The following was originally posted elsewhere on 5/19/2012. I took a first shot at adapting and implementing Bruce Lesh’s lesson on Truman’s decision to fire MacArthur on Thursday and Friday. The first day was mainly establishing context using maps, notes, and political cartoons. I found this to be fairly labored, and my large 4th period class in particular […]
Category: Uncovering History
It is as if for all of these years I have been giving students information as context for critical thinking activities that rarely come.
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Reading in between sources
As part of my summer reading program I recently finished Alan Taylor’s The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, the winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for History. I found it worthy of the award: scholarly, insightful, and engaging. As many things do, it got me reflecting on teaching historical thinking. I particularly appreciated Taylor’s very transparent use of […]
In May shortly after returning to the classroom from covering a maternity leave elsewhere in the building. I facilitated student inquiry into the Montgomery Bus Boycott using SHEG’s activity I had been out when the trimester began and had not taught US History earlier this year. So, the students were all new to me, and it was […]
Contribution to April’s History Blog Circle: Historical thinking is important, but it’s hard, even “unnatural”. Likewise, assessing historical thinking is daunting, but very necessary. Both doing and assessing historical thinking require practice. Lots of it. This practice is worthwhile because reading and writing like historians are skills that students will use in college, career, and civic […]
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“American Genius!”
Parenting a toddler can yield surprisingly rich metaphors for thinking about teaching history. My two-year old can identify Bob Dylan on two of my t-shirts (she asked). I have taught her to connect his name with the phrase “American genius.” This amuses me and confounds her mother who views Dylan as manically self absorbed. Of […]
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Howard, Sam, Mitch, and Me
I have a somewhat deserved reputation for tardiness. Just after I finally read Sam Wineburg’s critique of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and began drafting some thoughts, Zinn and Wineburg were in the news thanks to Purdue University President Mitch Daniels. Then, I went on vacation…So, here are my belated thoughts on […]
Presenting at a stimulating Minnesota Council for History Education workshop this week, I stressed the importance of establishing classroom routines around historical inquiry. I know this is important, because I have yet to do it fully and know the consequences. Students still find the task of critically approaching sources strange and opaque. Establishing a frequently […]
Recently, I spent a period (67 minutes) on the Zoot Suit Riots with four classes of regular level, 10th grade US History students, using SHEG thinking like a historian materials and clips from PBS American Experience documentary, available on youtube. The documentary used a lot of witnesses to and participants in the events around the […]
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Uncovering Apartheid
UPDATE: I have created a webpage with a lesson plan and links to specific resources for the activity described below. While looking for some primary sources to make a short unit on Modern Africa more student-centered I came across a trove of primary sources at the South African Government’s site for Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. […]