OurStory – American History stories and activities

A project of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, OurStory is designed to help children and adults enjoy exploring history together through children’s literature, everyday objects, and hands-on activities.

The National Museum of American History and the National Center for Family Literacy are teaming up on OurStory projects. They are working together to help make reading historical fiction more fun and educational.

The OurStory programs are designed to:

• teach children about history through the use of objects, documents, oral histories, and quality children’s literature
• improve student attitudes about reading through exposure to quality children’s literature and the opportunity to own books
• Foster an environment in which participants of different generations and cultural backgrounds interact, share, learn from one another, and begin to see themselves as part of American history.
• Broaden participants’ understanding of the history of diverse communities and cultures within the United States.

You’ll find 20 different American history activity sets with recommended books, teaching materials, and engaging activities all focused around historical fiction. You can also find useful links to other history / literacy sites.

Handy stuff!

NCHE Session I – Using Historical Fiction to Create a Literacy Rich Room

I’ve never been to the National Council for History Education national conference. But this year it’s in Kansas City and we were able to budget a trip through our Teaching American History project.

People told me that the NCHE conference is different from other social studies and history conferences because:

the NCHE conference is really just a bunch of history nerds.

So . . . should be good, these are my people. But they truly aren’t messing around. It’s the earliest start to any conference I’ve ever attended. They kick off at 8:00 am and keep it rocking until almost 6:00.

I’ll be posting updates throughout the next few days as best I can. The coffee is helping right now but not sure I’ll be able to keep up. These guys are serious.

The first session is focusing on ways to integrate historical fiction into your classroom.

Why historical fiction?

• stimulates interest
• natural bridge between social studies and language arts / humanities
• develops personal meaning
• models good writing
• passion
• offers a balance between the traditional focus in history on non-fiction

How does the process work?

Introduce different types of historical fiction – biography, poetry, mystery, fables, folklore, fantasy, narrative, graphic novels

Model research questions:

• In the story, who is real, invented, and/or realistic?
• What questions does the story leave unanswered about the past?
• Are the protagonist and his experiences ordinary or extraordinary for the time?
• If the character shows growth, what led to this?

Facilitate historical research and lead discussion:

• What type of research has the author used to prepare the account?
• What other baggage does the author bring to the table? Journalist, novelist, historian? From what period did the author come from? From where?
• What audience is the author trying to reach? Does this influence the book’s content? Is bias necessary a bad thing?
• What other sources are available on the subject?

Assign and guide project completion:

• Must connect the fiction and actual historical context
• drama
• Fake Facebook page
• Letter to main character / teacher replies / other students can also reply
• Write to the author
• Travel brochures to the setting
• Book jackets
• Movie poster
• Critque the decisions of a character
• Book reviews
• “Live” interviews of a character or author

Find more resources, ideas, and book lists on the presenters Weebly page.

historicalfictionnche.weebly.com

Tip of the Week – Write It

We need to have our kids read more than just the textbook. And we need to ask them to write more than just short answers on tests. The problem is that we are often not sure how to make that happen.

There’s tons of stuff out there to help with reading.

And now the people at Scholastic have put together a handy tool to help with the writing part.

Called Write It, the site does a great job of providing you and your kids a wide variety of resources, suggestions, and writing ideas. The main page breaks down into six different writing genres – poetry, essay, short fiction, memoir, humor, and journalism.

You’ll find tons of examples, graphic organizers, planners, and well . . . just about everything needed to assist in the writing process. You also have the options to chat with other writers and authors. The site also provides a way for students to publish their work and to build an online portfolio.

Be sure to check out the teacher resource page.

Have fun!

Tip of the Week – Six Great Ways to Publish Student Work

We know that the world is moving online and that to prepare our kids for that world, we need to train them to use that world’s tools.

We know that publishing student work beyond the classroom encourages authentically engaged kids who create high-quality work.

We know that integration of writing and visuals increases cognitive activity.

Yeah. So?

So we need to be publishing more student work online. But where and how?

Publishing student projects online in visually stimulating formats is now easier than ever. There are tons of tools available that you and your kids can use to get stuff out there.

The following web 2.0 tools are some of my favorites for showcasing student projects. The list includes two different kinds of sites. The first type requires that kids create work using a desktop tool such as Word, Keynote or Pages and then the site converts that work into online content. The second lets kids doing the actual creating online.

Here ya go:

Flipsnack
A free site with Premium features, Flipsnack will quickly convert uploaded PDF documents into a cool virtual magazine with flipping pages and it’s easy enough for even adults to figure out. You can view and share the online version in a variety of ways including Facebook, Twitter and html embed codes.

Issuu
Issuu is another tool that kids can use to upload almost any document format and create a virtual flipping book. Like Flipsnack, you can share or embed whatever you upload.

Mixbook
Mixbook features some sophisticated editing tools perfect for middle or high school students. The site has handy templates and images to ensure a professional-looking book. Mixbook also offers accounts designed just for teachers.

Tikatok
I like Tikatok because it’s focused specifically at younger kids and that it’s designed for easy, online  story creation. Students can start with prompts or a completely blank book. Text, images and imagination are added and they end up with a digital book that can be viewed online or ordered in a traditional hard copy.

Epubbud
This site has it all. You can upload a document and convert it into an e-book or create the book right on the site. What makes this site different is that the final product is in ePUB file format. ePUBs are the universal ebook format that can be read by the Apple iOS iBooks app and other kinds of ebook readers.

Lulu
Combine Epubbud and Mixbook and you get Lulu. You can upload student work and convert to ePUB format like Epubbud or use the online book tools that are very similar to Mixbook. Kids just have to add images and text to tell their story.

Need a couple of bonus sites?

Miss Literati
This site is not really a place to publish work in the traditional sense. It’s a social network of student authors. Create and post your story, poem or non-fiction and let others read, rate and critique your work.

How to Self-Publish an E-Book
David Carnoy from CNET gives some great advice about writing and formatting digital books and provides more resources for how to get your work on Amazon and iBooks.

Have fun!

Tip of the Week – 25 Sweet Social Studies Resources

I spent most of the day listening to Don Gifford, Social Studies Consultant from the Kansas Department of Education, and classroom teachers discussing this year’s state assessment and the Common Core. Part of the day was spent sharing online resources to help teachers prepare for the assessment. The guiding question was simple:

What are resources that we can use to help increase student learning?

It was interesting to hear the kinds of things that teachers shared – analyzing documents, comparing and contrasting, reading historical fiction, writing document-based questions, distinguishing bias, evaluating perspective. You know . . . stuff great teachers do all the time. So I tried to capture their conversation in list form. What I came up with is below. And while the conversation was focused on the Kansas state social studies assessment, there’s tons of useful stuff here that just about anyone can use.

(You can also download Don’s presentations, Kansas State Assessments and The Common Core and Social Studies if you’re interested.)

Southwest Plains Service Center
Standards & Assessment Resources including Flip Charts
Kan Ed Empowered Desktop
Test Builder (must have username / password)
Kansas State Historical Society
Select “Educate”
ThinkFinity
Select “State Standards Search”
World History For Us All
Library of Congress
Select “Find classroom materials that meet your state standards”
Stanford History Education Group
Select “Curriculum”
EconEdLink
Select red “Find a Lesson” and “Find an Interactive Tool”
Social Studies Central
Be sure to sign up for the Tip of the Week
Mr. Donn’s Lesson Plans
Discovery Education videos
PBS The News Hour
Select “Making Sense with Paul Solman”
Social Studies for Kids
Grow Pub Publications
Social Studies
National Council for Economics
Play-do Economics
Kansas Memory
Primary sources from Kansas Historical Society
Common Core Standards
Children’s Literature with Social Studies
Great resources for K-6 teachers
Glossary of Instructional Strategies
Hundreds of effective strategies to try
The Historian’s Toolbox
Six units leading kids through good history practices
Literacy in Social Studies
Some useful links and tutorials
ReadingQuest: Making Sense in Social Studies
A website designed for social studies teachers who wish to more effectively engage their students with the content in their classes
Reading, Writing and Researching for History
Written for college kids but could be adapted for MS and HS use
Strategies in Action: Being a Strategic Teacher of Social Studies
Over 100 helpful ideas
Tools for Reading, Writing and Thinking
These tools should be used to help students engage in rigorous thinking, organize complex ideas, and scaffold their interactions with text

Have a great weekend!

Tip of the Week – Hamburger Diagram

Having kids write is a good thing. Let’s all agree on that. Learning to communicate in written form is a 21st century skill that is non-negotiable. But training them to write well . . . mmm, not so easy.

But using a Hamburger Diagram can help.

In terms of knowledge representation, a Hamburger Diagram is a teaching and learning tool designed to facilitate the selection and organization into a written report. In a typical Hamburger Diagram, five main sections are suggested: an introduction, three key factors, and a conclusion. It serves a similar function to a fishbone diagram, but is even simpler.

By limiting the essay to only three major factors, and providing only a small amount of space for each one to be explained, the Burger Diagram is a useful “scaffolding tool” for students learning to develop their essay-writing skills.

It’s also a useful way of ensuring that students think about structuring their essays in a logical format.

There are some online tools that students can use. ClassTools has one that allows kids to enter information directly on the hamburger and Super Teacher Worksheets has a couple of downloadable organizers.

Have fun!