DocsTeach lesson plans aligned to the Common Core

Seriously. If you haven’t made it over to the National Archives Education page, you are missing out. Lesson plans. Professional development stuff. Handy graphic organizers. It’s one of those sites that is non-negotiable for social studies people. If you’re not taking advantage of all of that goodness, you’re not as good a teacher as you could be. It’s just that simple.

But NARA has lots of other goodies out there.

DocsTeach is one of the those.

The Library of Congress, Places in the News, and Common Core standards alignment

Social studies teachers, like all other teachers, have a limited amount of time. So you need to pick and choose where you spend your time. Some places and tools are non-negotiable: Google Earth, Teaching History, Beyond the Bubble, ThinkFinity, EDSITEment.

And, of course, the Library of Congress. The LOC is an incredible resource with so much to offer – lesson plans, primary sources, and professional development.

But no matter how well I think I know them, I keep finding new things that they offer. My latest discoveries?

• Places in the News
• Common Core standards alignment

That’s right. Today here at History Tech, it’s a two for one.

Primary source activities aligned to the Common Core

One of the comments I often hear when working with social studies teachers and the Common Core is

So what does it look like?

My first response has always been

Well . . . not any different than what great social studies teachers have always done. Reading and analyzing primary sources. Arguing about meaning. Solving problems. Integrating fiction and non-fiction into instruction. You know. Strategies that encourage high levels of historical thinking skills.

But I still get blank stares every once in a while. To be completely honest, perhaps more than once in a while. There are still too many of us who are comfortable with a traditional style of social studies instruction focusing on low levels of thinking skills – the type of instruction that requires little real intellectual thought but lots of busy work.

Tip of the Week – Compare and Contrast, the Common Core, and Google Earth

I love the start of school! Everyone is excited. New materials have been unboxed. Some might have new technology gadgets such as iPads or updated computers to experiment with in their classrooms. Teachers have learned new strategies that they want to try. And with the coming of the Common Core, many of you are busy figuring out just exactly how to implement them in your classroom.

Here in Kansas, as we work to revise our current social studies standards, I’m excited about what those Common Core literacy standards mean for history instruction in our schools.

At its most basic level? The new state standards –  created with the Common Core in mind – encourage high quality social studies instruction. Reading, writing, researching, problem solving, using primary sources, asking questions. All of these should be part of what we do. But I know for some, these sorts of learning activities are new and perhaps just a bit intimidating.

Let’s start with Sam Wineburg. Sam says that there is one main difference between historians and students of history:

Historians see history as a set of problems. Students see history as a set of answers.

Part of what we need to do when we plan lessons is to create a sense of “academic discomfort” in our students by asking questions that have no easy answers. Some of us are not used to teaching that way. So today . . . a quick example of how you can use Google Earth to encourage problem solving, develop skills of comparing / contrasting, and research.

This example hook activity was designed for high school world history teachers but could easily be adapted for US history, and with different images, for different contents / grades. First, a fast overview of what the students would see and hear and then a quick discussion of where and how to get your own images.

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I begin by asking kids to look at two different images and ask them to answer what seems like a fairly simple question:

Why is there such a difference between the two images?

Image One

Image Two

You can do this in a couple of different ways. These are obviously Google Earth images but I would probably start by handing out hard copies to small groups of students before going to Google Earth. You can also use GE to save the images to your desktop or copy the images to your clipboard for use in Powerpoint so that you can project the images for your students.

(I don’t want to go to GE just yet because of the Historical Imagery data that would reveal too much at this point. More about that in a minute. Once kids have a chance to look at the data in hard copy format and have developed some early hypothesis, feel free to jump over to Google Earth and highlight the images. I’ll also share the images with you. Hang in there.)

Ask students to look for clues in the four different quadrants of the two images. What information can they gather from a close study? Ask them to articulate what questions need to be answered first before trying to answer the main question. Where and when are the two obvious ones that they should be thinking about. But they should also be thinking about what sources of information might be available to help them solve the problem.

Because of the lack of real data in the images and the probable lack of knowledge of your students, don’t spend much time with this part. Simply ask each group to make an educated guess on place, date, and why.

Then show them the third image.

Image Three

There is a bit more data here, including a little something of a date. If you’re using paper handouts, ask the kids  to lay this image side by side with the others. And on top of Image Two. Holding the two up in front of a window or bright light, reveals the overlay. A transparency and overhead projector works great for this as well.

The best way is to open Google Earth at this point and use the transparency slider on the map overlay to reveal the image below the map. The video below gives you an idea of what that looks like:

Zooming out a bit in GE reveals the entire map, providing enough data for most students to realize that these images are Warsaw, Poland at different periods in time. The first image is an aerial photograph taken in 1935 with a focus on the main Jewish area of the city. The second image is the same area photographed in 1945. The third image is a map overlay of the Warsaw Ghetto created by the German government in 1941.

Using this new information and the time and resources you provide, your students should now focus on the main problem:

Why do the first two images look different?

Many of you already know the answer.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany in Warsaw. Between 1941 and 1943, starvation, disease and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps dropped the population of the ghetto from an estimated 450,000 to approximately 71,000. In 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto was the scene of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first urban rebellion against the Nazi occupation of Europe. It was the German reaction to this uprising that is the answer to the question. Very simply, the Germans completely razed that area of Warsaw to the ground. Little was left standing.

The map overlay clearly shows the area where the Ghetto existed  prior to 1943 and the 1945 image shows the destruction of that area by German SS troops. Some of the infamous photos of the period can begin to put a human face on this event. A report on the actions taken by the SS reveal, at ground level, what the devastation looked like here, here, and here.

You can have students respond to the question in a variety of ways – a simple written response explaining their thinking and research using the Exit Card strategy, a quick verbal response by the group, or a more involved sort of product that requires additional research.

This sort of 30-45 minute activity supports the philosophy behind the literacy standards of the Common Core – problem solving, research, writing, use of primary sources, and compare/contrast. More importantly, this puts the learning on the shoulders of your students rather than on you.

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To create this activity, I started by opening Google Earth and doing a search for Warsaw, Poland. I then clicked the Historical Imagery button in the tool bar that runs across the top of 3D viewer window. This allowed me to toggle between images of the Warsaw Ghetto area taken at different periods of time. The first option is 1935, the second 1945.

I then went to Google Earth Hacks and did a search for Warsaw Ghetto to find the map overlay file. It was then just a simple matter of copying / saving images from GE as needed and opening the map overlay in GE.

Click here to download the Warsaw map view. Opening the file in GE will zoom into the correct area, then  you will need to turn on Historical Imagery to see the different period photos. Click here to download the Warsaw Ghetto map overlay. Opening this file will install and display the map on top of GE’s image of the Warsaw area.

Have fun!

The Common Core and your social studies classroom

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately talking with teachers and admin types about how the Common Core will impact Social Studies instruction. The conversation has included discussions about quality instruction, effective strategies, and a variety of resources.

It’s also included some discussion of the Kansas state standards revision process.

And it’s all been great fun. Seriously, what can be more fun that a bunch of social studies teachers yakking about strategies and history stuff?

But one thing I have noticed is that there is still some uneasiness about the whole Common Core integration thing. So . . . I’ve put some resources together over at Social Studies Central. You can find the session preso, online resources, a book list, and helpful web tools. All designed to help create classrooms that focus on quality social studies specific thinking processes.

Feel free to post comments below to share what’s been working for you as you integrate Common Core thinking into your instruction.

Tip of the Week: Social Studies and the Common Core

In the perfect world in which my brain sometimes lives, my friends and I start our own private school. We design and run it the way schools are supposed to run. Problem-based / constructivist learning, integrated technology, the elimination of seat-based credit, tons of resources, and appropriate / effective assessments.

The school’s curriculum? Science and social studies.

That’s it. Science and social studies.

Kids would learn the skills embedded in math and language arts but only in the context of science and social studies. I’m a social studies guy – I know the world revolves around my content. So kids would learn the parts of speech, literature, technical writing, and all of the other stuff that English teachers have traditionally taught, as part of our study on the Civil War, the expansion of Islam, and economic theory.

It’s my perfect world and I know it’ll never happen but I think I could pull it off. I just need a little time and a couple of million bucks.

But when you think about it, this sort of integrated curriculum idea has already started. With the coming of the Common Core, English teachers are being asked to include more social studies content into their instruction – a good thing.

But social studies teachers are also being asked to include much more reading, writing, and communicating into their stuff – which is a very good thing. Quality social studies folks have been doing this sort of thing forever. There’s just no way to do Social Studies right without “English/Language Arts” skills embedded into our instruction.

But I know that the Common Core is freaking some of you out. So today a few things that might help settle the nerves a bit.

Grades 6-12 Literacy in the Social Studies
Common Core State Standards Initiative
Let’s start with the basics. These are the things that are expected to happen at the secondary level. Be sure to browse through the Anchor standards as well as the various grade level bands. Here’s the cool thing – do you see anything in the list at your grade level that we don’t want kids doing in a social studies classroom? Exactly.

Trickle or Tsunami?: Getting Involved with the Common Core Standards
National History Education Clearinghouse
Daisy Martin is the Director of History Education at the NHEC and does a great job of unpacking the Common Core literacy pieces for you. She provides specific examples and rational while calming us all down by letting us know that we’ve been doing this all along:

Is this sounding familiar? In fact, the six facets of historical thinking in our What is Historical Thinking video and poster focus on these kinds of disciplinary skills.

Teaching the Common Core
Tim Bailey
Tim was the 2009 Gilder Lehrman History Teacher of the Year and is a middle school teacher in Salt Lake City. He’s one of those guys who does social studies right. He has his kids read, write, argue, analyze, ask questions, and construct new knowledge. In this article, Tim talks about some of the ways he does this:

the Common Core Standards emphasize analyzing, evaluating, and then critically writing about a historical piece by using evidence and information gleaned from the text. This kind of deep analysis, and eventual deep understanding, of primary material is the culmination of a well-taught, process-oriented series of lessons or units.

And most importantly, he shares 10 sample lessons that incorporate Common Core literacy pieces into social studies instruction.

What Do the Common Core State Standards Mean for History Teaching and Learning?
National History Education Clearinghouse
This NHEC article highlights a round table held late last year with teachers, curriculum directors, ed professors, and the director of the Common Core during which participants shared ideas, suggestions, and encouragement. Some veryuseful and practical advice here.

Reading Like a Historian, History Matters, and Other Awesome Resources
This list provides a wide variety of sites, resources, teacher materials, and lessons that don’t focus on the Common Core. They focus on quality social studies and history instruction.

And that’s the point. The Common Core literacy pieces embedded in the document support high-quality history/social studies instruction.

Yes. The document emphasizes math and language arts. Yes. The educational and political environments are not worrying enough about history and the social studies. But it’s a start.

K-5 teachers are going to be using more social studies content as part of what they do. ELA teachers grades 6-12 are going to be using more social studies content as part of what they do. It’s not the perfect school that I see in my head but there will be more Social Studies in other content areas while we use the Common Core literacy standards to support great social studies instruction.

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Updated April 21, 2012

Connecting Lessons to Common Core: Nationalistic Travel Brochures
Michael Milton
42ThinkDeep
Just found this site that focus on high school world history. Michael has taken some of his current lessons and adapted to the Common Core. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the posts for more lessons.

Common Core Online
A handy ScoopIt curating Common Core stuff. Nice resource.

Have fun!