History Tech Podcast: Episode Two – Lincoln the movie and historical thinking

I got the chance to watch the Lincoln movie a week or so ago. Loved it. Who would have thought? A movie about constitutional law? Interesting?

But great casting, great costuming, and great performances, especially by Daniel Day Lewis, create a great movie. My wife was concerned about the length and walked out afterwards praising the movie. Even my daughter, who is not the history geek that her dad is, said:

The movie helped me see that Lincoln is an actual person, not just some historical figure in some textbook. He played with his kids while trying to run the country. I thought that was cool.

And I learned more about the process of how laws are passed and so I plan to go to a great college and become a lawyer, supporting my father in his quest to play every golf course in the state of Hawaii.

Okay. I added that last bit. But she really did enjoy how a very important piece of American history was told in an engaging and interesting way.

But how to use the movie in the classroom?

Visualizing Emancipation

We’re deep into the third day of our Teaching American History summer session and are busy uncovering all sorts of handy resources and materials. Part of what we’ve been learning is that African Americans of the 1800s played a huge part in their own gradual emancipation.

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education highlights and supports that sort of thinking:

Edward L. Ayers, a historian and president of the University of Richmond, calls the emancipation of slaves during the Civil War “the least-understood social transformation in American history.” A new interactive map he helped build shows that emancipation didn’t occur in one moment, he says, but was “an unfolding,” happening from the very first years of the war to the very last. And, he adds, it happened because of African Americans, not merely for them, or to them.

Titled Visualizing Emancipation, this interactive map is an ongoing project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, that sheds light on when and where men and women became free in the Civil War South. It tells the complex story of emancipation by mapping documentary evidence of black men and women’s activities – using official military correspondence, newspapers, and wartime letters and diaries – alongside the movements of Union regiments and the shifting legal boundaries of slavery.

A very cool Web 2.0 way of helping kids see that there was way more to the Emancipation story than just Lincoln, his Proclamation, and the 13th Amendment.

Tip of the Week – 2012 Black History Month Resources

Updated 2/8/2013
Head over to the latest 2013 list

——

It’s not that hard to find a ton of Black History Month resources. But sometimes it’s a bit difficult to find good ones. So I’ve spent some time putting together a short list of useful Black History month teaching materials.

Letters of Note: “To My Old Master” and Flight to Freedom Underground Railroad simulation.

African American History Month from the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

pays tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.

The National Archives has a great Black History Month site. New resources are clearly marked and all look great!

ThinkFinity, the great metasearch tool from the Verizon Foundation, put together a series of nine lesson plans.

eHow created an interesting take of the Black History Month lesson plan idea called How to Write Lesson Plans for Black History Month.

I really like the stuff that the Smithsonian has put together. There’s a wide variety of goodies – from artists to authors to musicians. They’ve also created an incredible African American Cultural Heritage Tour with images, audio, questions and quizzes.

The History Channel’s Black History site has a ton of videos, quizzes, images and information.

The National Archives has a huge list of Black History resources. Use this together with four great sites from the Library of Congress – The African American Mosaic, African American Odyssey, Civil Rights Exhibitions and Presentations and From Slavery to Civil Rights.

PBS created a couple of really nice collections – Africans in America and African American World.

The NAACP and Verizon put together a very nice multimedia and interactive timeline of the past 100 years of African American History.

Larry Ferlazzo always has great lists of stuff and his African American list is no exception. (Be prepared to spend some time here!)

Before you jump into lesson plans, read The Do’s and Don’ts of Teaching Black History, a good guide from Teaching Tolerance.

A collection of lesson plan sites:

• National Museum of African American History and Culture
• EDSITEment
• TeacherVision
• Teach-nology
• New York Times
• Education World
• The Lesson Plans Page
• African American: Free Resources and Materials
• Scholastic
• Teacher Ideas: New York Times Learning Network

Have fun!

Flight to Freedom – Awesome History Learning Simulation

Okay. Let’s call it what it really is.

It’s a video game.

Hopefully we’ve all gotten past the “Is it okay to play video games in history class?” debate. (If you still need some convincing, head here for some handy research.) So . . . yes, Mission US: Flight to Freedom is a video game. And not just any video game. A great video game.

It used to be that to call a video game “educational” was like saying your blind date has a nice personality.  Educational video games all seemed to be some sort of space cannon that could be aimed at slowly drifting multiple choice answers. Not so much anymore.

Mission US: Flight to Freedom by the people at Thirteen WNET is a fun and innovative role-playing game developed to change the way middle school students learn U.S. history. The second in the Mission US series,  players of Flight to Freedom assume the role of Lucy King, a fictional 14-year-old enslaved in Kentucky in 1848. As they work to navigate her escape and journey to Ohio via the Underground Railroad, students discover that life in both the North and the South could be dangerous and difficult.

The game rolls out just in time for play during Black History Month. Kids can access the game in a couple of ways – online streaming or by downloading it directly. Teachers have access to a very strong set of teaching resources and materials including document-based questions (DBQs), a rich collection of primary sources, activities for individual, small group, and whole class implementation, vocabulary builders, standards alignments, writing prompts, and visual aids.

The cool thing about the game is that kids encounter a diverse group of people – from abolitionists to slave owners – and must make decisions that affect outcome. “Flight to Freedom” helps students learn how enslaved people’s choices – from small, everyday acts of resistance to action that sought an end to slavery – affected not just the lives of individuals but the nation as well.

Students also practice a wide variety of historical thinking skills will playing the game – historical context, cause and effect, primary source analysis, literacy skills and foundational vocabulary – while learning more about the system of slavery and the movement that worked to abolish that system.

So go ahead. Play a game. You’ll be doing your kids a favor.

Lincoln, “a new birth of freedom” and EDSITEment

November 19, 1863. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Perhaps 20,000 people had gathered to hear former Massachusetts Senator and  Governor Edward Everett deliver a speech dedicating the cemetery at the Gettysburg battlefield. The dedication had been postponed a month to allow Everett more time to prepare his remarks.

The weather was mild for November, windy with a few sprinkles during the afternoon.

The Cemetery Dedication Committee had, as a courtesy, also invited United States President Abraham Lincoln to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” following Everett.

And while Everett delivered the first address at Gettysburg, it is the two minute, 10 sentence speech by Lincoln that we remember. Lincoln’s “appropriate remarks” should be required reading for every student who walks through our doors. Lincoln’s short but profound speech embodies the core of American democracy – equality, freedom, a government by and for the people.

EDSITEment has developed a four lesson unit that focuses on Lincoln’s vision for a strong Union that worked to ensure these core values. After completing this unit, students will have a better understanding of why Lincoln revered the union of the American states as “the last best, hope of earth.” You’ll find everything you need – handouts, primary sources, photos, teacher instructions

It’s a perfect fit for the next few weeks between now and November 19th.

You might also want to check out:

• OurDocs – Gettysburg Address
• The Lincoln Log
• Lincoln at Gettysburg
• Library of Congress – Gettysburg Address