United States History textbooks can hostile terrain for BIPOC students. In Advanced Placement US History classes, which frequently lean heavily into the textbook as a means of delivery content, students see racist imagery, “fair and balanced” descriptions of architects of White supremacy, such John C. Calhoun, and a story of America narrated from a settler’s […]
Category: Assessment
Use an excerpt from an academic history to help students see the complexity of the idea of a European Renaissance
NB: these questions might be illegal in some states.
My interest in assessing colonialism involves the content as much as the process. In the photograph assessment, which I am currently grading, I want students to address the racism inherent in both colonialism itself and how it is presented in textbooks. The assignment, however, raises as many issues as it closes. I am finding it much […]
Last Spring I piloted an assessment of student understanding of the “new” Imperialism in regular level World History classes with eleventh graders. Students created google slides centered on photos of imperialism. Students interpreted the photos and analyzed causation, with three slides–before, during, and after–for each photo. I modified a History Alive! World Connections lesson, and students used History […]
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DBQs for everyone
In a decade of teaching AP History, first Euro and now World, I have developed an appreciation for the Document-based question. Students will ultimately forget many of the historical facts that we cover in AP History. The skills developed practicing and writing DBQ should be much more durable and transferable, because students practice in my […]
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New Year, New Rubric
Just in time for the 2014-15 school year I’m rolling out Rubric 2.0: Historical Thinking. In collaboration with colleagues in my school distict and in my twitter-based PLN, I plan to do action research with this rubric this year. Three of the five lines are the same from last year’s Rubric 1.2: Writing with Evidence. Adding “Corroboration” […]
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 […]