Using objects to teach history

If you’ve ever had the chance to work with Keil Hileman, you know how powerful the use of historical objects and artifacts can be.  His classroom is literally filled with thousands of objects, all of which he uses to suck kids into thinking deeply about history.

He once had his kids create a full-size replica of the flag that flew over Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812 and still uses it as part of his instruction. Get a sense of what that looks like by going here.

There are lots of other ways to use objects and another useful resource is this Smithsonian National History of American History pre-recorded webinar. Jenny Wei does a great job of walking you through all sorts of ideas for using artifacts as teaching tools.

A couple of other handy sites:

• Teaching with Museum Collections
• Teaching Yourself to Teach with Objects
• Teaching History with Real Artifacts: Six Strategies

Civil War Poster! Free!

Yesterday I posted some cool free goodies from Colonial Williamsburg.

Today?

More freedom. This time from the the great Teachinghistory.org site. I especially like the interactive piece. Have the hard copy in your room and use the online tool to go deeper. Slick!

What can a quilt, a map, some photographs, a haversack, and a receipt tell you about the past? Thanks to Teachinghistory.org’s new FREE poster, “How Do You Piece Together the History of the Civil War?,” these objects can teach a lot about the Civil War and about how historians piece together the past.

This 24 x 36 inch poster features an engaging collage of primary sources and related questions that get students thinking about how we know what we know about the past, especially in relation to our country’s most devastating conflict, the Civil War. The question, “How can geography impact a battle?,” accompanies a map of Gettysburg while a slave receipt prompts students to think about the laws, economics, and people involved in the institution of slavery.

As a special bonus for teachers, Teachinghistory.org has created an interactive version of this poster with links to teaching materials and websites related to the Civil War. Topics include children’s voices during the Civil War, African American perspectives, women’s roles, Civil War era music, and emancipation, as well as military history and life on the battlefield.

This poster and online resources illustrate that it takes many sources and perspectives to develop a rich understanding of the Civil War in all of its complexity.

Request an individual poster
Request multiple copies for your school or organization

Footnote and free census data

Got an email this afternoon:

A few weeks ago, we granted all visitors to Footnote free access to the Interactive Census Collection. Due to the positive response we received, we have decided to keep this collection open to the public through the month of April.

It is a great time to find information about your ancestors in the censuses, including the more popular 1930 and 1860 censuses.

If you haven’t already joined Footnote, now would be the time to do it. Footnote has literally millions of primary sources in an incredible, searchable database that allows you to save, print, annotate and share with others. And right now Footnote is offering free access to its version of US Census data. Why use Footnote census records? A great interface.

I was able to go in and view the 1930 census data for Finney County, Kansas and track down grandparents and families on both mom and dad’s side. I was able to annotate, print, download and save to my Footnote Gallery. Pretty sweet!

The full version of Footnote costs $49.95 for a year or $11.95 for a month. Which is actually pretty cheap when you think of the amount of access. Perhaps every one in your department can chip in a few bucks.

The cool thing is that they offer a free trial and offer a lot of stuff for free when you create a basic account. Things like:

US Milestone Documents

Documents that have shaped American history.View images of the originals and learn where each document is archived. This collection provides a first-hand look at some of the nation’s high and low points.

Project Blue Book

Nearly 13,000 government UFO reports. From Alaska to Arizona, from Florida to Labrador, UFO sightings were reported from within North America and even around the world.

Pennsylvania Archives

More than 100,000 pages from 1664–1880. If you’re interested in Pennsylvania history and want information relating to historical events, facts about ancestors, or original documents to support a research paper, the Pennsylvania Archives is an important publication to explore.

Papers of the Continental Congress

Official records of the original colonies and the early United States. The First Continental Congress (1774) addressed “intolerable acts” by the British. The Second Continental Congress (1775-1781) created the Declaration of Independence and the first national government.

Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress

These are documents which were misplaced, overlooked, or found in private hands when the Papers of the Continental Congress were first arranged in 1834.

Constitutional Convention Records

Convened in Philadelphia in May 1787, the Constitutional Convention created one of the most important documents of the new nation – the United States Constitution.

Copy Books of George Washington’s Correspondence

Explore events that preoccupied George Washington during his years as president through these letters. The correspondence includes items as simple as trip itineraries to more complex issues such as the conduct of the US in wars of other nations, and Thomas Jefferson’s opinion of the constitutionality of the Residence Act in 1790.

Free census access lasts through April. Get it while you can!

The Congo and personal primary sources

Summer 1959

May 1960.

An American family leaves the Belgian Congo after five years in the African interior.

During their time in the Congo, they built schools, designed hospitals and nursed the sick. And now, with the local Congolese agitating for independence and the Belgian government pulling out, the family was leaving as well.

Hum, yeah. And . . . so what?

Digging the shoes!

These are just some old pictures and travel documents from some random family, right?

Well, actually, not so random. The family picture above is my mom, dad, older sisters and brother. My mom, now 80, was going through some boxes of stuff and was getting ready to toss them out.

Of course, the history geek in me thought that was a bad idea. Some of this stuff, I had seen before. But the plane tickets, some of the photos, other assorted maps and travel documents were new to me.

Dad's ticket from Kikwit, Congo to Wichita, Kansas

I especially like the menu card from one of the in-flight meals. The cover is a stylized painting of downtown Amsterdam. Very formal and it actually looks pretty tasty! (Look close enough and you’ll discover in the fine print that “several of KLM’s chefs” are members of a 700 year old society of culinary masters. Nice!)

In-flight menu, drinks were listed on a separate card

Okay . . . interesting documents. But, again . . . so what?

I think that sometimes we forget how powerful primary sources can be.

Especially . . . especially those that have a personal and emotional connection to our students. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using primary documents that came with your textbook, or you got from the National Archives or even those that show up in some of those cheesy jackdaw collections.

But think about how powerful history becomes when it’s studied with documents generated by students themselves.

That’s the “so what.”

The documents posted here mean something to me. I know the people in the picture. I’ve asked my dad about the giant snake. There’s already an emotional connection built-in . . . what I need is a teacher to help me see the connection to a bigger world, to help me ask bigger questions:

Congolese women, child and baby

• Where is the Belgian Congo? Why did the family have to leave? Why was the Belgian government leaving? Were they in charge? Why? Was the US involved with Belgium pulling out? What influence did the USSR have in the Congo? What happened after the Belgians left? How do the events in the Congo during 1960 impact current events? Was that genocide in Rwanda connected with the Congo?

So . . . ask your kids to share their own personal primary sources with you.

Old photos, goodies from family vacations, things from their grandparents, letters, just about anything can be used to generate conversation and hook kids into asking and answering historical questions.

We just have to find and share the connections.

The LOC and Chronicling America

The push by the Library of Congress to digitize primary documents continues. Together with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the LOC has posted the 1,000,000th newspaper page at its sweet Chronicling America site. Chronicling America’s charge is to enhance access to America’s historic newspapers through their National Digital Newspaper Program.

And you’d think I’d be happy with a million pages to play with. I mean, it’s 1,000,000 pages. Which is, you know, a lot. The 1,000,000 pages covers newspapers in 14 states and the District of Columbia from 1880 to 1922.

But once you get in the collection, it’s easy to get a little greedy. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some coverage from the Civil War? The Great Depression? Prohibition? WWII?

Still . . . 1,000,000 pages. Westward expansion, Populism, Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt, World War One. There’s some biggies in there.

So I think I’ll be okay. Pretty sure you will too.

The search feature is very easy to use with the option to select specific keywords, dates, places and papers. There is a nice geographic mix of large and small papers and even a few college papers thrown in. I haven’t dug in too deep but it looks like there is also a nice political mix.

The search results are also easy to use. Zooming features make it easy to find what you want on the page and the software highlights your search words. You can view a written transcript of the page, download as a PDF, an image file or simply print from your browser. These options make it easier for you as a teacher to get exactly what you want.

The LOC folks have also put together a mini topic guide and a link to their front page collection at Flickr.

Pretty sweet stuff. Definitely something you should be having your students use.

Even if it only has 1,000,000 pages.