Trading cards and the Common Core

We’ve always asked our kids to read. Informational text. Primary sources. Non-fiction. Fiction. Poetry. We’ve always asked our kids to write. Summaries. Research. Reviews. Reaction papers.

At least, that’s been the theory. Good social studies and history instruction has always included these things but I think that sometimes we can forget how critical reading and writing skills are to what we do. The Common Core, for better or worse, has been a good reminder for us. We need to have our kids read, write, and communicate much more.

The problem for many of us?

Uh . . . what does that look like again?

The Clansman and books that shaped America

We’re in day two of a four day history geek fest. And it’s awesome.

Dr. Steven Hahn, Pulitzer Prize winning historian, and Bruce Lesh, teacher and author of Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer, are working with 40 middle school teachers as part of our Century of Progress TAH grant project.

Did I say that it’s awesome?

Some very interesting conversations about Reconstruction, liberty, slavery, freedom, and American citizenship. We started with the question:

What is the opposite of slavery?

Very cool stuff. But, of course, with a roomful of history teachers, the conversation has meandered quite a bit. Part of the meandering has focused on the books and writings of the period and topic.

One of the books discussed has been The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. This is the book on which the incredibly racist movie Birth of a Nation is based.

And while the content of both book and movie has since been discredited, both had a huge impact on the country. Which raised a question in my head:

What books have had the most influence on American history?

A quick search found a very cool resource from the Library of Congress. The LOC has put together a list of books that they suggest shaped American history:

This list of “Books That Shaped America” is a starting point. It is not a register of the ‘best’ American books–although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.

The Clansman is not on the list but maybe it should be and the LOC is doing a cool thing by encouraging conversation about the list itself. You can view the list and comment yourself. My question?

What books would you add to the list? What books would you take off?

I think you could use this question throughout your instruction as you incorporate more fiction and non-fiction. Asking kids to rank and rate what they read seems like a great way to engage kids directly in the content.

What ya got?

55 Interesting Ways to Support Writing in the Classroom

Reading and writing have always been important pieces of quality social studies instruction. Without these skills embedded into what your kids are doing, history and social studies classes quickly become nothing more than exercises in rote memorization.

Reading and writing provide a path to critical thinking and problem solving. And with the Common Core tsunami already crashing down, any helpful ideas for incorporating them into instruction can help us keep our heads above water.

So when I recently ran across Tom Barret’s handy 55 Interesting Ways to Support Writing in the Classroom Google Doc, I jumped on it. It is simply what it says it is – 55 ways that you can integrate writing as part of your instruction. And while it’s not laser-focused on social studies, you’ll find some great ideas in the list.

The cool thing?

Because the list is a Google Doc, it is editable and will continue to grow as teachers add their own ideas to it.

The second cool thing?

Tom Barret has a whole list of helpful “Interesting Ways” to explore. In addition to an Interesting Ways to Support Reading in the Classroom doc, the list includes ideas for iPads, cell phones, Google tools, video games, QR Codes, and other cool tools.

Head over, grab some great ideas, and be sure to add your own.

NCHE Day Two – Authors in the Archives

LeAnn Potter and Megan Jones from the National Archives are sharing some cool stuff about American authors and how to use their NARA stuff in class.

The National Archives are designed to hold and maintain the records of the American government. But NARA also has some incredibly interesting things relating to authors that many of us have read. The key? NARA has them because they did other things besides write books.

They started with a cool activity asking us to look at list of traditional American authors and work to figure out why their stuff would be in the National Archives and where it might be housed. They shared some of the documents that connected the authors to NARA and led a fun discussion.

Your turn. What do you think?

A couple of examples. Poe was kicked out of West Point. Pearl Buck, John Steinbeck, and Thornton Wilder (among 35 other authors) sent a telegram to FDR urging him to respond to the Nazi Party’s KristallNacht attack on Jews in 1938.

The idea is that American authors have lives and values and interesting stories beyond their work. We can use these things to engage our kids in historical context.

They also shared a bit about the very cool NARA tool called DocsTeach.

DocsTeach has thousands of primary sources and uses those documents to create activities that encourage high levels of thinking. The cool thing is that the ed specialists at the Archives have created tons of these activities already but teachers can use the same tools to create their own activities.

These activities can then viewed and used by all the other teachers who use the site. You can search by type of activity, by keyword, and by time period. Megan highlighted the process by sharing an exercise based on the discussion on American authors.

Get more info on DocsTeach here. One other great place for lesson plans and primary sources created by Lee Ann Potter is the NCSS Teaching with Primary Sources page.

Both are truly no-brainer sites for social studies teachers. And it’s free. What’s not to like?

NCHE Session II – Picturing America and the Common Core

A few years ago, I posted a few things here and here about the very cool Picturing America program from the National Endowment for the Humanities and EDSITEment. This session is discussing how to use art, specifically the Picturing America collection, to help meet Common Core literacy standards.

Robert Dytell from Queens College in New Your,  starts with Grant Wood’s 1931 painting of Paul Revere’s ride. We need to ask our kids some questions:

What do you see in here? Where does your eye go first? Where? When? What? What clues do you see? How do you know? What can you infer?

Is this what a New England town actually looked like? Should we accept art as actual fact? Did this event really happen?

What was the context of the time period in which the painting was created? Where was the painter from? Who was the intended audience? Why did Woods select this topic?

Dytell then gives kids a copy of Longfellow’s traditional poem – The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. And like with the painting, we need to train our kids to “source” the text. What most Americans know about Revere’s ride comes from this poem. Of course, the poem is not necessarily very accurate.

Dytell then highlights a nice article from the New York Times that highlights how the poem was really writing against slavery, not documenting Revere’s ride.

Together with the painting, these two pieces of text gives us the chance to ask kids to do stuff that the Common Core wants us to do – which is to ask great questions. Kids can begin to see how history is not cut and dried, not cookie cutter – that history is complex and nuanced and hard and awesome and engaging and cool and we’re lucky to be able to study it.

He then shared the photograph of the Civil Rights marchers in Selma by James Karales.

One way to start with this photo, is to compare it to Washington crossing the Delaware.

But also discussed how to tie it in with the texts relating to the Civil Rights movement and the Brown v. Board of Education case. An engaging oral history piece from one of the Little Rock Nine is another nice way to grab the attention of your kids. (You’ll want to chunk this out to make it a bit smaller – highlighting perhaps just the parts of of Melba’s first day at Central HS.)

Dytell then shared President Eisenhower’s TV speech addressing the Little Rock situation. There is an especially interesting piece towards the end of the speech

Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those standards of conduct which the peoples of the world united to proclaim in the Charter of the United Nations.

A last quick discussion on Norman Rockwell’s painting titled New Kids in the Neighborhood. Same idea as with Revere’s ride and the Little Rock stuff.

Use these information sources to focus on the social studies process standards that are embedded within the Common Core. Great teachers have always done these sorts of things. The Common Core encourages all of us to do them.