? Instead, we conceptualize events into units: usually, Cold War, Civil Rights and Vietnam. And whatever important events might have happened in 1854 or 1857 or 1860 <i>other </i>than Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott or Lincoln's election have long since taken a back seat to the impending Civil War. We don't teach "the 1850s." We teach about the events leading up to the Civil War <i>as a unit.</i><br />
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We do this because it helps our students make sense out of what is otherwise just one fact after another. We have to make choices so that history becomes meaningful. We have to teach themes and make connections.<br />
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So what choices do we make about the events that took place from the 1970s to the present? I'm going to take a cue from the "The Tyranny of Coverage," chapter one of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-What-Really-Happened-Multicultural/dp/0807749915" target="_blank">James Loewen's <i>Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks & Get Students Excited About Doing History</i> </a>and think about forests, trees, and twigs. (I have mentioned this chapter before--see <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-practical-problem-of-coverage-or.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/progressivism-continued-one-way-to-tame.html" target="_blank">here</a>--because it is such a good starting place for rethinking how one conceptualizes a unit and a whole course. Put it on your summer reading list!)<br />
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So I decided to make a list of topics from the period 1970 to the present that I consider to be pretty important--the kind of things you would hope a relatively educated person might know. These are the things Loewen describes as "trees." The "twigs" are the specific names, dates, places, etc. that make up the content of any particular topic or "tree." Below is my list of "trees" and in parentheses are some of the twigs, in order to clarify what the topic includes. Note that the list is in the order that I came up with things--it is <i>vaguely</i> chronological, and the only reason I am numbering the items is so I can refer to things in the discussion that follows the list. Ready? It's quite a list...<br />
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<ol>
<li>Watergate and the impact of Vietnam on the role of the presidency in particular, and the government in general.</li>
<li>Women's movement/2nd wave feminism (and role of sexual revolution, impact of the Pill, <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, the fate of the ERA, backlash-.e.g. Phyllis Schlafly)</li>
<li>Nixon and the rise of conservativism</li>
<li>expansion of civil rights - (Cesar Chavez, Latinos, gays & lesbians, AIM -American Indian Movement, consumer rights, Ralph Nader)</li>
<li>"backlash" against civil rights: affirmative action</li>
<li>energy crisis & environmentalism (e.g. oil, Carter, nuclear disasters--Chernobyl & 3 Mile Island)</li>
<li>U.S. and the Middle East - (Iran hostage crisis, Iran-Iraq war, impact of oil/energy crisis as backdrop to Middle East's importance to the U.S., Gulf War I and II, Saddam Hussein, war on terror, Sept. 11, Afghanistan)</li>
<li>Ronald Reagan and new conservatism - by the way, this was the topic for the DBQ on this year's AP U.S. History exam, "Explain the reasons why a new conservatism rose to prominence in the United States between 1960 and 1989." If you want to see the exact question and the documents that were used, click <a href="https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap15_frq_us_history.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and go to page 6. Anyone wondering if the inclusion of this question was to address some of the criticism earlier in the year by conservatives?!</li>
<li>Collapse of communism/end of Cold War and the reorientation of U.S. foreign policy. (Gorbechev, "glasnost," fall of Berlin wall & breakup of Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe, German reunification, changes in Eastern Europe that lead to war in Bosnia).</li>
<li>rise of partisan politics (Clinton's impeachment, election of 2000, government shutdowns, anti-government and Tea Party movements, Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, "Culture Wars")</li>
<li>changes in the U.S. economy (NAFTA, maquiladoras, the rise of shopping malls, then big box stores and then shift to online shopping, Walmart, shift to overseas manufacturing, government regulation and de-regulation, decline of middle class, changes in welfare, the "1%", globalization)</li>
<li>cultural shifts & policy issues - "3rd wave" feminism, changing demographic patterns due to increased immigration from Africa, Asia & Latin America; issues about race and diversity (Rodney King and OJ Simpson trial, cultural significance of Obama's election, "post-racial," Ferguson); drug wars & rise of prison population, the AIDS crisis</li>
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Whew! Quite a lot isn't it? I can imagine what you are thinking. Some of you, I hope, are congratulating yourselves because you already <i>do</i> teach about at least some of these things. Others of you are thinking, "You've got to be kidding me. I'm just glad I made it to _________ (fill in the blank)." Others of you are probably thinking that some of the things on this list make sense and others, well...not so much. Some are not appropriate for middle school, and may even make high school teachers raise an eyebrow (i.e. the Pill's impact on the sexual revolution). Some of these items may be more appropriate for an econ, government or sociology class (#11 and #12). And much of the material in #9 might be better suited for a world history course.<br />
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But whatever you think, DON'T for a minute think I'm suggesting that anyone should (or even could) cover all of them.<br />
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There is an over-arching problem with this list, apart from the question of coverage. For some of us, a lot of these items are "current events" not history. That has a significant effect on how we teach it. For more on that idea, see the now partially outdated chapter 9, "Down the Memory Hole: The Disappearance of the Recent Past" in Loewen's more famous book, <i>Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. </i>It's outdated because the book was first published in 1995. So the chapters about the "recent" past that Loewen's examines are chapters about Vietnam. (Though other topics are mentioned elsewhere in the book, e.g. he mentions the energy crises of the 1970s in the next chapter.) But in chapter 9, Loewen begins by making a distinction between the past and the recent past that are hard to describe in a single English word. So he employs two Kiswahili words, <i>sasha</i> and <i>zamani</i>. As Loewen describes it, z<i>amani </i>history would be the history of events for which there are no longer people alive that lived through them. He uses <i>sasha</i> to refer to history about more recent events, ones in which there are still plenty of folks around who lived through them. Under this "categorization" scheme, World War II still counts as <i>sasha</i> history, but I think the point is that the more recently an event occurred, the more challenging it is to teach about. And teaching about something is different if <i>you personally </i>lived through it.<br />
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It is also different for our students. The election of Obama in 2008, for example, is something even a current middle schooler may remember. But they will likely have a different sense of it. A seventh grader would have been about 6 years old or so in 2008. Being six is quite different from being sixteen in terms of what you remember and how you process something. <br />
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But I have digressed. Back to the list. The biggest problem I see with this list goes back to what I said at the beginning of the post. How do we divide this up into a meaningful unit or two (or three)? What is the forest (or forests) that we should help students see?<br />
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So this is what I might propose for the last few units of the year, following Vietnam. To be sure, there is likely too much. You will need to think about what makes sense for your students and edit appropriately.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">"The Rise of Conservatism and Partisan Politics"</span></b><br />
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This unit could make connections between items 3, 8 and 10 from my list above. It is then a nice segue into a "mini-unit" about race, gender & ethnicity. (I say "mini-unit," but really, there is enough material in items #2 and #12 above to create a rather large unit.) How to segue? Consider the so-called "culture wars" of the late 1980s and 90s that grew out of conflicts between social conservatives and liberals. Backlash against hippies, and the excesses of youth rebellion in the 1960s helped give voice to Nixon's "silent majority." And culturally, the 1980s under Reagan saw a swing towards conservativism. (Think about how much fun you could have with a lesson on how the fashion of the 1980s looked back to the "preppy" 1950s!)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">"Race, Gender & Ethnicity: 1970s to today(ish)"</span></b><br />
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I have never been comfortable about "squeezing in" the woman's movement at the end of my Civil Rights unit. I like the idea of separating it out. With Hillary Clinton the likely front-runner for the Democrats in 2016, you could start with something about that and then go backwards to women in the 1970s and then relate to current issues relating to gender inequality. Ironically, or sadly, or not-sure-what-adjective-to-use-here, there are still plenty of issues of gender inequality. <br />
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I think this "mini-unit" would also be a good place to discuss the changing racial/ethnic make up of the United States. For example, I did a <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/celebrating-50th-anniversary-of-another.html" target="_blank">recent post on the 1965 immigration act</a>, which was responsible for the dramatic change in immigration patterns during the last third of the 20th century. This is one of those topics that is so fundamentally significant, yet rarely taught in traditional U.S. history classes because it doesn't neatly "fit" anywhere. This might be a good place.<br />
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And if you haven't said much about Ferguson or Baltimore this year, then bringing the Civil Rights movement up to the present makes sense at the end of the year, too. Having a discussion about the extent to which the U.S. is "post-racial" could be a really interesting way to wind up the year. It would be an even stronger discussion if students examined evidence and read varying accounts that lend support to both sides of the argument.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">"The 'New World Order': The End of the Cold War and the New War on Terror"</span></b><br />
(If you wanted to be cute, you could call it "Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire," but I suppose the topic is a little too serious to be so flippant.) This unit would focus on the rise of the Middle East as the central focus of U.S. foreign policy. You could look at some (but not all) of the issues in topics 7 and 9 above. This is where I realize how difficult it is to teach "sasha" history. My own knowledge of this subject is shaped so much by living through it, rather than studying it. And then when I went to look for some online resources for this post, I realized how partisan many of the sources are. If you Google things like, "Middle East conflict," or "U.S. and the Middle East," so many of the websites are from think tanks or news organizations that present clearly biased points of view.<br />
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So perhaps that very point could be the source of a lesson. After all, all the sources we use in history class--primary and secondary--are "biased" in one way or another. Having a discussion with students about how the views of scholars on the Gulf Wars or Afghanistan or 9/11 will change over time could be quite interesting. But challenging too. One of my crumpled-up attempts at a blog post was just on this subject. Happily, I found someone else who did this job for me: check out <a href="http://www.juniorhistorians.com/home/unpacking-bin-ladens-1998-fatwa" target="_blank">JuniorHistorian.com's post on this topic</a>. Also, if you need some guidance for sources on the Middle East, there is a nice annotated list at <a href="http://besthistorysites.net/modern-history/middle-east-conflict/" target="_blank">edtechteacher's list of best of history sites.</a><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">And last but not least...</span></b><br />
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Just like you might insert a lesson on the changing economy of the U.S. in the 1950s somewhere between your units on World War II, the Cold War and Civil Rights, I might consider a mini-unit about <b>globalization and the changing economy</b> at the end of the year. While such a topic might be a good one to put <i>before </i>the "New World Order" unit, I like it at the very end because I think you do some interesting lessons that would really keep kids engaged during those lingering last days of school. For example, the recent issue of <i>Social Education</i> just arrived in my mailbox, and there is a lesson in it about child labor and consumerism. If you've never seen "The Story of Stuff," check it out at <a href="http://storyofstuff.org/">storyofstuff.org</a>. There is a 20 minute or so video (available on youtube) plus, teacher materials on the website, that could help you frame a few lessons. I like how this unit could tie in a few topics, #6 and #11, from my list above. A lot of students are naturally interested in shopping, consumer goods and the environment, and so this would be a high interest topic to end the year.<br />
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I hope this post gives you some things to think about over the summer. I think sometimes our last units of the year get "lost" and we don't spend enough time revising them. (I laugh to think about how every summer for my first few years of teaching I would read books on the American Revolution.) If you have read this far on this post, you likely the kind of educator who makes a list of things to work on over the summer. Might I suggest that refining your last unit(s) be one of them? To do that, you may also have to rethink what you do all year and whether or not you need to cut things from earlier in the year. Below are a few more resources to get you started. Whatever your summer plans include, may it be a good one! I will continue to blog over the summer, but likely on a more erratic schedule.<br />
<ul>
<li>Checkout this t<a href="http://teachinghistory.org/issues-and-research/roundtable/24659" target="_blank">eachinghistory.org round table</a> for a discussion about how different teachers organize their whole year. Useful fodder for summer revising. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=19&smtid=1" target="_blank">Digital History</a> has a whole section on the 1970-2000 period.</li>
<li>See Gilder Lehrman's links on <a href="http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/1945-present" target="_blank">recent history</a>.</li>
<li>Below are a few posts from the college-level blog, Teaching United States History, that I think might be useful for this task.</li>
<ul>
<li>Here is <a href="http://www.teachingushistory.co/2011/08/first-day-of-school-2.html" target="_blank">one</a> about beginning a course with a look at the present. It is a post from a college professor on teaching a class on the Civil War to the present. I keep re-reading it, because I feel there is something similarly cool we could do as middle or high school teachers, either at the beginning or end of the year. Not sure what. If you have an idea on how you could use this, let me know!</li>
<li><a href="http://www.teachingushistory.co/2015/04/how-the-present-imagines-the-past.html" target="_blank">"How the Present Imagines the Past"</a> is probably more useful for the beginning of the year in order to set up ways to get students to think about how history is "used" in the present. It is also written by and for college level educators, but I think the ideas presented could be adapted for middle and high school. This would be another thing to read over the summer and think about.</li>
<li>"T<a href="http://www.teachingushistory.co/2015/04/the-end-days-are-nigh-where-to-end-the-us-survey.html" target="_blank">he End Days are Nigh! Where to end the US Survey?</a>" - offers a college professor's take on the question posed by this post, along with an interesting idea about asking students what <i>they</i> think about the role of history classes/teachers in teaching the recent past.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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I'd be interested in what others have to say about how to end the year. Please share!</div>
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<br /></div>Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-65755698264240378922015-05-19T19:08:00.001-05:002016-03-18T18:32:52.036-05:00Another great resource for teachers. . . and more on Vietnam<span style="font-weight: normal;">(To go straight to the Vietnam resources, scroll down to the images.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">My first guest post for the "Future of History" blog was posted yesterday on MiddleWeb.com! You can read it <a href="http://www.middleweb.com/22667/3-ideas-to-better-prepare-history-students/" target="_blank">here</a>. I will be writing more for them in the future, so check it out. And lest you think it is only useful for middle school teachers, think again. In fact, the whole point of my post is that we need more dialogue between middle school and high school teachers, not to mention our colleagues in K-5.</span><br />
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But you should also check out the other resources and links on MiddleWeb.<br />
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Here are a few recent posts I have really liked:<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.middleweb.com/22376/my-flipped-history-classroom-year-two/" target="_blank">My Flipped History Classroom Year Two</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.middleweb.com/21968/teaching-ms-history-themes-or-timelines/" target="_blank">Teaching history with themes or timelines</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.middleweb.com/category/workingdraft/understanding-race/" target="_blank">When Race Enters the Classroom Conversation</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.middleweb.com/22417/help-students-close-read-iconic-news-images/" target="_blank">Help Students Close Read Iconic Images</a> - try the technique with the image below of Kent State. (And more on considering Kent State in light of current events, see <a href="http://www.juniorhistorians.com/home/remembering-the-kent-state-shootings" target="_blank">this post from Junior Historians.com</a>.)</li>
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I also promised in my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/vietnam.html" target="_blank">last post on Vietnam</a> that I would offer some additional resources for teachers. Rather than do a separate post on this, I will just link to them below.<br />
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A few of my resources:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/173s6Gi2aYY7ueN1_QI7XNMdd3h4XmdDSQyvscfAt6Oc/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Timeline activity</a> - I created this last year for 8th graders, but this would work well in high school, too. Titled, "Solve the Mystery," it is designed to provide background information on how the U.S. got involved in Vietnam in an interactive, student-centered way that also teaches cause and effect. It works best if students have computers, but it can easily be used the old-fashioned way, too. It also works best if students are told which event comes first and last, but high schoolers can probably make do with a hint that the first event dates back to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/ww1/ho-chi-minh" target="_blank">World War I</a>. This lesson is also designed to help students put Vietnam in a broader context and understand it as a conflict with old roots. You could go back even further than World War I, but that gets more complicated than I thought was necessary. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LsGjPqaD38DNJrz_pyCqMBdZsFgDmRGXQZLnJZAGNZs/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Philosophical discussion questions</a> - I originally used these as part of an online discussion. If you use them that way, you may want to make the questions much briefer, so you allow your students more opportunity to come up with the "big ideas" implicit in these questions. But I am including the "full" question so you can adjust as you like. They would also make great in-class discussions. Also, check out the essential questions I mentioned towards the end of my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/vietnam.html" target="_blank">last post</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wD0csts1DvS-qsc_CCDc94ENYSec28Ci8P0FhcL2A00/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Vietnam DBQ with a twist</a> - this is designed for high school students. The "twist" is that students have to come up with their own question. If you teach middle school, you would want to adapt the sources and adjust the coming-up-with-your-own question part. I think middle school students can absolutely do that, but not unless you've done it before as a class. (A big shout-out to my former colleagues for this one, as it was a group effort.</li>
</ul>
Other resources:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://thevietnamwar.info/" target="_blank">thevietnamwar.info</a> - this is one incredible website on many aspects of the Vietnam War. It appears to be put together by amateur historians. It's not easy to find out who is behind it. But it also appears to be a highly credible source, with lots of links to additional resources.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/vietnam-photos/" target="_blank">National Archives documents and lessons</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>this youtube video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xLOwu-anQA" target="_blank">Chu Chi tunnels</a> (1:30) is a great way to show students what the tunnels that the VietCong used were like.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://zinnedproject.org/materials/teaching-vietnam-war/" target="_blank">Teaching the Vietnam War: Beyond the Headlines</a> - from the Zinn Education Project</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=18&smtID=1" target="_blank">Digital History</a> - for background info, articles for students, and a handy list of films about the war along with film clips.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>If you're looking for resources on veterans, check out the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets//" target="_blank">Veterans History Project</a> from the Library of Congress. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.asian-nation.org/vietnam-war.shtml" target="_blank">Asian-Nation.org</a> - this website is by a sociologist, who happens to be Vietnamese. The whole website is full of useful information about Asian Americans. The link I have given is to the section on the Vietnam War, but look at the other tabs under "Viet Nam" because he also has information about the country, earlier history and current issues. For example you can look <a href="http://www.asian-nation.org/vietnamese.shtml" target="_blank">here</a> for info about Vietnamese Americans or here to learn more about <a href="http://www.asian-nation.org/tet.shtml" target="_blank">Tet</a>, the Vietnamese New Year, so your students don't only associate it with the Tet Offensive.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Check out the websites of the presidential libraries of <a href="http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/" target="_blank">Eisenhower</a>, <a href="http://www.jfklibrary.org/" target="_blank">Kennedy</a>, <a href="http://www.lbjlibrary.org/" target="_blank">Johnson</a> and <a href="http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/index.php" target="_blank">Nixon.</a> All four have tabs just for teachers/education. Additionally, the <a href="http://millercenter.org/" target="_blank">Miller Center</a> offers a rich collection of resources about presidents and Vietnam (useful for topics other than Vietnam, too, fyi.) Last year, I did step 2 and 3 from <a href="http://www.jfklibrary.org/~/media/assets/Education%20and%20Public%20Programs/Education/Lesson%20Plans/Vietnam%20Lesson%20Plan.pdf" target="_blank">this lesson</a> off the JFK library website. If you scroll to the end of that document, you will find two really great letters to use with students. One is from a woman who lost her brother in Vietnam, writing to Kennedy. The second is Kennedy's <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fyK8Xad7hx42ASEdnWhP5X-KWkTRLqPiAFzkYVhiQlo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">reply</a>. See <a href="http://www.juniorhistorians.com/lbj-document-1/april-1965-speech" target="_blank">JuniorHistorian's edit of LBJ's "Peace without Conquest" speech of April 1965</a> (50 years ago last month!) along with some good questions for students.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>I have used excerpts from the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/" target="_blank">PBS series, </a><i><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/" target="_blank">Vietnam: A Television History</a>. </i>In particular, I like the episode, "America Takes Charge, 1965-1967" which discusses escalation and "Homefront USA" that discusses the antiwar movement in response to increasing casualties in Vietnam.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>See <a href="http://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/Lessons/Unit%2012_Cold%20War%20Culture%20and%20Civil%20Rights/Anti-Vietnam%20War%20Movement%20Lesson%20Plan.pdf" target="_blank">this lesson on the antiwar movement</a> from SHEG (Stanford History Education Group). It includes Martin Luther King's speech, "Beyond Vietnam."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>JuniorHistorian.com has a cool lesson on the <a href="http://www.juniorhistorians.com/1968-election" target="_blank">election of 1968</a>, the contentious election that occurred at the height of the anti-war movement.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>recent article from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opinion/will-the-vietnam-war-ever-go-away.html?_r=0" target="_blank">former talk show host Dick Cavett</a>, looking back at the Vietnam War. This is for teachers because it's too long and includes too many references students won't understand. He wrote it regarding his <a href="http://www.pbs.org/dick-cavett/vietnam/" target="_blank">recently aired program</a> on Vietnam, which I unfortunately missed.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>And last but least, no unit on the Vietnam War is complete without reference to some of the music that, in a way, became a "soundtrack" of the period. Students are often familiar with some of these songs but often have no clue as to their historic significance. <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/sixties/essays/protest-music-1960s" target="_blank">This essay</a> from the Gilder Lehrman Institute provides useful background for the teacher. A quick search on youtube and Google produced a gazillion lists of Vietnam War era music, playlists, etc. I leave it to you to decide which ones to use, as if I start going on all these links I will never finish this post. There are so many that is hard for me to choose. I like to use "Fortunate Son," "War," "Eve of Destruction," and Jimi Hendrix's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. But I could go on and on...</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-21047724010060847742015-05-17T09:14:00.000-05:002018-05-22T18:16:34.007-05:00VietnamI didn't study anything about the war in Vietnam until college. Like all too many American students, my high school history education stopped abruptly with V-J day.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But my first exposure to Vietnam was in middle school, when part way through the school year, we got a new student in class. Our teachers introduced him and explained that he was from Vietnam. We didn't know where that was, and he couldn't tell us much, because he didn't speak much English. Despite his poor grasp of English, he seemed to understand all too clearly that at least some kids made fun of his odd-sounding foreign name and funny accent. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One day his mother came to class as a guest speaker. She spoke English just fine. And she told us about the family's harrowing experiences escaping from Vietnam after the war, and their eventual journey to the United States. I remember watching some of my classmates--the ones who had teased this boy--squirming uncomfortably in their seats.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I7h7UtkYQgE/VVYQwCUSBvI/AAAAAAAABFU/HKPUk1vIrCw/s1600/imgres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I7h7UtkYQgE/VVYQwCUSBvI/AAAAAAAABFU/HKPUk1vIrCw/s1600/imgres.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://hti.osu.edu/opper/lesson-plans/cold-war-conflict-in-vietnam-the-vietnam-era-presidency/images/johnsons-scar" target="_blank">Political cartoon by David Levine.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Vietnam War is like that. It makes us squirm in our seats. Not only is it a story without a happy ending, it has left more than just the scar on Johnson's presidency, as depicted in the famous cartoon on the left. Not even counting--for a moment--the actual casualties of the war, this conflict that lasted over twenty-five years was responsible for an increasing skepticism and cynicism about U.S. foreign policy, distrust of the government in general, and the presidency in particular, from which we have yet to recover. <br />
<br />
Funny that the seventies is known the "Me" decade, isn't it? When we think about the Vietnam War that ended in the 1970s, it's all "US, US, US"--pun intended. Our study of the conflict is very much from the American perspective.<br />
<br />
That makes some sense. We are, after all, American and teaching American history. But widening our perspective might not be a bad thing to do. For starters, students are often surprised to know that in Vietnam, the conflict is referred to as the "American War."<br />
<br />
Try this experiment with your students: have them search on Google the term "Vietnam War Casualties." Of the nine sites that showed up on the first page of Google results when I tried this, only three (Wikipedia was one) included Vietnamese casualties. Or even before that, try Googling "Vietnam." If you do a search on any other country, you will get news, tourist information and the like. You will get that if you enter "Vietnam," too, but you will also a few sites just about the war. That is not true of any other place on earth. Only googling "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" come close.<br />
<br />
So I think before we teach anything about Vietnam, we might want to point out this American, war-centric perspective. And share the casualties. From <a href="http://thevietnamwar.info/how-many-people-died-in-the-vietnam-war/" target="_blank">both sides</a>. (Note: this link is a great resource for all things Vietnam War related.)<br />
<br />
A few years ago, I stumbled across the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Lessons-Textbooks-Around-Portray/dp/1595580824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426871134&sr=8-1&keywords=history+lessons+how+textbooks+from+around+the+world" target="_blank">History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History</a> which I mentioned in an <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-annexation-of-philippines.html" target="_blank">earlier post about the Annexation of the Philippines</a>. There is a chapter on Vietnam that includes excerpts from textbooks from Vietnam, France and Canada. For an excellent online source about the Vietnamese perspective, see <a href="http://thevietnamwar.info/vietnam-war-taught-vietnam/" target="_blank">this page</a>. It's well worth reading the whole thing, but then scroll down to the part where it mentions the overall key points that are taught in Vietnam. I have excerpted the first point below:<br />
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<div style="background-color: #f2f2f2; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 1rem;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: 'Archivo Narrow', sans-serif; font-size: 1.3rem;">It was a war against American invasion</strong></blockquote>
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<div style="background-color: #f2f2f2; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 1rem;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In Vietnam, the war is called as the “Resistance War Against the United States (to protect the country)” (chien tranh chong My cuu nuoc). It is always taught that the U.S. was another colonist power and imperialist just like the French and that Vietnam is not a civil war but instead a war against American invasion.</blockquote>
</div>
This is an important concept for students to grasp and worth introducing at the beginning of your unit. It is complex, and you would probably want to revisit this interpretation as you go through the unit. But it speaks volumes about how differently both sides saw the war. We need to consider the Vietnam War from these different perspectives. Was it a proxy war, a civil war between North and South Vietnam, a colonial war of resistance, an effort to stop the spread of communism? That depends on what side one was on, and there were more than two. (I can feel a new idea for a lesson coming on...."Read each of the quotations below. Which perspective from this list best describes the author's understanding of the war?")<br />
<br />
In my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/another-great-resource-for-teachers-and.html" target="_blank">next post</a> I will share a few lesson materials on Vietnam, but in the meantime, I will conclude with a few basic points that I think students need up front before they can start critically examining the period.<br />
<br />
1. Where is Vietnam? Make sure students can find it on a map. Understanding that it was a nation few Americans could find on a map when we first became involved is key, too. Understanding Vietnam's location in relation to China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines is worthwhile, too.<br />
<br />
2. War was never declared, so why do we call it a war? Remind them: only Congress has the power to declare war, as stated in Article I, section 8, clause 11. You could have a whole lesson on this, and later in your unit students will likely encounter the War Powers Resolution of 1973. But I like to at least mention this at the outset and remind them that the precedent had been set in Korea.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZGDSMv1q8k/VVfAl5tCf9I/AAAAAAAABGY/k-OY7o9rJZI/s1600/Detail-from-Anti-government-flyer--300x175.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZGDSMv1q8k/VVfAl5tCf9I/AAAAAAAABGY/k-OY7o9rJZI/s1600/Detail-from-Anti-government-flyer--300x175.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">1975 Political Cartoon - this particular copy of this cartoon, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">coincidentally, </span><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">is the <a href="http://nationalreport.net/obamas-anti-government-leaflet-set-for-display-presidential-library/" target="_blank">copy owned by President Obama</a> that </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">will be displayed in </span><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">the Obama library. </span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
3. Vietnam was America's longest war. Students associate Vietnam with the sixties. Understandably. But make sure they know that while the U.S. first sends troops in 1965 and "advisers" before that, the roots of the conflict in Vietnam begin much earlier. Vietnam was a matter of discussion by Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. And <a href="http://online.wsj.com/ww1/ho-chi-minh" target="_blank">Ho Chi Minh was at Versailles back in 1919</a> trying to get an audience with Woodrow Wilson. (FYI, the link is to a the Wall Street Journal's commemoration of World War I. Bookmark this site for your World War I unit--wish I had known about it sooner!) Just like the Civil Rights movement doesn't begin overnight with <i>Brown v. Board, </i>the Vietnam War doesn't start with Kennedy or Johnson.<br />
<br />
4. I also like to set up the unit by introducing a few overall, essential questions raised by U.S. involvement in Vietnam. There are many, but the three I like to focus on throughout the unit are below. They are <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/vietnam/1991-12-01/america-and-vietnam-unending-war" target="_blank">adapted from historian George C. Herring</a>. I post them up on the board and refer back to them as we go.<br />
<ul>
<li> Why such a huge commitment in an area of so little apparent importance? In other words, why did we get involved in Vietnam in the first place? Why did we continue?</li>
<li>Why, despite an enormous military arsenal and spending $150 billion, did the world's most powerful nation still fail to accomplish its objectives?</li>
<li>What were the long term consequences of this failed foreign policy for the U.S. government? for public confidence? for later foreign policy? For good measure, either to introduce the unit or conclude it, you could introduce the concept of the Vietnam Syndrome. The cartoon below is useful for that, though pretty challenging. There is a lot of background knowledge students would need to understand it. An easier one, and one of my personal favorites, you can see <a href="https://www.cagle.com/daryl-cagle/2003/03/is-it-vietnam-yet#.WwSjy9Mvy7w" target="_blank">here</a>. It's by cartoonist Daryl Cagle and dates from March 2003. This is a theme to develop further when you get to the Gulf Wars and --if you make it!--to the present day.</li>
</ul>
There are a few other good cartoons and a thought-provoking article about Iraq replacing Vietnam in our national psyche which you can see in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-lam/iraq-replaces-vietnam-as_b_5527098.html" target="_blank">this article from the Huffington Post.</a><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t236dRlEbRw/VVZ2-B5iLJI/AAAAAAAABFk/tiDQjvqFp50/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t236dRlEbRw/VVZ2-B5iLJI/AAAAAAAABFk/tiDQjvqFp50/s400/images.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Cartoon above found <a href="https://quintessentialruminations.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/the-old-lie-%E2%80%93-dulce-et-decorum-est-pro-patria-mori/" target="_blank">here.</a> </div>
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</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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For more on Vietnam see my next post which includes a few things of mine and links to some other great resources. Find that <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/another-great-resource-for-teachers-and.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-12270366855332720212015-05-13T18:38:00.004-05:002021-08-13T13:51:40.692-05:00Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Another Famous Act of 1965:<h2>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Immigration Since 1965</span></h2>
<br />
There has been a lot of attention this year to the 50th anniversary of Selma and the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But there is another law that was passed in October of that year that garners little attention in history classes. Yet it had a profound effect on American society.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--6wi7DZyels/VVPca_A-37I/AAAAAAAABEE/BPmQLbpKF88/s1600/imgres.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--6wi7DZyels/VVPca_A-37I/AAAAAAAABEE/BPmQLbpKF88/s320/imgres.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">President Johnson signing the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act <br />
on Liberty Island in New York City.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As I have said <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-method-for-how-to-plan-unit-using.html" target="_blank">over</a> and <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/11/seneca-falls-womens-movement-and-tying.html" target="_blank">over</a> <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/second-semester-importance-of-good.html" target="_blank">again</a> on this blog, we cannot teach everything and we have to cut content often to avoid our class becoming a laundry list of one battle, one piece of legislation or one presidential election after another.<br />
<br />
But the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, is the foundation for the mosaic of ethnic and racial diversity in the United States today.<br />
<br />
As I looked out at the faces of my students last spring--nearly half had parents or grandparents from the Middle East and South Asia-- I realized how important it is to teach about this piece of legislation that is usually forgotten in the curriculum. Depending on where you teach, you might also have many students who would not be in your class were it not for this law, as it led to a dramatic increase in the numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S. from Latin American and Asia in particular. Most of teach about the dramatic increase in immigration during the period 1880-1920. Common sense would suggest we should teach about 1965, too, no matter what the ethnic background is of our students.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/history-one-of-humanities.html" target="_blank">A few posts ago</a></span>, I discussed the importance of including art, literature and music in our history course. But we also need to include basic sociological and geographic data. For example, check out the pie charts below:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E-KQgHv3AtQ/VVOujze7HbI/AAAAAAAABDw/GBzI4-KKgkM/s1600/piechart-PN.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="350" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E-KQgHv3AtQ/VVOujze7HbI/AAAAAAAABDw/GBzI4-KKgkM/s640/piechart-PN.gif" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Image above from <a href="http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/immigration_data/periods-and-region.htm" target="_blank">teacher.scholastic.com</a>. Click on link for additional numeric data on immigration and questions teachers can use with students to analyze the data. And check out <a href="https://www.docsteach.org/activities/student/us-immigration-quotas" target="_blank">this document</a> with teaching ideas.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
You may have introduced students to the <a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1116" target="_blank">1921 and 1924 immigration acts</a> which preceded this law, if you spend any time discussing nativism, either in your unit on late 19th century immigration or when you got to the 1920s. But if not, you should <a href="https://reimaginingmigration.org/the-1924-immigration-act/" target="_blank">introduce students to that legislation</a>. No need to get into the nitty gritty details, but they need to understand what the old quota system was. I touched on this briefly in an <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/immigration-today-immigration-then.html" target="_blank">earlier post</a>. And <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5078" target="_blank">see here</a> for a handy table showing the quotas (the rest of the lesson has some good stuff, too!)<br />
<br />
When researching for this post, I learned 3 really interesting things I did not know about the 1965 act (one of the many reasons I love doing this blog):<br />
<ol>
<li>Prior to 1965, 70 percent of all immigrants to the U.S. came from just three countries!! Can you guess? The answer is at the end of this post.</li>
<li>If you read the <a href="http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/651003.asp" target="_blank">end of Johnson's speech</a> about the law's passage, you will see that he concludes with an appeal to Cubans seeking asylum in the United States. He asks Congress for $12.6 million to do it. More on Cuban immigration <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/castro-cuban-exiles-america/" target="_blank">here</a>. </li>
<li>Surprisingly, nobody in the government thought that the law would dramatically change the composition of U.S. immigrants! Obviously, if you look at the graphs above and link to the additional ones, a lot of people were wrong. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, for example, commented on the possibilities of large numbers emigrating from India:</li>
</ol>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The present estimate, based upon the best information we can get, is that there might be, say, 8,000 immigrants from India in the next five years ... I don't think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the United States ... There is not a general move toward the United States.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Boy, was he wrong! According to the <a href="http://cis.org/1965ImmigrationAct-MassImmigration" target="_blank">Center for Immigration Studies article</a> where I found the above quotation, there were nearly 28,000 immigrants from India in the next five years--more than 3 times what Rusk had predicted. It would be interesting to discuss with students how such incorrect predictions (and the not-so-subtle racism that motivated the assurances) allowed an otherwise unpopular measure to pass. Read or listen to more on that in <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5391395" target="_blank">this story from National Public Radio</a>.</blockquote>
Additional resources on the law itself:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/timeline/lbj-on-immigration" target="_blank">Lyndon B. Johnson's speech at the signing</a>- text of full speech</li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1boHrWSUi-U_LpIlq9sJbqkFn6RIpY0whtOeqJe1maWo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">my edited version of the speech</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=100" target="_blank">Actual text of the law</a> - can't imagine using with students, but fyi</li>
<li><a href="https://cis.org/Report/Legacy-1965-Immigration-Act" target="_blank">Three Decades of Mass Immigration: The Legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act</a> - This article, was published on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the bill by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a non-partisan research organization. It offers good background for teachers. You can also find other data and articles from the Center <a href="http://cis.org/" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/browse/type/Teaching+Activity/show/1500?page=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle" target="_blank">Lesson Plan from CUNY</a> - good materials here (including a chart with questions that can be used with students, some political cartoons, and quotations from politicians about the law) that are adaptable for your students.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Additional resources about immigration in general & statistical data:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/fact-sheets" target="_blank">Migration Policy Institute</a> - all kinds of articles, fact sheets, and statistics on contemporary immigration</li>
<li>If you've never been to the <a href="http://www.census.gov/en.html" target="_blank">U.S. Census website</a>, it is time! There is so much stuff on this website, it's hard to know where to begin, so check out these <a href="http://www.census.gov/library/infographics.html" target="_blank">infographics</a> for starters. (Just 'cuz I think they're pretty cool.) But if you're here for the immigration info, start <a href="http://www.census.gov/population/intmigration/" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>Google things like "immigration statistics," "immigration demographics" and include the name of your state, region or city and you will find information specific to your community. Also check out this <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/state-immigration-data-profiles" target="_blank">interactive map</a>.</li><li><a href="https://reimaginingmigration.org/the-1924-immigration-act/" target="_blank">ReImagining Migration lesson plan on 1924 law</a> (see elsewhere on this site, too)</li>
</ul>
Additional resources about Latino Americans, Asian Americans and immigration from Africa:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.asian-nation.org/1965-immigration-act.shtml" target="_blank">Article on impact of 1965 law on Asian Americans</a> - This website seems to an excellent resource if you are looking for more information about Asian Americans in general. Written by C.N. Le, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, there are articles about demographics, different Asian American groups from Bangledshis to Hmong to Vietnamese, and lots more. This happens to be Asian Pacific American History Month, so if you are interested in that, <a href="http://www.asiasociety.org/" target="_blank">AsiaSociety.org</a> is another useful resource. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/education/" target="_blank">PBS.org Lesson plans on Latino Americans</a> - I haven't had a chance to look through any of these, but I figured I'd include the link anyway. One of the things on my summer to-do list is to watch at least some of the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/about/" target="_blank">6 hour PBS series on Latino Americans</a>, so I'm not just including Latinos in the curriculum in 1965!</li>
<li>Overview essay: "<a href="http://www.nps.gov/history/heritageinitiatives/latino/latinothemestudy/pdfs/Immigration_web_final.pdf" target="_blank">An Historic Overview of Latino Immigration and the Demographic Transformation of the United States"</a> by University of California-San Diego historian David Gutierrez. (Page 6 is where the post-1965 info begins.)</li>
<li>I found the above essay from the National Park Service website, of all places. Click here for info about the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/history/heritageinitiatives/latino/latinothemestudy/index.htm" target="_blank">NPS American Latino Theme Study</a>. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/african_immigrants_in_america_a_demographic_overview.pdf">Immigration from Africa</a></li>
<li><a href="http://cis.org/central-american-immigrants-us" target="_blank">Facts on Central American Immigration</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Answer</b> to point #1 above: 70% of immigrants to the U.S. came from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. Did you guess right?<br />
<br /><br />Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-82205245915404937792015-05-09T13:20:00.003-05:002020-06-18T07:44:12.560-05:00The Top 8 Mistakes Teachers Make When Teaching the Modern Civil Rights Era<h2>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">And a Few Suggestions on How to Fix Them</span></h2>
I am a little concerned that I am biting off more than I can chew with this post, but I feel compelled to address these issues, as I see them often--not just in classrooms that I visit, or stories I hear from kids about what they have learned in their classes, but even in the mainstream media and among adults. And I see some of these problems even as I look through my own class materials on this unit. So the problems are something I, too, have been working to address.<br />
<br />
Jaquelyn Dowd Hall, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote an influential essay in 2005 in <i>The Journal of American History.</i> It is available on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3660172?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Jstor</a>, though you can get the sense of her argument from the second paragraph which I quote below:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Centering on what Bayard Rustin in 1965 called the “classical” phase of the struggle, the dominant narrative chronicles a short civil rights movement that begins with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, proceeds through public protests, and culminates with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Then comes the decline. After a season of moral clarity, the country is beset by the Vietnam War, urban riots, and reaction against the excesses of the late 1960s and the 1970s, understood variously as student rebellion, black militancy, feminism, busing, affirmative action, or an overweening welfare state. A so-called white backlash sets the stage for the conservative interregnum that, for good or ill, depending on one’s ideological persuasion, marks the beginning of another story, the story that surrounds us now.</i></blockquote>
This is the narrative that many of us teach. And it is not completely wrong. But it is "a" narrative. And, like any narrative, it leaves things out. It hides the nuances and the complications. So I'm going to try to highlight at least 8 of them. (For more on the historiography, you read this brief article by historian <a href="http://www.robmacdougall.org/4301/4301-16-Arnesen.pdf" target="_blank">Eric Arnesen, "Reconsidering the Long Civil Rights Movement."</a>)<br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mistake #1: Teaching that the Civil Rights Movement Begins in the 1950s</span></h2>
The narrative highlighted above by Hall could not have happened out of the blue. We know this. We are supposed to be teaching cause and effect. So what <i>caused</i> the events of the 1950s--the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and the Brown decision? If you teach about <i>Brown v. Board,</i> you have to review <i>Plessy v. Ferguson. </i>If students studied that as part of an earlier unit on Reconstruction or the post-Reconstruction period, then you will likely need to review.<br />
<br />
But the bigger issue is presenting the start of the movement when Rosa Parks was too tired to move to the back of the bus (more on Parks in mistake #2). The best "fix" for this problem I have seen is a lesson by Bruce Lesh described in his fantastic book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Wont-Just-Tell-Answer/dp/1571108122" target="_blank">Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer</a>. </i><br />
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<i><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3m9D_3y6EVo/VUy7gtp3oWI/AAAAAAAAA-s/XTeTv-R1FiA/s1600/imgres-3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3m9D_3y6EVo/VUy7gtp3oWI/AAAAAAAAA-s/XTeTv-R1FiA/s1600/imgres-3.jpg" /></a></i></div>
The lesson he describes in chapter 7, "Using the Civil Rights Movement to Teach Historical Significance" is worth the price of the book (and is where I was introduced to the Hall essay I mentioned above). In it, he first asks students to consider what makes something significant. By showing images--some really famous, like the ones on the left and others that are less so like the one below. Students were instructed to pick one or two they thought were most associated with African American civil rights. Then you discuss the criteria they used to decide whether something is historically significant or not. Why is it that the rise of the black power movement in the mid-1960s is not as clearly fixed in our minds as a key moment of the civil rights movement as Rosa Parks on the bus? Having students reflect on that is a powerful way to get them to think about history in general and how we choose which stories become a part of our "national story." Lesh's book offers a more complete discussion of how to go about this, so I urge you to check it out<span style="background-color: white;">. Click <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-LsdzAszKLaIbjHp6dHbXQsIQPodd7TC1_VZHPZy8yE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a> for the slides I created to go with this lesson, though of course you could create your own.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Following the phase above, students examine a list of key events connected to African American civil rights dating back to the first decade of the 20th century and use the information to complete a chart. I know--I have criticized the use of such things in earlier posts, but this is different. Because you have to let them know the purpose of the chart. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uPQ8zVSO-iE/VUy-w9Ov29I/AAAAAAAAA-4/vELRM1DEIew/s1600/imgres-2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uPQ8zVSO-iE/VUy-w9Ov29I/AAAAAAAAA-4/vELRM1DEIew/s1600/imgres-2.jpg" /></a></div>
They will NOT have to memorize
ANY of this, so they don’t need lots of detail on the chart. The idea is to get
a general idea of all the things that happened involving Civil Rights in the
period <span style="text-align: center;"><i>before</i></span><span style="text-align: center;"> Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, which is when most
history books start talking about the Civil Rights Movement. Then they apply the criteria you developed in the first part of the lesson when looking at the pictures to decide which </span><i style="text-align: center;">time period</i><span style="text-align: center;"> could best be described as "the birth" of the Civil Rights movement. </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PGtQiRVEWvtnKR5OuqUd88m9I0Q0SSXYRf-iYVi0ogg/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">here's the chart I used</a><span style="text-align: center;"> (Lesh has a reproducible one in his book that is longer. I designed mine to be more appropriate for my 8th graders, though it is also usable for high school. There's more to the lesson than that, but that is the main idea. Again, check out Lesh's book. </span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: center;">And also keep in mind that if you have taught some African African history all along, you are better equipped to avoid the mistake of relegating civil rights to only the 1950s and 1960s. (See my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015_02_01_archive.html" target="_blank">earlier post on Blacks and the Progressive Era.</a>)</span><br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mistake #2: Overemphasizing the Role of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King</span></h2>
<div>
We have done a very good job of teaching about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. So good that when students were asked in a series of studies who are the most famous Americans <i>other</i> than presidents, of the thousands of names that students listed, King and Parks showed up on a quarter of all lists. (Check out this <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003172170808900907" target="_blank">this article by Sam Wineburg and Chauncey Monte-Sano</a>.) But a Civil Rights movement with <i>only</i> Parks and King is a woefully incomplete one. Ava DuVernay, the director of the recent film, <i>Selma,</i> described her focus for the film, "My interest was showing people on the ground in Selma. The band of brothers and sisters who were around King." (quoted <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/ava-duvernay-on-the-long-road-to-selma.html" target="_blank">here</a>). Her point is well-taken (Though oddly, I'd argue that the film doesn't do that nearly as well as focusing on King. See the segment, "The Man or the Movement?" in the podcast, <a href="http://backstoryradio.org/shows/awards-2015/" target="_blank">BackStory: Pop History</a> for a similar view from the historian Brian Balogh.) </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are plenty of other famous and non-famous folks who made the movement happen. Try this game with fellow history teachers: have them guess who was on the cover of TIME magazine on August 30, 1963 with the banner, "The Negro Revolution to Date." Click <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601630830,00.html" target="_blank">here</a> for the answer. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Surprising isn't it?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Few of our students know about <a href="http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/claudette-colvin/" target="_blank">Claudette Colvin</a>, the 15 year old girl who first refused to move to the back of the bus. Focusing on young people can send a powerful message to our students about their ability to effect change. The documentary, <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/kit/mighty-times-childrens-march" target="_blank"><i>Mighty Times: The Children's March</i>,</a> is a good example of this, that works well with students (and is about 40 minutes--good timing.) There is also a wonderful book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Children-Rights-Activists-Stories/dp/0698118707" target="_blank">Freedom's Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories</a></i>, by Ellen Levine that I have used successfully. The excerpt by Ernest Green of the Little Rock Nine works especially well to read aloud to middle or high schoolers. Another useful collection of oral histories is <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Freedom-History-Movement-Through/dp/0553352326" target="_blank">Voices of Freedom</a></i> by Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer. You can also find online collections of oral histories from the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/" target="_blank">Library of Congress</a>, <a href="http://www.crmvet.org/index.htm" target="_blank">Civil Rights Movement Veterans</a>, <a href="http://sohp.org/research/the-long-civil-rights-movement-initiative/" target="_blank">The Southern Oral History Program</a>, just to name a few.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mistake #3: Over-simplifying Martin Luther King</span></h2>
</div>
<div>
When elementary school students listen to the same part of King's "I Have a Dream" speech every year on Martin Luther King Day, it is no wonder that their understanding of King is so narrow. To quote Jacquelyn Dowd Hall again,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background: white;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">Martin Luther King Jr. is this narrative’s
defining figure—frozen in 1963, pro-</span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">claiming “I have a dream” during the march on
the Mall. Endlessly reproduced and </span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">selectively quoted, his speeches retain their
majesty yet lose their political bite. We </span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">hear little of the King who believed that “the
racial issue that we confront in America </span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">is not a sectional but a national problem” and
who attacked segregation in the urban</span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">North. Erased altogether is the King who opposed
the Vietnam War and linked racism</span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;"> at home to militarism and imperialism
abroad. Gone is King the democratic </span><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">socialist who advocated unionization, planned
the Poor People’s Campaign, and was </span>assassinated in 1968 while supporting a sanitation workers’ strike</i></blockquote>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5hSdNrRTFos/VU135oPOoBI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/OpbEyaYx8Ds/s1600/imgres.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5hSdNrRTFos/VU135oPOoBI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/OpbEyaYx8Ds/s1600/imgres.jpg" /></a></div>
I can think of no better resource to help remedy this mistake than <a href="http://backstoryradio.org/shows/fierce-urgency-of-now/" target="_blank">"The Fierce Urgency of Now" podcast from the 3 historians at Backstory.org</a>. You can listen to the podcast, or read through the transcript from the website. It offers a lot of insight into the March that will change how you and your students think about it. And they offer some excellent additional resources if you need more. Students should understand what the march was supposed to be about and that other folks were there besides King and the masses (show 'em the TIME magazine cover). If you like, you can have students read all or some of the famous <a href="http://www.joachimprinz.com/civilrights.htm" target="_blank">speech by Rabbi Joachim Prinz</a> that was delivered just before King's speech. But most importantly students should know that the "I have a dream" speech has more in it than just the "I have a dream part" they hear year after year. Have students read the <i>first</i> half of the speech!<br />
<br />
And then you have to make sure that read more of King than <i>just this speech.</i> King's letter from a Birmingham jail is a classic source for good reason. Here are <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fAHKkuTZvEUZp710hCAwOxm1LGH8PfbU0XO9899aGUE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">excerpts from that letter with questions</a> that I used with my 8th graders last year. But we also need to use speeches King gave <i>after</i> the successes of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. You can look at <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/list?field_term_genre_tid=12616" target="_blank">theKingCenter.org</a> to find some of these speeches. His <a href="http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/" target="_blank">"Beyond Vietnam" speech</a> given at Riverside Church in April of 1967 is a good example. Read more about the speech in this <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125355148" target="_blank">NPR interview with Tavis Smiley</a>.</div>
<div>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mistake #4: So were JFK and LBJ Good Guys or a Bad Guys? </span></h2>
</div>
<div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5BmHgDtDu8c/VU5U3P-7BgI/AAAAAAAABCE/mIzh10n2wSs/s1600/lbj%2Bjfk.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5BmHgDtDu8c/VU5U3P-7BgI/AAAAAAAABCE/mIzh10n2wSs/s320/lbj%2Bjfk.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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I actually had a student ask me that question once about LBJ in connection to Vietnam. He had decided (probably based on my flawed Civil Rights unit) that LBJ was a "good guy" because of his role in the 1964 and 1965 legislation. Then came Vietnam, and, well...that's another narrative for another post. But the question is embedded in the way we teach Civil Rights, too. And not just for Johnson, but also for Kennedy. <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/televised-address-to-the-nation-on-civil-rights" target="_blank">Kennedy's speech of June 11, 1963</a> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS4Qw4lIckg" target="_blank">view here</a>): good guy. But Kennedy before that: not so good. (Read a commentary about this shift from <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/the-day-president-kennedy-embraced-civil-rights-and-the-story-behind-it/276749/" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a>.) And the same for LBJ. Ever the master politician, Johnson seems to flip on issues whenever it is politically expedient to do so. For more on Johnson, check out this <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/01/20/263483489/the-politics-of-passing-1964-s-civil-rights-act" target="_blank">Terry Gross's interview on <i>Fresh Air</i> with Todd S. Purdum</a>, the author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Whose-Time-Has-Come/dp/0805096728" target="_blank">An Idea Whose Time Has Come</a>. </i>Or even better, put Robert Caro's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Passage-Power-Lyndon-Johnson/dp/0375713255/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0RKX8ASGQE4JQN55QZ59" target="_blank">The Passage to Power</a></i> on your summer reading list. If there are too many other things on your summer list, just check out the chapters that discuss the passage of the Civil Rights Act.<br />
<br />
My point is that neither JFK, LBJ or MLK for that matter are flawless heroes. Life is complicated. Politics are complicated. There is good and bad. Our job is to help students understand multiple perspectives and the fuzzy, gray areas.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mistake #5: Neglecting to Discuss the Civil Rights Movement in the North</span></h2>
</div>
<div>
<br />
I don't know about you, but last year when I was teaching the Civil Rights movement, I looked at the calendar and realized if I wanted to get to Vietnam, I better get moving! Poor planning can lead us to mention a few riots in the North, mumble something about the appeal of Malcolm X to urban blacks, and then give the unit test and push along. But a Civil Rights movement that starts in Montgomery, moves to Little Rock and ends in Selma is woefully incomplete. It suggests to our students that once segregation officially ended, all was well. I suspect that for those of us who live in the urban North, it is unpleasant to admit that racism was alive and well in the North, too, and still is. But with recent events in Baltimore, this is just...well, urban legend.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lmrvg5rEzFA/VU5S_0rhFII/AAAAAAAABBw/k9Si_d3aI8Y/s1600/imgres-3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lmrvg5rEzFA/VU5S_0rhFII/AAAAAAAABBw/k9Si_d3aI8Y/s1600/imgres-3.jpg" /></a></div>
Because I am in Chicago, I like to teach about King's summer in Chicago in 1966. If you live in or near a different northern city, I would try to find something from your own city. But if not, Chicago is still a great case study, because the movement was not terribly successful there, pointing out the challenges of solving all the racial and underlying economic problems in the North. (On a side note, I often wonder what it must be like to teach U.S. history in the South--the burden of having to teach the Civil War and about things like Birmingham and Selma. The reading that follows on the movement in Chicago should make Southern students feel better that it was hardly just the South that was "the bad guy"in the 1960s).<br />
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The first thing I did when I taught this to students was to show them a pile of nine U.S. history textbooks commonly used in middle and high schools--including theirs--and ask them why they thought only one mentioned King's summer in Chicago. That discussion in and of itself was fascinating (and quite revealing about what the assumptions students make about textbooks). But that was just a brief introduction before reading an <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_eJTJHvx15JwRkjEQqOC9RiufKNkGQCgx1xduTw1wH4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">article about the campaign in Chicago</a>. Students read the article for homework, and prepared discussion questions which they used in class the following day. The article is adapted from a story in the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> Sunday magazine. The lesson was made even better by the fact that the assistant principal's mother had grown up in Marquette Park, so she (the assistant principal, not her mother) came in to talk about it. Never pass up an opportunity to make history personal. If you can find a guest speaker, or an article about your own city, go for it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mistake #6: Teaching MLK and Malcolm X as Opposites and Teaching them out of Context</b></span></h2>
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Try this experiment. Type "Martin Luther King vs" into your browser. Does your browser automatically suggest "Malcolm X" as what should follow? Yeah, mine too. How little Google knows about Malcolm X!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-un-oe7fLvX4/VU5SykWNJjI/AAAAAAAABBo/MxK9FEkMSGs/s1600/martin-luther-king-and-malcolm-x1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-un-oe7fLvX4/VU5SykWNJjI/AAAAAAAABBo/MxK9FEkMSGs/s320/martin-luther-king-and-malcolm-x1.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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Pitting the two against each other is done far too often in civil rights curriculum materials and out in the real world, too. While a <a href="http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/black-separatism-or-beloved-community-malcolm-x-and-martin-luther-king-jr#sect-introduction" target="_blank">lesson like this one from Edsitement</a> offers some good materials, it posits a dichotomy that is overly simplistic and misrepresents both King and Malcolm X.<br />
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Or take this <a href="http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/civil-rights-movement/resources/civil-rights-movement-king-and-malcolm-x" target="_blank">lesson from the Gilder Lehrman Institute</a> (note, you may have to sign up to be a member in order to view the lesson.) After reading just a few excerpts from one speech each of King's and X's, students are asked to write an essay that addresses the following question:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.8px;">“Choose the leader whose methods and message you found to be the most convincing.” </span></blockquote>
What a student in 2015 thinks is the most convincing message does not address a historic question. Most convincing about what? And to whom? Convincing to a 20 year old black man in Watts circa 1965? Or to a Mississippi woman circa 1963? Or to either in 1968?<br />
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For a more thoughtful analysis of these two men check out <a href="http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/kingweb/liberation_curriculum/malcolmx/" target="_blank">these lesson plans</a>, originally published in the OAH (Organization of American Historians) Magazine in 2005. While you probably don't have time to use the entire set of lessons, you can easily pick and choose from it. Plus it offers a useful conceptual background for you, the teacher, to help remedy this mistake.<br />
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I created <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fS-XThBTLrEtL8yimtL-oEf_X4cgoQQJwvdL9T9k_7k/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this handout to help students see the evolution of Malcolm X's views</a> and how they relate to those of King's. I also have had students watch a section from the Eyes on the Prize series mentioned in the OAH lesson above. It's the episode, "America at the Crossroads, 1964-1966," though they don't watch the entire thing. And <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GccGcNUy0iFBJbEK50klZe3bWrHZGGnTRCejx5CpnPk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">these are the discussion questions </a>that I use with/after the film. See <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/liberation-curriculum/lesson-plans/lesson-plan-martin-luther-king-jr-and-malcolm-x-common-solution" target="_blank">this lesson</a> from lesson plans mentioned about. I put the quotations into a simple handout for students <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r2xcjHfhzzRFHREoHUjr3Tg3uCekvtThwgc8tXwNXxM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. If you find yourself getting the answers all wrong, you'll know you need to do some background reading!<br />
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Another idea: I haven't read everything on this link which is a <a href="http://www.debate.org/opinions/was-martin-luther-king-jr-a-better-civil-rights-leader-than-malcolm-x" target="_blank">debate about MLK v. Malcom X from debate.org</a>, but I think you could probably do something interesting with it for high school students. Perhaps having them read some of the entries, commenting on them, thinking about historical inaccuracies....?<br />
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<b style="font-size: x-large;">Mistake #7: Missing the Opportunity to Connect to the Rest of the World</b></h2>
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One of the things that makes teaching the 20th century challenging is the skipping around from domestic to foreign policy to domestic again. I remember the same student who asked me the question about LBJ being kind of amazed by the fact that everything we were talking about in Vietnam was going on at the same time as all the stuff in the previous unit on Civil Rights. (No wonder all our <a href="http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1872168,00.html" target="_blank">presidents' hair turns gray in office</a>!)<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M4DBDP-mEEU/VU5B7mWHN8I/AAAAAAAABAs/aWQOhW24bEE/s1600/mlk.gandi.video.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M4DBDP-mEEU/VU5B7mWHN8I/AAAAAAAABAs/aWQOhW24bEE/s320/mlk.gandi.video.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King arriving in New Delhi.</td></tr>
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So the mistake we need to avoid is keeping our unit on the Civil Rights too separate from that of Vietnam. We don't want our students' hair to turn gray, so we probably need to make it two units, but you can at least remind them repeatedly of the connections during both units.<span style="text-align: center;">But--and here's the bigger mistake, I think: we neglect to connect the Civil Rights era to the Cold War that may precede it in our teaching, but is happening at the same time in real life. An essay by Kevin Gains, "The Civil Rights Movement in World Perspective" is an excellent resource for this. It is worth reading (and only 8 pages.) Looks like may be able to link to it from your local library </span><a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/24039301/civil-rights-movement-world-perspective" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="text-align: center;">. This article gave me some insights that I used to create </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VIw75xmnQBMN2P6eJeMV02Lksqwe8SfNsLiirC5qEaE/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">this lesson on Martin Luther's trip to Ghana and India</a><span style="text-align: center;">. We tend to be rather myopic in U.S. history and fail to connect what happens in the U.S. to what is happening elsewhere in the world. This lesson helps remedy that.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ma9SJfcSLq8/VU4npT25WWI/AAAAAAAAA_8/6PMFGi5KCNU/s1600/Birmingham_campaign_dogs.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ma9SJfcSLq8/VU4npT25WWI/AAAAAAAAA_8/6PMFGi5KCNU/s320/Birmingham_campaign_dogs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
It gives me an opportunity to remind students about a major event in world history--decolonization--and connect that to the Cold War and Civil Rights. Examples like African dignitaries coming to segregated Washington, D.C. are revealing. Or John F. Kennedy realizing what bad PR the photo to the left is for U.S. standing abroad, as he tried to portray the country as Leader of the Free World.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Mistake #8: Failure to Connect to the Present</span></h2>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CCfpqMcdwk0/VU4umOkbloI/AAAAAAAABAU/mGeIbo1miK0/s1600/imgres-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CCfpqMcdwk0/VU4umOkbloI/AAAAAAAABAU/mGeIbo1miK0/s1600/imgres-1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/05/08/the-very-different-way-white-and-black-americans-view-recent-deaths-at-the-hands-of-police-officers/?tid=sm_tw" target="_blank">here</a> to read the article and for larger image of this chart.</td></tr>
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An article in yesterday's <i>Washington Post </i>points out that public opinion about deaths of black men at the hands of police has changed over the past year. The article states, "The end result is that incidents that would have been local news stories a year ago 'now [appear] to fit this larger national narrative.'"<br />
While public opinion is still split and there is still a big gap between blacks, whites, Democrats, and Republicans, the article claims that the shift from December is significant.<br />
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It is challenging to discuss these events in class--not just because it is a controversial topic, but because everything is still so current. But this doesn't excuse us from trying. As history teachers, even when we know that there are few "right answers" in history, we feel a little safer in the past. Teaching about today is far messier. But even raising the questions-- in what ways do recent events in Baltimore suggest that inequality between blacks and whites is still a problem? in what ways do they suggest civil rights for young black males in particular are still compromised?-- helps students see connections between what they are studying and what is going on in the world today.<br />
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And in this unit in particular, not raising current examples of inequality sends the message that the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s solved everything and was an unqualified success.<br />
You can use <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AVJa8oDJee8_VK-gy34_N4DOYGcWRufMmWbIaujRcIg/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this document</a> I created to help dispel that myth.<br />
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And here are a few resources for teaching about Ferguson and Baltimore:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/sociologists-take-historic-stand-on-racism-3026209" target="_blank">Sociological Research puts Ferguson in Context</a></li>
<li>A <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B_oyOyu_tAwOVq5MY1oJL3orN6ps04O82JxWxnkGpho/mobilebasic?pli=1&viewopt=127" target="_blank">"Baltimore Syllabus"</a> - links on a Google Doc</li>
<li><a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-villain-no-idiot-no-saint-thinking.html" target="_blank">My previous post on Ferguson and Reconstruction</a> - (roughly the middle of the post, some links to Ferguson resources)</li>
<li>Go on twitter! Seriously. Check out: #BaltimoreUprising, #Fergusonsyllabus, #BlackLivesMatter. There seems to be a bit on #BaltimoreSyllabus, but I don't know if that will evolve into it's own thing or merge with #Fergusonsyllabus.</li>
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And a few additional resources for teaching about civil rights:<div><br /></div><div>See <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/two-thumbs-up/" target="_blank">this guide to films/documentaries to use when teaching about Civil Rights</a> by the Hasan Kwame Jeffries, history professor at Ohio State University.<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.njstatelib.org/research_library/new_jersey_resources/digital_collection/african_american_history_curriculum/" target="_blank">New Jersey State Library</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/" target="_blank">CivilRightsTeaching.org</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=17&smtID=11" target="_blank">Digital History project lesson plans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/for-educators/educator-resources/resource-collections/civil-rights-resource-collection" target="_blank">FacingHistory.org</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/tguide/index.html" target="_blank">PBS.org "Eyes on the Prize" resources</a></li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfdSANgulFKLWKkxiN3XDgauHOtNWiySdgogw1cbca0/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">the DBQ I created for 8th grade civil rights unit </a>- please feel free to comment; it's far from perfect</li>
<li>my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/history-one-of-humanities.html" target="_blank">last post</a> on connecting the birth of the 1950s Civil Rights movement with the birth of Rock 'n' Roll</li>
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</div>Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-62551110287864095122015-05-05T08:26:00.001-05:002017-07-13T15:36:47.642-05:00History = One of the Humanities<h2>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large; font-weight: normal;">Thoughts on Making History More Interdisciplinary</span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">And Using Poetry and Music to Teach about the Civil Rights Movement as an Example</span></span></div>
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It might be melodramatic to describe the intro to U.S. History class I took in college as <i>life</i> changing, but it was definitely <i>major </i>changing. I was headed down the path towards becoming an English major, taking a class on American literature at the same time. In both classes we read <i>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>. I was surprised that it was the history teacher that made the book come alive. He provided the social context, the greater meaning. I became--not a history major--but a major in American Culture (more commonly known as American Studies).<br />
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Fast forward a few years to my first teaching job. I was teaching 7th grade geography as part of a interdisciplinary team, comprised of the Language Arts teacher, the math teacher, the science teacher and me. I was the rookie, and fortunate to work with such a rock star team of experienced teachers. Together we created some fantastic and truly interdisciplinary thematic units on rivers, prairies, Africa and other topics.<br />
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Both of these experiences forever convinced me of the value in making our teaching of history more interdisciplinary.<br />
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But like most things in education, things come in and out of vogue, and interdisciplinary study seems not to have so much fallen out of favor, but into a state of neglect. While many of the middle schools I visit still seem to organize themselves into teams with a math, science, social studies and language arts teacher, the purpose seems to have little to do with interdisciplinary teaching. The focus on Common Core has also had an unfortunate effect on interdisciplinary teaching. With the emphasis on English/Language Arts and Math, other subjects have been marginalized. This is due, <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/p/i-had-considered-writing-blog-focusing.html" target="_blank">I have argued</a> previously, to a misreading and misunderstanding of the Common Core, rather than anything that is actually <i>in</i> the Common Core. If anything, the Common Core standards ought to <i>increase</i> attention to the complementary nature of history and language arts.<br />
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In a high school setting, there are other problems. In the Chicago area, where I am, most high schools are rather large places. And in the one where I taught, the English department was at the other end of the building from our department. We saw each other occasionally, but rarely deliberately. I knew that sometimes our content overlapped (e.g. in a lesson about the 1920s and the jazz age I might mention something about <i>The Great Gatsby</i>, and a student might pipe up, "Oh, we read that in English last quarter." And I'd think, what a missed opportunity to collaborate. But that collaboration would be a challenge given the organization of large high schools, dissimilar planning periods, and the fact that there was no way to guarantee that the students I had all had the same English teacher and vice versa.<br />
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Nonetheless, it used to drive me crazy that we couldn't at least get the English teachers to agree to teach <i>Gatsby</i> during the same quarter that we taught the 1920s. (I'm not blaming any English teachers here--I'm not sure that we even asked them, so the blame is equally distributed.) Given the chronological approach used by most history teachers, it makes the most sense for the English teachers to accommodate the history syllabus. This may not be true interdisciplinary teaching, but modifying one's syllabus so that there is at least the possibility for students to recognize the connections is at least something. And it's low-hanging fruit. Theoretically, this should be a little easier to coordinate in middle schools, which are smaller and, as I said, often organized into teams.<br />
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But what can you do in your classroom to at least attempt a bit of this on your own?<br />
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As suggested by the title of the post, I remind you that in most universities, the history department is found in the college of humanities. Or liberal arts. Or some similar name. And one of the ways to avoid only dwelling on the president-war-legislation-date approach to U.S. history is to remember that history is one of the humanities. So whenever possible, we should include things like ART and MUSIC and LITERATURE of all sorts within our history classes. At a minimum, this makes our study of history more interesting. After all, history is the study of human beings. And human beings do not live without Art. (Of course, we also need to include other "social science" disciplines such as geography, economics and political science. But this post is not about that.)<br />
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So for the rest of this post, I'd like to give you a few examples for doing this in your unit on Civil Rights Movement.<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="LHughespoetry"></a>
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In an earlier post, I mentioned using the poetry of <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/02/web-dubois-booker-t-washington-and.html#anynameyoulike" target="_blank">Langston Hughes</a>. Though a poet of an earlier generation, so many of his poems are wonderfully fitting to use in the Civil Rights Movement. As I caution in that other post, "A Dream Deferred" would not be one of them, because it is so overused that it is likely your students have already studied it. But there are many others. Here are a few:<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.eliteskills.com/analysis_poetry/Merry_Go_Round_by_Langston_Hughes_analysis.php" target="_blank">"Colored Child at a Carnival"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nexuslearning.net/books/holt-eol2/Collection%208/refugee.htm" target="_blank">"Refugee in America"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/langston-hughes/democracy/" target="_blank">"Democracy"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177020" target="_blank">"I, Too"</a></li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mr_3_LhRL1ZqMxN9TmeR2qz6xCksWa6i9dNhYSJ114Q/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">"Lunch in a Jim Crow Car"</a></li>
<li><a href="https://freedomstruggles.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/freedom-train/" target="_blank">"Freedom Train"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/freedom-s-plow/" target="_blank">"Freedom's Plow"</a> </li>
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The last two are longer ones, that are probably more suitable for high school. The others are good for middle or high school. And two others that have an international focus (another thing often lacking in our U.S. history curriculum), discussing independence movements in Asia and Africa:</div>
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<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX-r7bTKLBI" target="_blank">"In Explanation of Our Time"</a> - this is a youtube link to Hughes himself reading it; you'd probably want students to follow along with a text, but I couldn't find one handy.</li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mr_3_LhRL1ZqMxN9TmeR2qz6xCksWa6i9dNhYSJ114Q/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">"Africa"</a></li>
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What to do with these poems? Lots of things. You could use one or two to introduce a lesson, such as a lesson on desegregation, the Montgomery bus boycotts or Brown v. Board. You could have an entire lesson in which students read the poems, to themselves or in small groups and then discuss them, using a <a href="http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/literature-circles-getting-started-19.html" target="_blank">literature circle approach</a>. You could assign some to read for homework and have students pick one to read and analyze. Students could be asked to write about the meaning of the poem with specific reference to the Civil Rights Movement. Or--here's a half-baked idea that I think could be really cool if you thought it through a bit more--have students read a poem and then look at some famous photographs of the Civil Rights Movement. Then have a discussion about the impact of photography versus poetry.</div>
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Now let's shift to music.<br />
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Below is a kind of a "bridge" lesson to proceed the Civil Rights movement. I designed it with two thoughts in mind that are not the sort of pedagogical questions normally considered by educators, but important nonetheless:<br />
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1. what to teach on the Monday back after spring break that will engage my students and have them feeling good about being back at school.<br />
2. how to expose kids to music, one of my personal passions, and connect it to history.<br />
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As educators, we sometimes forget questions like these. As an in-the-trenches-teacher it is hard to forget questions like the first. We face them all the time. But we tend to forget the second question, too. We are not just teachers. We are people. People with particular interests and passions. And I would argue that one of the things that makes a great teacher is one that is passionate about her subject matter and kind find ways to share that with students. I listen to a lot of music--at home and live--and of many different genres. Students love music, too, but are rarely educated about it, and often are not exposed to the variety of music out there: jazz, blues, bluegrass, Latin, folk, traditional country, and music from other parts of the world. So truth be told, this lesson was designed as much to share one of my passions as it was to meet a learning objective. But learn they did.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="civilrightsmusic"></a>Below is the Google Presentation I created for "Rock 'n' Roll and the Civil Rights Movement." It is designed to show how changes in music influenced the coming Civil Rights movement. There are a few notes in the presentation to explain what to do with it, but it is pretty self-explanatory. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CuTpF51UeEbzQrpM3V4YtcjfNmek1MGJX8DAuI3x88o/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Click here for the student handout</a> that goes with it. If you are on a 1:1 model, you could have students work through the handout and the presentation on their own or in groups, but students would need earphones to listen to the music. I prefer the more communal approach of listening to the music together. I loved teaching this lesson. If you give it a try, PLEASE let me know what you think, and what worked/what didn't, by leaving a comment below. (You can leave a comment even if you don't try it.)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="749" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1knt2gsJfcch_kuPYcvCBFfUq7YokEQ8jrK6sFnml0MY/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="960"></iframe>
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Below are a few additional resources for using music, not just during your Civil Rights unit. No need to wait until spring to start playing music.<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/ideas/" target="_blank">Activity Ideas for Song and Poetry from the Library of Congress</a> - this page has ideas for what to do with music and poetry throughout a history class, as well as fantastic links to places to find songs and poetry.</li>
<li>And you MUST check out this website: <a href="http://voices.pitt.edu/" target="_blank">Voices Across Time: American History Through Music</a> from the University of Pittsburgh Library System (Thank you to my friend and musicologist, Greg Reish for that!) It has lesson plans, links to music, and <a href="http://voices.pitt.edu/TimelyTunes/TimelyTunes.htm" target="_blank">this page in particular</a>, has a great chart that gives suggestions for music to go with different topics in American History. Bookmark this one so you can go back to you it all year long.</li>
<li>The Library of Congress also maintains a <a href="http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/" target="_blank">"National Jukebox,"</a> which has a wide variety of musical sources.</li>
</ul>
One last point about music and the Civil Rights Movement...<br />
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A <a href="https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/a-brief-post-on-naep-civics-and-history-test-results/" target="_blank">recent blogpost by Grant Wiggins</a> centered on a history question on the recent NAEP Civics and History test. The question quoted a few lines from the spiritual, "We Shall Not Be Moved," and asked which of the following was best associated with the song:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
a. pioneers moving west in the early nineteenth century<br />
b. soldiers in the Second World War<br />
c. the Civil Rights moevement of the 1960s<br />
d. the Women's Rights movement of the 1970s</blockquote>
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Wiggins astutely points out that a student might know a lot about the Civil Rights movement and still get the question wrong, making the validity of the question questionable. Only 47% of students correctly answered "C." I agree that it is a poor question. But I do think connecting protest music to the Civil Rights movement is worthwhile, so below are some resources for that. (That way, if such a question shows up on a future test, at least your students will get one question right!)<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/02/african_american_history_slavery_and_civil_rights_songs.html" target="_blank">TheRoot.com, "African Americans and Freedom: The Soundtrack</a> - this site has some of the most famous songs embedded in this page, so you can play them right from the site. It includes, "Oh, Freedom," "Go Tell It on the Mountain," "We'll Never Turn Back,""We Shall Not Be Moved," "This Little Light of Mine," Sam Cooke's, "A Change is Gonna Come," and others, including a song by Nina Simone called, "Mississippi Goddam" that she wrote in response to the church bombing in Birmingham.</li>
<li><a href="http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_songs_and_the_civil_rights_movement" target="_blank">Songs and the Civil Rights Movement/Stanford University</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/1848" target="_blank">Full lesson on Civil Rights Songs from University of North Carolina</a></li>
</ul>
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If you're interested in the depressing news about the NAEP results, you can read this <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-students-stagnate-in-social-studies-1430280062" target="_blank">article from the Wall Street Journal</a>. (And keep reading my blog, so our students will do better in the future!)</div>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-60525888761350717292015-05-01T11:21:00.003-05:002015-08-16T09:35:09.349-05:00To Lecture, or Not to Lecture: That is the Question<h2>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large; font-weight: normal;">...along with Some Ideas for Teaching the Cold War</span></h2>
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To lecture or not to lecture? That is at least <i>one</i> of the big questions out there for history teachers. And one that generated a lot of attention in a <a href="https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/why-do-so-many-hs-history-teachers-lecture-so-much/" target="_blank">recent post titled, "Why do so many HS history teachers lecture so much?"</a>, by <a href="https://www.authenticeducation.org/whoweare/grant.lasso" target="_blank">Grant Wiggins</a> in which he presented research that says history teachers lecture significantly more than their counterparts in other subjects. In fact, there has been so much interest in the topic, that Wiggins had his colleague, <a href="https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/a-guest-post-on-too-much-lecturing-in-hs-history/" target="_blank">Mark Williams, do a guest post published yesterday</a> to follow up on the topic. (In it, Williams describes a gifted teacher <i>not</i> lecturing about <i>Brown v. Board of Education.</i> He also provides useful information about what teachers can do to increase the quantity and quality of "student" vs. teacher talk.)<br />
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There were quite a few comments on the initial post (including two from me). The most common explanations center around the content demands of history and the fact that kids don't read their textbooks.<br />
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Now, telling kids what is in the textbook that you assigned but assume they didn't read is probably the dumbest reason for a giving a lecture EVER. But yes, I will admit to having done this on occasion in my first years of teaching U.S. history (War of 1812, I'm talking about you). We likely tell ourselves that we are helping the students "synthesize" or "summarize" what they have already read about. And if we are truly doing that, WHILE adding enriching material that we have gleaned from other sources, and including a pertinent quotation or brief excerpt from a primary source, playing a brief piece of music or showing them some intriguing visuals that clarify the information--a photograph, a map, some charts--and stopping intermittently to ask thought-provoking questions....well, that is a different animal.<br />
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But still, there are better reasons for giving a lecture than just summing up a topic that is in your textbook. Here are a few:<br />
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<ul>
<li>when you are presenting something that is <i>not</i> in the textbook, usually a complex topic, an issue of historiography, or something that is just left out (e.g. a lecture introducing the concept of realism and idealism as explained in <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/realism-idealism-in-us-foreign-policy.html" target="_blank">my previous post</a>). Sometimes I have lectured on complex topics on which I have read scholarly essays or a chapter in a book that I want to present to students. There is a lot of material that you can easily present to students--even middle schoolers-- in a brief lecture after you have read the 20-30 page essay or chapter. A lecture is not the only way to do this, but it is <i>a </i>way to do it that is sometimes useful. The idealism/realism concept I discuss in the post mentioned above is a good example. </li>
<li>when you are giving them some biographical background about an important historic figure (like <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-steam-engine-in-trousers-teaching.html" target="_blank">Theodore Roosevelt</a>).</li>
<li>when you want to tell them an amazing story in some detail.</li>
<li>when, in the interest of time, you want to give them some background on something so that you can move on to another activity in which they need background.</li>
</ul>
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There are some equally good times when <i>not </i>give a lecture:</div>
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<ul>
<li>every day</li>
<li>the Friday before spring break (and other similar times)</li>
<li>the period right after students have done PARCC testing</li>
<li>if you are not a good lecturer</li>
<li>when you are just spitting back info that can be easily gotten elsewhere (i.e. the textbook) or info that can be presented using a more interactive method</li>
<li>the whole period (lots of research out there about student attention spans fading after 18 minutes, some says less)</li>
</ul>
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As I said above, the other comments in Grant Wiggins' post centered around the significant content burdens in history classes compared to other subjects. I completely agree that the content burdens of history are more onerous than in math or English (not sure about science), but as I have said often throughout this blog, <i>we</i> are responsible for navigating that burden wisely, and not succumbing to it. That requires two key things:<br />
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<ol>
<li>judicious selection of what to keep and what to leave out. </li>
<li>making connections so that students will see the forest through trees. (If you haven't yet read the chapter I keep mentioning from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0807749915/ref=rdr_ext_tmb" target="_blank">James Loewen's </a><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0807749915/ref=rdr_ext_tmb" target="_blank">Teaching What Really Happened</a>: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited about Doing History</i>, now is the time. It's chapter 1, "The Tyranny of Coverage.") And see some of my earlier posts about this topic by searching on this page using the search terms, "syllabus" and "unit planning."</li>
</ol>
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For me, questions of pedagogy--when to lecture, when not to--I find difficult to tease out from questions about content. So, as I promised at the end of <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-cold-war-today-connecting-past-and.html" target="_blank">yesterday's post on the Cold War</a>, I want to further examine this question about lecturing by describing two additional resources on the Cold War. One is a lecture, one is not. (Do check out yesterday's post...I don't usually publish two posts so close together, so I'm worried that people will miss it.)</div>
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The one that is not, ironically, developed from a lecture I used to give. I know, because I found an old overhead (pre-PowerPoint days) that said "Causes of the Cold War" on it and then listed a few reasons. It appeared to be a rather dull lecture that would not be remotely engaging for 8th graders and so, last spring when I introduced the Cold War I took that as a starting point to create a non-lecture lesson. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Here is the non-lecture Cold War intro lesson:</span></b></div>
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I described the technique in my recent post about the <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/04/could-us-government-have-done-something.html" target="_blank">U.S. and the Holocaust</a>. Click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MUldjTUVaVUx2U1U/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a> for an overview of the technique and here for the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2McndGaVpKZ1h4UEU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">cards to use on the Cold War</a>. As I deconstruct what went into the creation of this lesson, I took what could be a pretty long and intense college-level or advanced high school level lecture on causes of the cold war and turned it into an outline, and then turned all the pieces of that outline into information that was put onto cards. And then the students have to put it together. (This sounds odd, but when you take information off of a screen or 8 1/2 X 11" pieces of papers and put them onto cards, preferably laminated and in color, that students can physically manipulate, somehow, students are more engaged in the material. I have no scientific evidence of this, just my observations that it seems to work.)</div>
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A few things to note about this. First, if you actually try the lesson, please note that it was designed for fairly high-achieving 8th graders, making it easily adaptable for high schoolers. In retrospect, I think I would edit the cards more for middle schoolers, or at least be aware that they need a lot of help. The lesson took two days. So another point to bring up about lecture and not lecturing is that lecturing is "faster." You could probably "cover" this material in a 30 minute lecture. Or a 1 or 2 day lesson. But we should all note that --as a professor I had once used to say--anything worth doing is worth doing slowly. And how much would our students retain from that 30 minute lecture vs. what they would retain from the non-lecture version I have presented?</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Here is an example of a lecture on the Korean War:</span></b></div>
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As I mentioned earlier, regarding content demands, you have to be judicious. So the point of this lecture was to explain the Korean War in the context of the Cold War. The point was to get students to understand how a civil war in Greece that no one in America knew much about, led to a war in Korea and later in Vietnam and eventually an "interventionist" U.S. foreign policy that we still have today. The point was <i>not</i> to memorize a bunch of facts about the Korean War itself (which is mostly what their textbook did), but to undertand it <i>in the context of the Cold War</i>. I hope that this is a useful example both about <i>better</i> lectures (I'm not saying this is an awesome one), and about handling the related problem of content overload.</div>
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So <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MSnJUVnFnT0tscW8/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here is the PowerPoint</a> I created. Here is the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MVWh3WG9qUFltTFU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">handout I gave to students</a> that we worked through together during the lecture. Here is a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2McllzX2NFZ0pwelE/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">key for the teacher</a>.</div>
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A few other things to note...</div>
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<ul>
<li>While I don't remember how long the lecture was exactly, I do know that it was interrupted often by having students writing, and asking questions that nudged students to "predict" information that would come on the next slide of the accompanying PowerPoint and the worksheet that I gave them to accompany the lecture.</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
<li>Be wary of overusing custom animation on PowerPoint. I suspect I am guilty of this on this particular PowerPoint (I've got a few sound effects, including the explosion of an atomic bomb--not sure what came over me. As if I didn't have better ways to spend my time--grading papers, planning the next lesson, etc. instead of obsessing over cutesy special effects that are hardly impressive to the younger generation!) On the other hand, having one point come up at a time on a slide can be effective.</li>
</ul>
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About PowerPoints or Google Presentations or Prezis...</div>
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I constantly harp on my methods students and student teachers to remember a few key things about using such presentation tools:</div>
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<ol>
<li>think about what you are going to put on the slide (avoid too much text)</li>
<li>think about what words are going to come out of your mouth</li>
<li>think about if you are going to include a notetaking guide to accompany it, and if so, what you are going to include on that</li>
<li>think about whether or not to give students access (through something like Canvas, Edline, Blackboard, or other platform) to the presentation. Or you could print out slides.</li>
<li>think about what you want students to write down on paper or on your handout</li>
</ol>
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To conclude, I just want to remind all of us that the point of good teaching is quality student learning. We need to be self-reflective: was our lecture as exciting as we thought it was? Were students <i>really</i> paying attention? And is paying attention enough? Did they <i>engage </i>in the material? Will they retain any of it? And if so, for how long? 'Til the test? Or longer? </div>
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I will end with a favorite quotation of mine by Virginia Woolf, from <i>A Room of One's Own</i>. She writes,</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: large;"><i>[T]he first duty of a lecturer is to hand you after an hour’s discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece for ever. </i></span></span></blockquote>
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I hope this doesn't leave you thinking I am holding up the lecture as the paragon of exemplary teaching. But substitute the word "lecturer" above for "teacher." And substitute "hour's discourse" for "class period" and you've got yourself a standard worth striving for.<br />
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(Oh dear, ending with a hanging preposition!)<br />
<br />Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-74456385920228917742015-04-30T20:15:00.002-05:002015-05-16T18:03:48.353-05:00The Cold War Today: Connecting Past and PresentConveniently, Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea just as I began my unit on the Cold War last spring. While no history teacher wishes for disaster just to make her lessons more meaningful, it does remind me how often the present can be better understood in light of the past. This week's unrest in Baltimore compared to the 1960s, anyone? (More on that in an upcoming post on teaching the Civil Rights movement).<br />
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The Cold War "ended" with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dramatic events of 1989 and the early nineties, but....well, the more things change...</div>
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And now I'm not just talking about Putin. </div>
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Essentially, the Cold War was a period of friction between two world "systems," the Communist East and the Capitalist/Democratic West. Today, we can clearly see conflict between the West and a different East--the East of Islamism/Islamic Fundamentalism. Since the events of 9/11, I'd argue that the U.S. has been involved in a different Cold War, with a different enemy. But we can see some striking similarities: </div>
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The interplay of religion. Then it was the Judeo-Christian West vs the "Godless" atheism of the Soviets. Today we are described as the infidels by Islamic fundamentalists. The occasional outbreaks of hot war: our involvement in Afghanistan and Iran today, Korea and Vietnam then. The conflicts over resources. And there are others. </div>
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I bring this up as something to keep in mind as you teach about the Cold War. It is easy--alas, I find myself saying this over and over again in this blog--to get bogged down in too much detail. The goal should not be to have students learn facts about the Truman Doctrine, the Berlin airlift, NATO, the Marshall Plan, the fall of China, the Warsaw Pact, containment, McCarthyism, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, HUAC, the U-2 incident, Cuba, Krushchev, Korea, and on and on....oh my! The goal should be<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SAvhWRli9aQ/VUKs3ow1XWI/AAAAAAAAA8k/wLGBwobq9fw/s1600/vietnam-synfrome-kill-in-th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SAvhWRli9aQ/VUKs3ow1XWI/AAAAAAAAA8k/wLGBwobq9fw/s1600/vietnam-synfrome-kill-in-th.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
<ol>
<li>to make <i>connections</i> <i>among</i> (some of) the items above </li>
<li>to understand how our values and assumptions about the Soviet Union turned into policy</li>
<li>get a sense of how the U.S. acted as one of two major powers in the world and and </li>
<li>understand how the foreign policy of the United States was forever changed in ways that still have an impact today. (See cartoon at right!)</li>
<li>and of course we should connect all of this to our past study of foreign policy, especially the concepts of realism and idealism. (See <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-us-enters-world-stage-shift-in-us.html" target="_blank">this previous post</a> and <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/realism-idealism-in-us-foreign-policy.html" target="_blank">this one</a>).</li>
</ol>
This means that we have to make choices about what we teach and what we leave out. I would encourage you NOT to cut out McCarthyism, though, as this is a way to connect what was going on abroad to the fear and paranoia at home. And it raises important issues about the first amendment which ought to be a recurring topic in U.S. history classes, I think. Why? Two simple reasons: it is one of our fundamental rights as citizens and students like talking about it.</div>
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To engage students in that topic, I like to show the first 20 minutes or so (I stop right before the Rosenbergs) of the documentary, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAx-s4tVCRs" target="_blank">Cold War Reds, 1947-1953, by CNN Perspectives</a>. For more info on the video, including some of the criticisms of it, check out<a href="http://cosmolearning.org/documentaries/cold-war-by-cnn-perspectives/26/" target="_blank"> this site</a>. I have mixed thoughts about giving students worksheets to go along with films (more on that in another post, I think), but I did choose to use one with this film. The clip is about 20 minutes, so if you devote a class period to it, you have plenty of time to stop it often so students have a chance to take notes and/or you can discuss the question as you go, or afterwards or a little of both. Find that worksheet <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1445Tg8YhorMgXdjEd48i8-xST39j2JjjC-8WDixu7io/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. Note that the last question I have on there says, "for tomorrow." That is because I the following day I like to spend on McCarthyism and connecting it to the present.<br />
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Years ago, when I taught about McCarthyism, I asked students to think of a more contemporary equivalent to accusing someone of being a communist. Often, they came up with the term, "racist." Their argument was that if a politician or other public figure was accused of saying something racist, that figure was often considered "guilty" immediately and had to "prove" that they weren't really racist, or that the comment was taken out of context. Just like those accused of being communists in the 1950s. I would argue that this is still a great example. But last spring, as I taught in a community that had a significant Muslim population, I was delighted when one of my students brought up the effect 9/11 had on Muslims in the United States. As the only student at the school who wore a headscarf, she had had personal experience with how others viewed her suspiciously and negatively simply because of the headscarf.<br />
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McCarthyism also presents the opportunity to make connections to the social conformity of the 1950s (see some of the videos and the interview in the bagtheweb lesson described in my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/04/spring-social-history-and-suburbia.html" target="_blank">last post</a>), as well as racism, anti-semitism, and today's prejudice against Muslims.<br />
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For a nice "hands-on" sort of activity, check out <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t5uKG58_w4gWrN-K22LfqT-xn-WHDvvgBqLdIb38a7o/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this handout</a> that was given to me years ago from deep in the history department's files (so I have no idea who first created it). I had students edit it directly from Google docs last year, but of course, the old-fashioned paper and pencil method works too. Following the activity, I had students write an ID, defining McCarthyism. I like to teach students early in the year how to do this, as it is a simple writing activity that can be used in class, for homework, or on tests. You can use <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oN8aDFa3vt0TINrx7kOBorIDkG2AIpj3hH40sgb9Zc4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this handout</a> to do that.<br />
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Considering recent changes in our policy toward Cuba, it also makes sense to keep that in your Cold War curriculum. I found some really interesting resources on that last spring. Check 'em out:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OiUb9TJvPtZtrx3NFltdaJOcQHf57DJhXq2YCs2TMj8/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">my handy google presentation</a> that lays out the basic facts for background information</li>
<li>these <a href="http://www.armageddonletters.com/films#.VUK0jWRViko" target="_blank">3 short video clips about Castro, Krushchev and Kennedy</a> from The Armageddon Letters are engaging for students, short (about 5 min. each) and help humanize this international crisis. I really liked them a lot. So did the students.</li>
<li>I found the above videos from <a href="http://www.choices.edu/resources/twtn/twtn-cuban-missile-crisis.php" target="_blank">the Choices Program lesson on the Cuban Missile Crisis</a>. This site has the links to the videos above, as well as suggestions for how to use them.</li>
<li>I adapted <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cba5SPJBeQDUYi6C9HKru2JNWok1slL6gfR-wxIz-QQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this graphic organizer</a> from the lesson above to add my own touch at the end. Check out my discussion question about the role of personality in shaping history.</li>
<li>The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) also has a good lesson on the Cuban Missile Crisis. I used the documents they suggested. Check that out <a href="https://sheg.stanford.edu/cuban-missile-crisis" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>Found some good stuff, too, at the <a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/flash-points-searching-for-modern-lessons-in-the-cuban-missile-crisis/?_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times Learning Blog site</a>. </li>
<li>You can put students in groups and assign each one of the following choices outlined to President Kennedy: 1. do nothing, 2. invade Cuba 3. airstrike against the missiles 4. naval blockade around Cuba 5. negotiate. And then they have to come up with reasons to support this choice. Then you can discuss what Kennedy actually did do.</li>
<li>Analyze the effect the Cuban missile crisis had on JFK and our foreign policy in general using <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MM2xtRl9YOEY0OUU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">these two speeches of Kennedy's</a>. You can use it at the end of your lesson, or use the first at the beginning and the latter at the end. Very Common Core.</li>
</ul>
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If you're looking for more Cold War materials, check out my <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/05/to-lecture-or-not-to-lecture-that-is.html" target="_blank">next post</a>.</div>
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-69882565446220094572015-04-27T18:34:00.000-05:002015-04-27T18:34:17.325-05:00Spring, Social History and Suburbia: Teaching about Social Change in the 1950s<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After finishing a unit on World War II and the depressing topics of the <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/04/could-us-government-have-done-something.html" target="_blank">Holocaust</a>, Japanese Internment and the dropping of the atomic bomb, I like to spend a day or two on some of the social changes of the post-war period.<br />
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The emphasis in most U.S. history classes is on political history: wars, legislation, presidencies and other "major events" dominated by white men at the expense of social history and what life was like for regular people. University history departments saw the growth of what became the "new social history" beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. I once read that K-12 education is roughly 20 years behind academia, which sounds about right to me (but sad, isn't it?). In the 1990s, this social history began to creep into secondary education, with things like sidebars or quotations and sometimes even whole chapters on the history of women, slaves, working class people and other groups.<br />
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Much as been gained from this impact of social history. But the problem--as always--for U.S. history teachers of survey courses, whether it is in middle school, high school, or even college, is how to fit it all in without overwhelming students with too much of everything. Looking over my posts over the course of this school year, I can see that I still emphasize political history. African American history has some representation, but I have very little on women's history (I'll have to work on that over the summer!). Mind you, my posts don't = everything I would teach students, but are just a selection. But still, it is hard to fit it all in.<br />
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This post is my way of reminding all of us that whenever we can, we should make an effort to help students get to know something about life during a particular time and place. It also occurs to me that one of the ways we can differentiate what we teach in middle school from what we teach in high school is in this emphasis. What should be the difference between U.S. history in 8th grade and U.S. history in 11th? Should we just repeat everything, but go into more depth? Or should we actually teach different topics? Or should we teach the same "big" topics (like the Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal) but emphasize different things about it?<br />
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These are important questions that I wish to ignore for now in order to go back to the topic of this post: incorporating more social history into our classes, whether we teach middle school or high school. And after you are done teaching World War II, and when it is starting to get warm out and your students are getting antsy, there is no better time for the lesson I'm about to describe (hence the word "spring" in this post's title). It's fun, it's light-hearted, and there's cool stuff to check out that still manages to address "big questions" about topics you will get to when you study the Cold War and Civil Rights. On a Thursday or Friday as the weather warms up, this lesson will help keep your students focused and their attention from wandering towards the window.<br />
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The lesson also helps describe the rise of a major phenomenon that shapes where many of our students currently live: the suburbs. The year 2000 was the first year that the suburban population of the United States hit 50 percent. The number is even higher today (but annoyingly, I could not find a number--if you can, do comment below!) So the chances are that a majority of you are teaching in a suburban community. Shouldn't our students know how that happened?<br />
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<ul>
<li>See <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MZVNNZVBZcnBLcjg/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a> for information about the growth of suburbs from a 2002 U.S. Census report. That link is to page 38 of the entire report which you can find <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/censr-4.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>Scroll to the bottom of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/1population6.htm" target="_blank">this page</a> for 2 additional useful charts you can show students about the shift from rural to urban to suburban populations.</li>
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I begin the lesson by explaining that the period I refer to as "the fifites" doesn't correspond neatly to the years 1950-1959, but really is more 1954-1963. The Korean War and the most tense period of the Cold War (until the Cuban Missile Crisis) ends in 1953. And Kennedy is assassinated in 1963, ending some of the optimism of the period. I also caution them that what they will be looking at is mainstream, middle-class white culture. A few of the links refer to that fact, but most do not.<br />
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Then I hand out a worksheet and direct them to a webquest-type activity in which they will figure out some of the major trends and the overall "mood" of the 1950s. You can certainly find your own websites, but are welcome to use mine. You can find it on a handy website called <a href="http://bagtheweb.com./">bagtheweb.com.</a> To find the "bag" that has my 1950s stuff you can link <a href="http://www.bagtheweb.com/b/Ifzura" target="_blank">here</a>, or if for some reason that doesn't work, type "Mrs. Brown" or "mrs brown" or "1950s" in the search box and you should find it. (And go ahead and "like it," while you're there! My students last spring certainly liked it, but they didn't "like it." Sigh.) In this activity, students will get to check out 1950s tv shows, car design, Disneyland and other fun things that will also teach them about the changing roles of women and life in the suburbs.<br />
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(Fyi, there are a lot of web-curating websites out there that are useful for compiling resources for students. If you want more information on those, you will find no better source than the blog <a href="http://www.freetech4teachers.com/" target="_blank">freetech4teachers.</a>) And of course, you can also use the lower-tech method of just putting together a Word document or Google Doc that has the links on there.)<br />
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This is the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ug9NI3Jhq2Q281GSwP0zmoANVXXjH_V55t8vNl-s6OY/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">worksheet for students </a>which accompanies the 1950s websites. Note that you would want to revise it a bit and make it your own. For example, question #3 is about Chicago. The trend of rising suburbs is true across the country, but you can probably find data for a city closer to you if you aren't in Chicago. Also, question #5 and the accompanying link on bagtheweb is about the specific suburb in which my students were living. If you teach in a rural or urban area, you should delete that question. If you teach in a suburb, undoubtedly, there is information out there somewhere about your community. Also, question #15 is just a private joke with my students: it refers to the fact that whenever I refer to the essential or major question of a topic, I always say "the $64,000 question," which is what my dad used to say, referencing the #1 TV show of 1955 that I've never seen. So you might want to come up with a different question about television.<br />
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If you want to the extend the lesson (and this might be more appropriate for high school, rather than middle school) read <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/31/the-end-of-the-suburbs/" target="_blank">this article from TIME, "The End of the Suburbs"</a> or this one from <i>The Atlantic,</i><br />
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/suburbs-and-the-new-american-poverty/384259/" target="_blank"> "Suburbs and the New American Poor"</a> to give you information that will bring the topic up to the present.<br />
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Common Core Standards for this lesson: <a class="identifier" href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/6-8/7/" name="CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #373737; font-family: 'Lato Light'; font-size: 11.7600002288818px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7</a> or <a class="identifier" href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/9-10/7/" name="CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.7" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #373737; font-family: 'Lato Light'; font-size: 11.7600002288818px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.7</a> or <a class="identifier" href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/11-12/7/" name="CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #373737; font-family: 'Lato Light'; font-size: 11.7600002288818px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7</a>.<br />
<br />Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-10871518038287808202015-04-24T15:00:00.002-05:002018-03-28T15:19:28.974-05:00Could the U.S. Government Have Done Something to Stop, or at Least Minimize, the Holocaust?The topic for today's blogpost dates way back to one of the first lessons I did as a student teacher. It was in a unit on the Holocaust in a World History class. My cooperating teacher had given me a worksheet passed down to him in which students ascribed responsibility to different individuals. I decided to put my own twist on it and added a few individuals, namely President Roosevelt. I had recently read something about how F.D.R. could have bombed the train tracks leading to Auschwitz and in my simplistic understanding of history, I thought wow, he could have saved so many and didn't! Guilty!<br />
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There were a few students in the class who agreed with me (though I didn't share my personal views) but most were either baffled or appalled that anyone would suggest the U.S. bore ANY responsibility for what had happened to the Jews of Europe.<br />
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I have taught this lesson many times since. And as my understanding of the nuances of history have developed, so has the lesson, as well as my personal understanding of what Roosevelt could and could not have done. Here is the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MeVhUV29YamJrN2c/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">most current version of the handout</a> I give students. It never fails to generate heated discussions (unless they all agree with each other, which would be highly unusual). I don't--for the record--usually use this in a U.S. history class. I feel it belongs in a more complete unit on the Holocaust. (But if you want to use it--in whatever class you teach--the second page has some discussion questions you can use. And the US Holocaust Museum has a <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/educators/lesson-plans/who-is-responsible" target="_blank">similar lesson but on Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur.</a>)<br />
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If you are teaching U.S. history in high school, it is likely that your colleagues in world history are teaching the Holocaust, and I think the lesson above and the topic overall fits better in that curriculum than in U.S. history. But many middle schools add the Holocaust into their curriculum even if world history is not taught. (So if you are looking for more materials for teaching the Holocaust in general, scroll down to the end of the post; keep reading for the U.S. history idea).<br />
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But I don't like to ignore the Holocaust in the U.S. history curriculum, and I think the lesson I will describe below is a good way to incorporate it.<br />
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After years of using the above lesson, I finally decided that it was high time that I put a little more research into the question of whether F.D.R. really could have done more to save the Jews. And if not, what were the obstacles? It seemed kind of irresponsible for me to imply they were responsible without knowing more about it. And my students really wanted to know more. There are a number of books on the subject. I will list a few at the end of this post.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--nsoTIGXAy4/VTkTWeu3YeI/AAAAAAAAA4k/VFJNgZVh1qc/s1600/FDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--nsoTIGXAy4/VTkTWeu3YeI/AAAAAAAAA4k/VFJNgZVh1qc/s1600/FDR.jpg" /></a>During the war and depression years, Roosevelt was enormously popular among American Jews. It was joked by some that there were three worlds or "velts" (the Yiddish word for world): this velt, the velt to come, and Roosevelt. So worshiped was Roosevelt by Jewish Americans for all he did during the depression and the visibility of Jews in his administration. But he and Eleanor also grew up with some of the anti-semitism that was common to their time and their social class. As president, he appointed many Jews to positions of power, most notably <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007408" target="_blank">Henry Morgenthau, Jr.</a> as his Secretary of the Treasury. But the U.S. State Department--which oversaw immigration to the U.S.--was noted for anti-semitism. And this would play a significant role in events to come.<br />
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So the lesson that I developed on this topic is described below, and you can find the whole thing <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MeG11WkUyNjVnZms/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. Essentially, it takes the complex "answer" to the question implied in this post's title and turns it into an inquiry-style activity for students. They read the info on a bunch of cards and put them into categories that help answer the question. (Note: I have used presented this technique in some of my teaching presentations. You can find another application of the technique applied to the topic of the Cold War under the tab at the top, "Teacher Presentations"). It is an approach that can be applied to many topics, though I warn you it requires a significant investment of time, and is best done for a topic that you know a lot about or are willing to put in some research time. On the positive side, depending on the topic, it can serve as a lesson that lasts several days up to a week, so the time would be well spent. To see the technique in a nutshell, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MUldjTUVaVUx2U1U/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. It will meet at least a few Common Core Standards, too.)<br />
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One of the key essential questions or "big ideas" that the Holocaust lesson addresses is the problem of presentism: we know today that 6 million Jews and 5 million others will die under Hitler's reign, but at the time, that was not known. (And by "known" I don't mean that people didn't know <i>anything</i>, as is sometimes claimed, but they certainly didn't know all that we know.) Also, a concept described well by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Wont-Just-Tell-Answer/dp/1571108122" target="_blank">Bruce Lesh</a> is the problem of "historical empathy." If we look at the decisions Roosevelt and Congress made regarding the Jews in Europe in isolation, it may strike us, "Hey, why couldn't they have at least let Jewish refugees into the country?" But we have to balance that with everything else at the time: opposition to other legislation, the lingering depression, anti-immigrant sentiment in general and anti-semitism in particular. and--after Pearl Harbor--the larger U.S. war effort.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T-kOQ9hwcGY/VTkTqjqXy7I/AAAAAAAAA4s/PzXv7mfkO7U/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T-kOQ9hwcGY/VTkTqjqXy7I/AAAAAAAAA4s/PzXv7mfkO7U/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jewish refugees on board the <i>St. Louis,</i> docked at Cuba. <br />
More info about <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267" target="_blank">the voyage of the St. Louis here</a>.</td></tr>
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If you want to extend this lesson, you can show a clip from the PBS film, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/" target="_blank">America and the Holocaust</a>. The film goes over some historical overview about the <i>St. Louis,</i> the immigration crisis and U.S. policy while juxtaposing it with the story of one particular family: the story of Kurt Klein who manages to leave Nazi Germany with his brother, but his parents are left behind. I don't show the whole thing. I use the first 20-30 minutes or so, up until the narrator Kurt Klein stops hearing from his parents. The students always want to know what happened to them, so I fill that in for them. As well as the great story about his personal life--he goes on to fight as a U.S. soldier and at the end of the war, meets a survivor of the Holocaust, Gerda Weissman, who he eventually marries. There is a highly regarded HBO documentary about her experiences called <i><a href="http://www.tolerance.org/kit/one-survivor-remembers" target="_blank">One Survivor Remembers</a>.</i><br />
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And for more info on the topic of the U.S. and its role in the Holocaust, the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/research/research-in-collections/search-the-collections/bibliography/united-states-and-the-holocaust" target="_blank">US Holocaust Museum has a whole section on the United States</a>, as does the <a href="http://enc.wymaninstitute.org/" target="_blank">David S. Wyman Institute</a>. These are both excellent sources which you can use for background or to create or find additional lessons.<br />
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The books about U.S. and the Holocaust: </span></h2>
Rather than include the links to Amazon like I usually do, I'm linking to reviews about the books so you can get the gist of them. I warn you, though, reading some of these books or even just the reviews (maybe especially the reviews!) will make you realize how difficult it is to find "the answer" in history. Perhaps that is exactly the point we want students to learn.<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/books/book-tries-for-balanced-view-on-roosevelt-and-jews.html" target="_blank">Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman, FDR and the Jews</a> or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/books/review/fdr-and-the-jews-by-richard-breitman-and-allan-j-lichtman.html?_r=0" target="_blank">here</a></li>
<li><a href="http://njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/121406/ltApologiesFor.html" target="_blank">Robert N. Rosen, Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/wyman-jews.html" target="_blank">David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/could-fdr-have-done-more-save-jews/" target="_blank">Rafael Medoff, FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith</a></li>
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Additional More Comprehensive Holocaust Resources for Planning an Entire Unit:</span></h2>
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While this post is mostly limited to how to teach one aspect of the Holocaust as it applies to U.S. history classes, I can recommend a few other sources if you are teaching a larger unit on the Holocaust. The most obvious is the one you probably all know: the United States Holocaust Museum. It is one of the most comprehensive museum websites I have ever seen, and you can probably find everything you need to create a full unit. Start with the r<a href="http://www.ushmm.org/educators" target="_blank">esources for educators</a>. And do check out their <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/educators/teaching-about-the-holocaust/general-teaching-guidelines" target="_blank">guidelines for teaching about the Holocaust </a>which are also very useful suggestions for teaching about other sensitive or disturbing topics. Another outstanding resource, less known among American teachers is <a href="http://www.yadvashem.org/index1.asp?utm_expid=41137025-2.B9WXk2yOTY2s-QT8m3Q16g.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F" target="_blank">Yad Vashem</a>, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem. They also have substantial online resources for teachers. And if you are in the Chicago area--but also has online resources--do check out the <a href="https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/" target="_blank">Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie.</a></div>
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I also highly recommend this <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Holocaust-Simone-Schweber/dp/1891662910" target="_blank">Teaching the Holocaust</a>, an outstanding resource for teachers by Simone Schweber and Debbie Findling. It has fantastic lesson ideas, and excellent suggestions for resources such as film clips and readings. The only downside is that not widely available and on the pricey side. ($33 on Amazon, but if you devote any significant time to the teaching of the Holocaust, I can vouch that it is money well spent.) You can read a sample of it <a href="http://www.torahaura.com/samples/57616.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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There are also SO many films about the Holocaust it can be hard to know what to choose. One of my all-time favorites is <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464062/" target="_blank">I'm Still Here,</a> produced by MTV. It has famous actors and actresses reading diary entries of young people. I have used it with 9th graders with great success. I think it would be good for 8th graders, too. Seventh grade, maybe a few clips. And it definitely works well up through 12th grade. What I love about it is that it describes the Holocaust from the perspective of teenagers and therefore it really resonates with kids. I have cut the excerpt from the anonymous diarist when I show it because one, that way you can better fit it into a class period and have time for discussion and two, that scene has especially graphic footage which I find inappropriate for younger students. If your school cannot borrow it from another library or purchase it (it's available for $15 on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Im-Still-Here-Diaries-Holocaust/dp/B0015XM2ZM" target="_blank">Amazon</a>), then try your public library. I have also seen it fully downloaded on youtube, but I have some copyright issues with that, not to mention you may run into streaming problems. <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/publications/Salvaged%20Pages.pdf" target="_blank">Facing History has a study guide for teachers</a> (as well as lots of <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/for-educators/educator-resources/resource-collections/holocaust-resource-collection" target="_blank">other Holocaust resources</a>) you can use, too.</div>
Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7549779060176586454.post-46054611201550535982015-04-22T17:15:00.000-05:002015-05-11T08:32:30.622-05:00Some Thoughts on Class Participation, Role Play and How to Approach World War II in a U.S. History ClassAt this point in the school year, it can be an uphill climb to impact any significant change in the culture of your classroom. You and your students have likely long settled into your roles. But there is still a good month and a half or more of school left to go, and it is our responsibility as the grownup in the room to keep fighting the good fight.<br />
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I am thinking specifically about classroom participation. We all would like a classroom environment in which every student's hand is waving in the air, every kid eager to participate. But the sad truth is that many classes have a handful of students who regularly participate and....well, and that can often be it. In my work evaluating student teachers, and currently I am teaching pre-student teachers in the methods class, I often harp about the need to <i>pay attention to the kids</i>. It is hard for beginning teachers to do that, I understand. They are so busy trying to figure out what <i>they</i> are going to do, that it is hard to really see what the students are doing. And they are so grateful when a student raises his or her hand, that they rarely use the power of "wait time" to see if anyone else is going to throw a hat in the ring.<br />
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I think about this often while looking back on my own middle school self: I was that quiet kid who NEVER wanted to raise her hand. There was a boy named Warren in lots of my classes who was an active class participant. For alphabetical reasons, I was often right behind him. And sometimes when the teacher would call, "Warren," I got a pit in my stomach feeling because "Warren" rhymes with "Lauren" and I was terrified thinking that the teacher had called on me.<br />
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So how do you get the Laurens to participate?<br />
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There has been a ton of research on this topic, which I'm not going to get into here. Suffice it to say that there are techniques that involve using classroom blogs, polls, or online discussions (See <a href="http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-onlinelearning-mastering-online-discussion-board-facilitation.pdf" target="_blank">Edutopia's guide to online discussion</a>) which allow students to participate without the "scariness" of having to speak out loud. Or techniques like the ones described by <a href="http://edexcellence.net/events/doug-lemov-on-teach-like-a-champion-20" target="_blank">Doug Lemov</a> (check out this excerpt about <a href="http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/tlac-2-0-excerpt-managing-pause-cold-call/" target="_blank">"cold-calling, wait time and other ideas</a>) that can boost participation. (See also this <a href="http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2014/disrupting-discussion-rituals-in-the-history-classroom" target="_blank">interesting article</a> about a university professor's success with small group discussions, fyi.)<br />
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In today's post, I'm going to offer another technique: role play. One of the advantages of a role play activity is that students are somewhat freed from having to be themselves. Sometimes the self is a tough role to play for adolescents. If you assign them the role of a historic figure, they don't have to worry as much about what other kids (or you) will think of their own ideas, as they are playing the role of someone else.<br />
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Hence my idea about role play. In a lesson on the U.S. and the world in the 1930s, what if students were each assigned a role, some fictional, some real, and then I had a list, so instead of calling on Lauren who is shy or Warren who may monopolize class discussions, I could call on Eleanor Roosevelt? Or an American World War I veteran? Or an Italian immigrant?<br />
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What I also like about this technique is that it forces students to grapple with the Problem of Presentism. <i>We</i> know there will be a World War II. <i>We</i> know the U.S. will join and that Nazi Germany will be defeated. But in 1933 or 1936 or 1939, nobody knew that. What they <i>did</i> know, our students forget because it was on the test from the last unit or two: World War I was terrible, with mixed results and the U.S. was in the midst of a terrible depression. So we need to remind students to think about the events of the 1930s from the perspective of those who lived through it.<br />
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One of the problems posed by World War II for U.S. history teachers is that the period 1935-1941 is an enormously complex time filled with lots of important and intersecting events. Take a look at this list of "vocab terms" from the end of a chapter of a typical U.S. history book:<br />
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Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1937 and 1939<br />
cash and carry<br />
Arsenal of Democracy<br />
Lend-Lease<br />
Ludlow Amendment<br />
Panay incident<br />
Selective Service Act</blockquote>
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If you add to that key events from abroad...rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, Mussolini and the invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Spanish Civil War, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Sudetenland, the policy of appeasement, the Anschluss, Kristallnacht, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet pact, etc., etc., etc....You will overwhelm your students and they will learn nothing.<br />
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There are two issues as I see it. First, is what should be covered in a <i>United States </i>history class vs. a world history class. And once we made the decision to focus on the war from an American perspective and save the rest for the world history teachers, how do we tame the content beast that remains?<br />
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My answer, as has hopefully become familiar to regular readers of this blog, is to focus on Essential Questions and recurring themes. If you read my earlier post on i<a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/realism-idealism-in-us-foreign-policy.html" target="_blank">dealism and realism in U.S. foreign policy</a> and the <a href="http://ushistoryideas.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-annexation-of-philippines.html" target="_blank">U.S. annexation of the Philippines,</a> you probably already know where this lesson is going. That is my intention with my students as well. I want them to see the connections between the Spanish American War and World War I and World War II. Those connections center around these essential questions:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In what circumstances should the U.S. intervene in world affairs? When should we be isolationist? When should we intervene? And what are the criteria for deciding? </span> </blockquote>
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So I begin my unit on World War II by setting the stage: the U.S. is still in the midst of the Great Depression, and FDR has key legislation he is trying to get through Congress. He will be up for reelection in 1936, and again in 1940. The infamous "Court Packing Plan" of 1937 has exposed Roosevelt to significant criticism. And meanwhile, there is very troubling news coming from Europe and Asia.<br />
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I then assign students each a role. I have created <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DC17Zr1wv8QB6ZRYSHsVJDLwSd6-MVjfFw_7icE3sKo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">25 different roles for students here</a>. At the beginning of this document is your "cheat sheet." This is what you use to call on #16, Eleanor Roosevelt or the fictional #23, Raymond Hewitt. If you have more than 25 in a class, you can either double up or come up with a few more. You will note that some are fictional and some are real and I have noted that for the students. If you are on a 1:1 model, you can assign students roles through Google Doc or something like that. Otherwise, you will have to cut and paste the role from the previous handout onto <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zhQVqFjJ6FaganW_dEUdaY7k2KVEca5UVuM3PEHizQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this one</a> for each student in your class, which is more of a pain, but certainly doable.<br />
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Class begins with my favorite Theodor Geisl (aka Dr. Seuss) political cartoon so we can review the concepts of "isolationism" and "interventionism" they learned when studying World War I. (Though point out that the cartoon is from 1941 and you are going to backtrack).<br />
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I handle the "troubling news from Europe and Asia" with this <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xnHhv-wV2MSFFTZktPMDIwR0k/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">brief PowerPoint</a>. Part of my reason for keeping it brief is to tame the content beast, but part of it is also deliberate: not all Americans are paying super close attention to what's going on abroad. Some are, some less so. Many would be familiar with at least the headlines. (And I am de-emphasizing European and World history in order to focus on U.S.). But again, they don't know as we do know what is <i>going</i> to happen and therefore how significant it is some of these events will be in hindsight.<br />
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Throughout class, you can conduct discussions, short or longer, where students play their role. Ask them how their character would feel about supporting various pieces of legislation (e.g. Neutrality Acts, Lend-Lease). They don't need to memorize all this legislation for the test; but they will get a sense of what kinds of things FDR is proposing to "bring the country" along with him. Ask students how they might react to the news from abroad, based on their character. Ask them how they would react to FDR's speeches such as the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eyLBg9BaBXLWZhoPtnLW2FU0PbOkMTlMfcJpCRv6PG8/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Quarantine speech in 1937</a>. (Especially if you live in the Chicago area, check out the occasion for the speech as described in <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-03-23/features/8601210582_1_dedication-ku-klux-klan-spread" target="_blank">this Tribune article</a>.) By the end of these discussions, students should have a better sense of the diversity of American public opinion, the importance of it and the need to respect it if you are president running for re-election and trying to pass your New Deal legislation. Take polls, either through a show of hands (low-tech) or on <a href="http://polldaddy.com/">polldaddy.com</a> or <a href="http://surveymonkey.com/">surveymonkey.com</a>, where you can sign up for free as a teacher. For more details, and links to additional primary sources, see <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-bIrGDwV085q4koKrXqwM2nu0u4lrWjxA7Vnw7lSOm8/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">my write up of this lesson</a>.<br />
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And you can end your lesson with this quotation:<br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-024bef65-e2db-b375-622e-9e9ce6ea0a55"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">History never looks like history when you are living through it. It is always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">— John W. Gardner</span></div>
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One last point, I've been neglecting lately to explicitly connect my blogposts to specific Common Core standards. (I confess, I keep hoping that my motto of "high standards that meet any standards" will suffice, as I get tired of navigating the poorly designed CCSS website.) But my newest interest is the overlooked Common Core Speaking and Listening standards. Until the time when I can post my own ideas on these standards, check out this <a href="https://pvlegs.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/voices-from-the-middle-article-listening-and-speaking-demystified/" target="_blank">great blogpost about them from Erik Palmer</a>, whose webpage <a href="http://pvlegs.com/">pvlegs.com</a> is on my new must-read list and <a href="http://www.teachingthecore.com/pvlegs-public-speaking-acronym/" target="_blank">this one</a> from Dave Stuart's blog, <a href="http://teachingthecore.com/">teachingthecore.com</a>, and note that the above lesson ideas would meet the Speaking & Listening standards #1C. See <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/SL/8/" target="_blank">here</a> for more info on the 8th grade version of those standards.) Also, if students spend time looking at Roosevelt's speeches, they are meeting <a class="identifier" href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/6-8/2/" name="CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #373737; font-family: 'Lato Light'; font-size: 11.7600002288818px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2</a> or <a class="identifier" href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/9-10/2/" name="CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #373737; font-family: 'Lato Light'; font-size: 11.7600002288818px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2</a> or <a class="identifier" href="http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/11-12/2/" name="CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #373737; font-family: 'Lato Light'; font-size: 11.7600002288818px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2</a>, depending on the grade level you teach.<br />
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Lauren S. Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355227108619230366noreply@blogger.com0