Illinois Council for the Social Studies

This is just a very short blog post to alert those who attended my sessions today on Methods for Using Primary & Secondary Sources and Teaching the Constitution where to find all the resources I mentioned. And thanks for coming!! If you are just a reader of this blog, you should check this stuff out, too.

See the tabs at the top of this page? The one marked "Teacher Presentations"? Click on that and you'll find links to all sorts of things that I hope will be useful to you whether you were at the conference today or not.

For those of you who may have been waiting for me get around to the rest of the Constitution, you'll find most of my completed unit on the Constitution. So rather than do more posts on that, I hope you will just look at the links under Teacher Presentations. There are more sample projects and problems for students.

Thoughts on Homework in the History Classroom

I "attended" a twitter #iledchat last night on homework. It was a bit difficult to concentrate as my daughter was practicing trumpet in the background (a four day weekend and she waits until 9 pm to complete her band "homework"?), but the chat did give me a few ideas, insights and questions which I will share below:

1. The parent perspective: Being a parent (of a 9th grader and 7th grader) gives me a new perspective from the one I had as a young teacher starting out. It is much easier to understand homework as a genuine obstacle to many aspects of family life. A plea from the me that is a parent: don't assign homework unless it really is necessary and meaningful. Check out this essay from last October's The Atlantic Monthly: My Daughter's Homework is Killing Me. Rather sobering. Of course, determining what is "necessary and meaningful" is subject to interpretation. (Not unlike as what is a "necessary and proper" law for Congress. Sorry, forgive the pun. Still have the Constitution on my brain....)

2. Balancing homework load: Last spring, while teaching 8th grade US history, I was quite aware of #1 above, and was very careful about homework.  I knew my students had language arts and math homework nearly every day, so I decided to keep my homework minimal. Do other middle school teachers minimize social studies homework in light of the emphasis on math and LA homework? Of course that didn't prevent some of my students from staying up past midnight to complete a DBQ essay I had assigned. I know, because we used turnitin.com which displays the time that students submitted their assignments. Even when I gave them time in class and plenty of days' notice, some students still finish at the last minute.

3. Reading assignments: Even if your class is not textbook-based, there are times when assigning reading in a textbook is helpful. Or an article. Or a chapter from a non-textbook.  But how can you assure students will actually do the reading while avoiding the pitfalls of "pop" quizzes, or having students answer a bunch of questions (see #6 below) or fill out a chart (e.g. list all the laws passed by the British which led to the American Revolution, the Civil War battles, New Deal legislation). How many students actually complete the chart as opposed to copying information without thinking about it, either directly from the textbook, Wikipedia or their best friend? If you want to have a meaningful class discussion about the reading how to we ensure students have done the reading? I've been experimenting with socratic seminars and literature circles (with both fiction and non-fiction). Check out these links:

Socratic Seminars: 

readwritethink.org

socraticseminars.com

Lit Circles

middle school lit circles

literature circles resource center

Students Becoming Real Readers - this one is about using lit circles in a high school English classroom, but still useful.

Literature Circles for Social Studies and Science

Of course, socratic seminars and lit circles don't really work with textbook reading, so I'll have to give more thought to that. I think the secret is to create classroom activities that require students to use the information in a reading. But how to do that....?

4. Flipping - does it really help? I also participated in a #sschat last night about the use of video in the social studies classroom. A few folks pointed out that flipping the class and having students watch movies (or clips) at home can optimize class time. But again, how do teachers ensure that students have actually watched the assigned video? (Assuming students have the access, which is another issue.) And is having students watch a 2 hour movie--even a good one--too much a demand on their time?

5. More on flipping - I have also been considering "flipping" the classroom in order to have more class time for writing. Writing a good history paper is HARD and while my initial thought is that students have to do this outside of class, the more I think about it, what if you were able to "flip" some of what you do in class to homework, and give students opportunity to write during class time so you could help them? Still a challenge, but this could give teachers the opportunity to really address problems students have with historical writing.  The Common Core Standards have an entire section devoted to writing (see links below) so, assuming your state has adopted the Common Core, it really is incumbent upon us to do this. (Even if your state hasn't adopted it, I still think history teachers need to teach writing!)

6th-8th grade writing standards 

9th-10th grade writing standards 

11th-12th grade writing standards

6. The Time-consuming Problem of Grading and Creating Meaninful Homework:
I once used a worksheet with a long(ish) reading about Social Darwinism in the late 19th century with my 11th grade U.S. history students. There were 10 separate questions that required answers of 3-5 sentences each. It was undoubtedly dull for students to complete and time consuming to grade. As my dear friend and former colleague once pointed out, I had created an assignment that required 10 decisions from me in order to grade. Why not instead have students write ONE summary of the assigned reading that answered ONE overall question? It would be far less laborious to grade, create a better opportunity for students to synthesize information, as opposed to spitting back (or copying from a friend) information directly from the text. Perhaps this is a corollary to my point #3 above: what if you assign the reading for homework, perhaps giving them a few questions to consider (but not write out answers to) as they read, and let them know in advance that the next day in class they will be writing a summary of the reading? Does this motivate them to do the reading? Or is this just a fancy way to describe a quiz?

I am eager to hear the ideas of other teachers about homework, and hope to revisit the issue more specifically as related to specific content in future blog posts.
Update: I have revisited this issue in this post.

Ideas for Teaching about the Constitution: Representative Government

Of the five principles (federalism, representative government, separation of powers, checks and balances and individual liberties), representative government is the one that hits the closet to home in big election years. In Illinois this year, we have a gubernatorial race this year, but that is never quite as interesting to students as presidential elections.

While it is not so difficult to to teach about the ways in which our government represents We, the People, I find it increasingly difficult to impress upon students the power of voting. As we all know, voter turnout in the United States is not something to brag about.  (Check out this link to voter turnout across the world - there is a dropdown menu for the U.S. and other nations.)  I wish I had a magic bullet for how to impress upon students that We, the People, still matter.  (Any ideas welcome.)

One idea I had is to share with students recent findings from a study about fish.  Oddly, a Princeton ecologist makes the argument--based on a study of fish-- that "collective ignorance is an essential feature of democratic governments, not a bug."  He argues that collective apathy helps check the power of extremists. Read this article from the Wall Street Journal for the details. It's kinda wacky and describing the findings to students, especially middle schoolers, might really arouse their indignation.

I was inspired recently by a Ted Talk by Eric Liu, former speechwriter for President Clinton and founder of a program called Citizen University designed to build citizenship (the website notes a curriculum for this coming soon). The title of the talk, "Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power" is provocative, suggesting to me that one way to engage students is to convince them of the power they have in changing the system. I think many of us today feel we have little power to impact anything, and that the concerns of government are far removed from our daily concerns. Listen or read the transcript of this talk....it might give you some good ideas. Also check out Citizen University's project Sworn Again America, which could work really well for middle schoolers.

Okay, so here are some other more concrete ideas:

1. Have students read about and research the results of close presidential elections in the U.S.  Be sure to check out 270towin.com which is an incredible website that has maps with the electoral results for all past presidential elections, and TONS of other cool stuff.

2. Recently, there have been some stories about pressure on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire. Get kids to consider the way that the principle of respresentative government influences the judicial branch.  Click here for an overview on this in the Huffington Post.  Ask students what this has to do with representative government?

3. As speculation is already beginning about the 2016 presidential election, you could have students do some research about how vice-presidential candidates are chosen. This article gives an excellent historic overview about the factors influencing this decision.

4. See my assignment for problems students can work on in class. Note that with the exception of the first question, they all have to do with the represenation in the executive branch.

5. And, if you're looking for a more elaborate project for students, see question #4 in my assignment above and idea #3 above.  I think it would be fun to put students in groups and have them role-play campaign managers--in an election year, they could research real candidates. But in off years, you could have them make up candidates, come up with a character sketch for an appropriate VP candidate, and then make decisions about where they will campaign, strategically.  You would have to remind students that it's not JUST the numbers on the electoral map that matter, but where the chances are realistic, i.e. even though California has the largest number of electoral votes, it might not be worth campaigning there if your running mate is a popular Californian who seems to have a huge lead there. Similarly, even though some of those smaller Western states have few, if you ignore them, you could be accused of not caring about those parts of the country. And small states also add up.

Using the Constitution & Current Events to Understand Federalism

The Supreme Court's recent decision NOT to hear cases regarding gay marriage remind me of the usefulness of current events when teaching about the Constitution. Students sometimes bring up gay marriage when talking about the principle of federalism, because it raises a key problem:

What happens when state powers (such as marriage, adoption, state university tuition, extradition, school desegregation) come into conflict with the fact that Americans are a mobile bunch and often cross state lines?

Having a class discussion on the constitutional issues associated with gay marriage (as opposed to moral issues) is a great way for students to understand how important social issues are sometimes "solved" by the Court. Gay rights can be a volatile topic in any classroom, but focusing on the constitutional issues--if you are careful and knowledgeable--has the potential to teach students about social change and how the Courts work to solve problems raised by federalism. At the end of this post, I have listed some links that might be helpful resources.

If you are reluctant to discuss gay marriage in your classroom, there are other issues/problems you can discuss that are less controversial.

Less controversial today, but wildly problematic during the Civil War, the creation of the state of West Virginia raises some interesting constitutional issues pertaining to Article IV. For more info, check out these two websites:

http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-1.html

http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/west-virginia/

Or a more contemporary problem:

If states have to recognize the marriages and adoptions of other states, why do state universities usually charge more tuition for out-of-state residents and more for hunting or fishing licenses to out-of-state residents?

The Supreme Court has argued that the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV (section 2) prevents states from placing unreasonable burdens on non-residents, while section 1 ensures that convicted criminals can’t escape justice by fleeing to another state, and that things like marriages, divorces and adoptions are valid when one crosses state lines.  The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV allows residents of one state to have certain privileges as a result of being a citizen of that state.  That also explains why one can’t vote for state officials in another state.  For a fuller answer, check out this site from Doug Linder, Professor of Law at University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.

And I just recently learned that residents of Washington, D.C., who are not residents of any state and therefore don't have an "in-state" university they can attend, can get tuition waivers of up to $10K to off-set the cost of out-of-state tuition. Check that out here.


If you'd like some problems you can have students work on, check out this document, which I have revised from a worksheet in my files, so I'm not sure where I originally got it. But it's a good class activity that forces kids to READ THE CONSTITUTION. (If you need the answers, you can email me: laurensbrown19@gmail.com. Question #10 is tricky!!)

Gay marriage resources:

Nina Totenberg's post for NPR

SCOTUS blog (Supreme Court of the United States)

article from Slate

article from The Economist

Also, the organization, freedomtomarry.org is not a neutral organization, but it does have a useful timeline that lists landmark cases and legislation.  

Teaching Ideas for the Constitution: Getting Students to READ the Constitution

One of my biggest complaints with the way the Constitution seems to be taught by so many is that students seem to memorize a lot of information and rarely read the Constitution itself. So this post will give you a way to get students to actually read (and understand!) parts of the Constitution while learning about the principle of FEDERALISM. (See my last post about the five principles.)

Here's a way to help students visualize the five kinds of powers. (With thanks to my dear friend and former colleague who taught it to me!)

You can start with just the simple Venn diagram below. (Hopefully I'll get these available as a link next week, but honestly, drawing 'em yourself on your Smartboard, whiteboard, or old-fashioned blackboard works just as well. Maybe even better.) Start by going over the delegated powers.

How? Use the text! (Very Common Core, but also just good sense.) Have students go to Article I, section 8, clauses 1-17. They don't have to read every single one, or copy them down in a chart or anything like that. But have them get a sense of some of the things Congress can do, according to the Constitution.  Your students won't understand every word of course. (Neither do I!) But some are easy--even for grade schoolers, e.g. #13- to provide and maintain a Navy or #7, to establish post offices.  I also like to point out #11, to declare war, because that is one that will come a lot when you get to Vietnam. Remind them: ONLY CONGRESS CAN DECLARE WAR. Even if you haven't gone over the fact that the President is commander-in-chief yet, someone will probably bring that up. So you can point out that that is a presidential power and you will get to that when you get to the principle of Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances. But today is Federalism, so back to that.

Then you can discuss State Powers. Of course, these are not listed in the federal constitution, but that's what the 10th Amendment is for. Have students read it. Discuss it. Then ask them for examples of things they know that states do. If they are stuck, give them a hint. Ask, where are you right now? And then they will figure out, oh yeah, school.  And then they will likely come up with other examples. They can do this in groups, in a large discussion format, or whatever works. If they don't figure it out on their own, you can then ask them about things that are listed under Article I, section 8 that both Congress and States do, such as #1: taxes!  This is what goes in the middle of the Venn diagram: the concurrent or shared powers.

Moving along...now you can add a little 
circle to your diagram for the Denied Powers.










You don't have to go over every clause in Article I, sections 9 and 10.  I rarely go into the details, for example, of habeas corpus or bills of attainder. But going over a few are useful. Students know instinctively that neither Congress nor the states can make someone a king or queen or a lord or a duke. And Section 9, clause 8 and Section 10, clause 1 say so. Students can also see that it would be weird if one state could make its own treaty with another country. But you can have them look at that same clause so they can see for themselves. See? Reading the actual Constitution doesn't have to be that hard. High schoolers can do this. Middle schoolers can do this.

So, if it hasn't come up by now, you should now let students know about Implied Powers. Those are "found" in the last clause of Section 8. Number 18--the one you may have told them to ignore for now--is sometimes called "the necessary and proper clause" because it says that Congress can make laws that it deems "necessary and proper" for caring out the powers listed in 1-17. It is also called the Elastic clause because, like elastic, it has the power to "stretch" the powers of Congress.




And the big takeaway from this is...(drum roll)....not all Americans agree about when Congress is stretching things too far. And that, of course, can lead you to all sorts of class discussion, projects, research opportunites about what Congress should and should not do.  (This is also the point where you can explain the terms loose and strict construction.)

But before you do, make sure they get it. So use a historic example.  You can either hand it out on paper or put on a screen, or just go over the scenario below orally.

historic example:

1.    

In the 1790s, the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, advised Congress to establish a Bank of the United States.  Hamilton believed that because Congress had several important powers related to money and taxes that it was both necessary and proper that the Congress establish the Bank.  However, Thomas Jefferson disagreed.  Jefferson said that because the power to establish such a bank was not specifically given to Congress, that meant that Congress had no constitutional authority to create one.  The Congress did create the Bank.

a.  On what part of the Constitution did Jefferson base his argument?

  ask students-- what delegated powers does Congress 

have that relate to money and taxes? 

Article I, Sec 8, clauses 1, 2, 5 and 18

On what part of the Constitution did Hamilton base his argument? Trick question! Article I, Sec 8, clauses 1, 2, 5 and 18—same ones, just interprets them differently.

Hope this is useful! More ideas on the Constitution coming soon!

How to organize a Constitution Unit

I wrote an earlier post in honor of Constitution Day on how to create a better assessment for the Constitution. So today I will start a series of posts on how to teach the Constitution in ways that help students read and understand how it works rather than memorizing a bunch of facts about it.

So instead of going Article by Article, or marching through the three branches of government, I would suggest going principle by principle. In other words, start with the Big Ideas or the Essential Questions about the Constitution. See the chart below:

And now check out the chart below to see what students would learn about each principle/essential question and where they can read about it in the text itself.  It helps illustrate, I hope, how to teach the Constitution so students understand what it means.

My next posts will give further details with lesson ideas and problems for students to solve for some of the topics below. But in the meantime, do check out the tab at the top for links to Constitution websites.

A Passion for History: the Key to Great Teaching

For years, I have ruminated on what makes a teacher great and what makes some classes better than others. I ask my student teachers to reflect on their favorite teachers and think about what specific attributes those teachers had that they can emulate.

One of the best K-12 teachers I ever had was my high school chemistry teacher. Science was never one of my favorite subjects, but chemistry was different. It was different because my teacher was passionate about chemistry and she knew her stuff. She had a reputation for being hard, tough, and even a little scary.  But she had a lecture that was so good, it was actually famous throughout the school. It even had--get this-- a title! (Do you remember the title of ANY lesson you had in high school? college?!) It was called "The Truth and Beauty Lecture." When you told other kids that you had Ms. Mueller for chemistry, kids who had already taken her class would ask, "Have you had the truth and beauty lecture yet?" and then exchange knowing looks among themselves.

Years later, I still can remember hearing that lecture.  I didn't realize at first that it was That Lecture.  I was taking notes as fast as I could to keep up, and as I wrote, I thought to myself, wow, this is pretty interesting. Actually, this is really incredible stuff. This is really amazing! And then, as she started to conclude, I realized, this is it! This is the truth and beauty lecture. And Ms. Mueller would finish by explaining that everything she had just gone over demonstrated the truth and beauty of the periodic table. And while I have completely forgotten every detail, I know that for at least one moment in my life, I understood the Truth and Beauty of Chemistry. Of Science. Of the Universe. And that is a pretty impressive feat to accomplish as a teacher.

I believe that the study of history makes for a richer and more meaningful life. I really do. But I know that not all students will agree. So I hope that even the ones who really aren't all that into history will--at least every now and then in my class--think, wow, that is pretty interesting. And maybe, if only for a moment, I hope a lesson I teach will make a student appreciate the truth and beauty of history.  I hope they will see that something that happened years ago, like a butterfly effect, might be responsible for what the world is today. And that it happened that way because real, live people made choices.

This is NOT an easy task, of course, so I hope this blog will continue to you some good ideas on how to at least strive for that.  If you've read some of my past posts, you may have noticed that it is very "content-driven." That is because I don't think we can get students excited about learning history unless we who teach it are really excited about history.  A lesson could be student-centered, full of innovative technology and inspired by the latest in education research and learning theory. But if it is not about something then what purpose does it serve? And how can you teach a history lesson about anything if you have not done your research about that historical topic? And how will it be interesting if you don't think it is interesting?

I don't think enough administrators and school reformers and politicians always realize how integral that is to great teaching. And I'm not even sure enough teachers realize it.  With so much emphasis on using technology, learning styles, standards, and other Latest Things, sometimes the most basic things are forgotten. 

Parting thought:

I hope that this blog entry and the links I am about to give you don't suggest that I am only advocating lectures as a teaching method. But the links below--from an excellent blog about teaching U.S. history at the college level--has some useful thoughts on beginning and ending a lecture. I think you could substitute the word "lesson" for "lecture" and the ideas would still work. And they work for middle school and high school history teachers just as well as college professors. The ideas in them echo something I have been telling my student teachers for years: all good lessons--just like good papers--have a beginning, a middle and an end. (summer update: I have since written at greater length on this topic. Check out my post on the 7 things all good lessons should have here.)

Check out these two blog entries by Ben Wright, an assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. 

Teaching Like We Write: Introduction and Conclusion in the Lecture
Opening lectures and teaching attention-getters