Tip of the Week: Primary sources writing prompts aligned to Bloom’s Taxonomy

If you haven’t spent at least a few hours at the TPS-Barat blog site, you’re missing out. They’ve got some amazing resources designed specifically to support historical thinking. Using funds and support from the Library of Congress, the Barat Educational Foundation created a site focused on the effective use of primary sources in the classroom. Titled TPS-Barat Primary Source Nexus, the site has themed sets of primary sources, teaching strategies, online and face to face professional development, and tech integration tips.

Seriously. Be prepared to spend some time there. Plus you know it’s all good cause the LOC is involved.

I recently ran across a little bit of their goodness that seems like a no-brainer.  As we shift our instructional focus to include more historical thinking process and literacy, using primary and secondary sources should be one of our prime strategies. But it can be difficult integrating the use of primary source images with literacy activities.

The good news?

TPS-Barat has got you covered. They’ve developed a whole series of writing prompts aligned to Bloom’s Taxonomy that are designed for use with images and photos.

A bunch of clever writing prompts

It’s been a bit hectic around here but I did run across a fun resource that listed a bunch of cool writing prompts. Buzzfeed has gathered the different ideas from around the web. And I want you to have them. Seriously. It’s my gift to you.

So.

Looking for some cool ways to unleash the creative side of your students? Go and check them out. When you’re done, head back here for a few I posted a couple of years ago.

 

37 awesome writing prompts

You really need to go give Luke Neff some love. Buy some of his stuff. Write him a nice note. Maybe some sort of personal gift? Ya gotta do something. The guy is awesome.

Why awesome?

Because he’s has created a ton of awesome writing prompts that you can use with your social studies / history kids. And . . . he’s sharing them with us.

Tip of the Week – Social Studies Writing Prompts

As I spend time leading Common Core conversations with Social Studies teachers around the state, I often get the same question:

How can we encourage our kids to write more? What strategies are out there?

And it always baffles me a bit. I mean, writing and social studies go together like . . . two peas in a pod. (Chocolate and peanut butter. Batman and Robin. Cookies and milk. Bert and Ernie.)

Then I think back a ways to when I first started teaching middle school social studies. I never had my kids write much. That’s just not how it was done. Writing was for English class. But I learned. Having kids write is incredibly important. And I got better at it.

I knew I had finally reached a nice balance when a college student wrote on their class evaluation:

If this is English class, teach English. If this is History class, teach History!

I often used writing prompts to encourage reflection, activate prior knowledge, start conversations or to simply increase writing skills. While teaching middle school, I asked each student to keep a journal in their school agenda binder. My college students used Ning. If I were in the classroom today, I would be all over Edmodo as way to incorporate writing prompts into instruction.

To help stimulate your thinking a bit, a few examples:

• Find a camera. The older, the better. Bring it to class and tell your students that this camera was found in the closet of a retired soldier (protestor or politician or whoever). The soldier was at the battle of Gettysburg (Kent State or the Senate during the Civil Rights Act debates or wherever.) The film hasn’t been developed yet. If this camera was at Little Round Top, what pictures would it contain?
• If you looked at a map of your town from 50 / 100 / 200 years ago, how would it be different? Describe at least five differences. What would a person from 200 years ago have to say about a map of the town in the present day?
• Compare how a social studies textbook and a historical fiction book are similar yet different. If you are trying to learn about a specific period of history, discuss which format you would use and why.
• If Abraham Lincoln was applying for his first lawyer job, what would his resume look like?
• Both Herbert Hoover and FDR have applied for the job as president in 1932. They have given you their resumes. Who would you hire?
• Archeologists have found the diary of General George Armstrong Custer buried on the battlefield of the Little Big Horn. What are the last five entries?
• List two things that changed after the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling.
• List as many names of people important in the Civil War as you can in thirty seconds.
• List the three most important inventions of the twentieth century.
• Arrange the following words into a web that shows their relationships – suffrage, Seneca Falls, Susan Anthony, Alice Paul, 1919, Kansas
• You are on Ellis Island in 1898. Describe who you are and why you are there.

An assortment of handy websites:

• Journal Writing in Social Studies
• Creative Writing Activities for Social Studies
• Writing Strategies

Have fun!

Writing Navigator: Supports literacy standards, makes your life easier, free

With the coming of the Common Core Literacy Standards for History / Government, the NCSS national standards, and the adoption of new social studies standards in Kansas, I’ve seen a ton of classroom teachers get stressed out about the whole reading and writing thing.

I get it.

For a long time, classroom teachers were told that simple memorization of content was good enough. And now? Expectations have changed. It’s can just be lecture, quiz, worksheet, test anymore. We’re being asked to train kids to read, write, and communicate solutions.

And classroom teachers are freaking just a bit:

• My kids won’t ever be able to do this.
• I’m a government teacher, not a reading teacher.
• How are we supposed to grade this?

I get it. It’s new. It can be a bit intimidating.

We all can use a little help now and again. And if we could find some sort of free, online tool that scaffolds the writing process for our students, even better.

If only there were such a tool available, what a Merry Christmas this would be. If only.

Structure Strips: Training wheels for making claims with evidence

Sure. There are probably some of you bike riding savants who had no need for them. You just hopped on and started riding, jumping ramps, and weaving through traffic – no problem.

But most of us needed them to get started.

Training wheels.

They let us get on our itty bitty bikes and tootle around town like we knew what we were doing. We could do basic stuff like steering around the dog and brake at the corner. But doing all of that while keeping our balance? Not yet.

Writing argumentative essays and making claims using evidence is a lot like that. You’ve got some kids that can jump on and just take off, no problem.

But most of your kids are going to need a little help. Especially elementary and middle school. And there are lots of things you can do to help them keep their balance while doing that.

But I’m really starting to like the idea of something called Structure Strips. I ran across them a few years ago while I was working with some elementary ELA teachers. They were using them to help students create descriptive paragraphs. A little more research highlighted how others were also using Structure Strips in a variety of ways, including in social studies.

And as I’m working with Kansas teachers to prep for next year’s state social studies assessment, these just seem to make more and more sense.

A Structure Strip is a simple but powerful scaffolding tool that can help kids focus on organizing their thinking and written responses to prompts. Kinda like training wheels.