Using (Very) Short Primary Source Excerpts

Posted on 1 October 2009 | No responses

I love these days when you set up a discussion topic and it just works – the students are engaged in the topic, using previous knowledge and discussing and debating big ideas with their peers.

The lesson that I did today with my U.S. history class was on Federalist #10.  I love using primary source documents, so I knew that I wanted to work with the original text, but I wasn’t sure which part.  I ended up using a technique today that I hadn’t tried before.  I had the students work with only a two-sentence excerpt from Federalist #10.

I wanted to discuss the issues surrounding factions in American society and this piece is the perfect discussion point.  However, it is also a complicated text.  Originally, I had tried to make a excerpted version of the text and was very unhappy with my drafts.  Finally, I settled on just using Madison’s introductory statements:

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice.

In groups, I had the students respond to the following questions:

  1. What does Madison mean by the term “faction”?
  2. In this piece Madison, as a Federalist, is arguing that the Constitution should be ratified.  He believes that it would serve as a “safeguard against faction.”  What does he mean by this phrase?  How could the system detailed in Constitution “safeguard against faction”?
  3. Madison wants the government to limit the power of factions.  Why?  What problems could strong factions cause in our system of government?
  4. What could be an advantage of having factions?  Why do people form factions in the first place?
  5. Can you think of any examples of factions in modern society?
  6. Imagine Madison has time traveled to today to examine modern day American politics.  Do you think that he would like what he sees?  Why or why not?

We had a wonderful discussion around the presence of factions in American society, the strengths and weaknesses of our governmental system and imaginary responses from Madison.  Not only did this lesson allow students to discuss a new topic (factions), but we also reviewed previous lessons (structure of the U.S. government in the Constitution and the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates) and connected this issue to modern events.  As a result, the students walked away with a better understanding of the concept of factions and the ability to discuss it in both a historical and a modern context.

It was a perfect example of how a couple of sentences can spur an engaging discussion.  Using a primary source does not always mean you need to use an entire document.  Today’s class reminded me that an in depth discussion about a concept introduced by a few words can be much more meaningful than a rushed conversation around an extensive document.  As a bonus, I also noticed that some of my students who tend to get overwhelmed by long primary source pieces and thus do not participate in the class discussion felt more comfortable with this shorter more manageable selection and shared their ideas.

New York Times Article on Executive Functions

Posted on 27 September 2009 | No responses

Whew!  Where has this first month of school gone?

There was an interesting article in Friday’s New York Times on executive function at the preschool level.  Even as a high school teacher, I found it to be an interesting read.  Check it out: Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?

I have been thinking a lot about executive functions as I set up my classroom.  One specific instance was when I was working on goal setting with my ninth graders.  Often I find that students write vague goals (as in, do well in this class) and are unable to verbalize exactly what it means for them to “do well” and how they are going to be able to achieve it.

This semester, when I had students write specific goals and outline the steps they needed to take to achieve them.  I required that students identify areas where they thought they could improve and then develop clear steps they could take to work on these areas this semester.  For example, a student who felt like his or her test grades were too low might make the goal to begin studying a specific number of nights before the test.  They then had to come up with a clear plan of how they were going to make time, organize their study materials, etc.  Throughout the semester, students are going to record progress towards their goals and make adjustments as needed.  I also had students write me a note when they handed in their goals with ways they thought that I could help them achieve their personal goals for the course.

This was just my first attempt and we will see how it develops as the semester goes on.

Just For Fun

Posted on 24 August 2009 | No responses

I played around a bit with Wordle today and made one for the blog.picture-1

The First Days of School

Posted on 17 August 2009 | No responses

I’ve been thinking a lot these past days about the beginning of the school year: what to do the first day, how to get to know my students, how to introduce the classroom expectations, how to introduce the classroom material, etc.  These first days are crucial as they set the tone and dynamic for the rest of the year, so they must be well thought out and organized.  It is essential to think about the dynamic that you want to create in your classroom and ensure that you establish that sense right off the bat.

In the most general sense, hope to create and academically engaging and safe environment where the students feel comfortable to actively learn the material and work with each other.  But do I go about doing that?  I recently read this website hosted by the University of Hawaii Community College in Honolulu and originally compiled by the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  While its intended for college professors, the ideas are equally applicable to high school teachers (though some may just need a little tweaking to make the terminology relevant to our system.)

They are all useful but here are a few of my favorites that I am going to do this year:

  • Hit the ground running on the first day of class with substantial content.

All too often it is easy to spend the whole first class just looking at a syllabus and classroom rules.  How boring!  Engage the students in something interesting right off the bat.  My cooperating teacher always went over her syllabus on the second day of class.  Especially if you meet at the end of the day, you are probably handing out the fourth or fifth set of expectations that they’ve seen that day.  Do something to engage them first and then go over your ground rules.  They’ll be more likely to remember them.

  • Explain the difference between legitimate collaboration and academic dishonesty; be clear when collaboration is wanted and when it is forbidden.

We all talk about collaborative learning – and we’re all worried about academic dishonesty.  It is essential that we give our students clear guidelines on what is acceptable and what is inappropriate.  Rules can be very abstract, especially at this age.  Some well-selected examples can help illustrate the difference between collaboration and a dishonest act.

  • Greet students at the door when they enter the classroom.

What an ice breaker!  I may have to try this.

  • Have students write out their expectations for the course and their own goals for learning.

I have done this in the past and the instruction “write five goals” is much too vague.  You get responses like “get an A” or “come up with one more goal.”  This year I think that I am going to give students specific categories for types of goals (i.e. goals for in class group work, homework, etc.) and ask them how they will know if they have meet these goals.  Then we can check in over the course of the year and monitor our progress and change/update the goals as we work.  This is an excellent example of developing executive function skills.

  • Organize. Give visible structure by posting the day’s “menu” on chalk- board or overhead.

Very helpful for you (to keep you on track) and the students.  I also make sure that the homework is written up at the beginning of class.  Then there is no excuse for not knowing what it was!

  • Give students red, yellow, and green cards (made of posterboard) and periodically call for a vote on an issue by asking for a simultaneous show of cards.

Oh the possibilities for these cards!  You could use them for group work to see if everyone was ready to move on: green means “good to go,” yellow means “one more minute” and red would mean “we really need some more time.”  Or you could use this as a formative assessment.  There could be numbers or letters also on the cards or the colors could correspond to different possible responses to a quick check question.  You could monitor understanding as you progress through the class.

  • Have students write questions on index cards to be collected and answered the next class period.

Another great method for formative assessment and a nice way to ensure that students know that their questions help to guide the class.

  • Find out about your students via questions on an index card

I used to combine this activity with the goal making activity above – and collect the information on an 81/2 x 11 piece of paper that I kept in a folder.  Now that I’ve decided to make the goal making activity more of a continual process, I am also going to change how I collect the biographical information about my students.  When the students record the information on note cards, I can then use organize them in a card holder which will be much more easily accessible when I need to get in touch with a parent/guidance councilor, etc.

  • Gather student feedback in the first three weeks of the semester to improve teaching and learning.

I have done this more on a unit by unit basis in the past – but setting a three week deadline is a great idea.  It’s still early enough to make some changes, but far enough into the semester that the “real work” of the classroom has begun.

I hope you’re getting as excited as I am for the start of the school year!  Thinking about some concrete plans for the first few days is a great way to get back into the classroom mindset.

Summer Reading - Part II

Posted on 13 August 2009 | No responses

On now to books that I’ve read.

I’m terrible at sticking to reading lists!  I often pick up whatever I like along the way.  However, I did read two of the texts from my original list that are worth sharing.

Kyle Ward’s History in the Making is a collection of excerpts from U.S. history textbooks from across the decades retelling their accounts of specific events in our past.  Ward introduces each selection with a few key observations and then allows the reader to analyze the pieces for his or her self.  This book would make a wonderful classroom resource for any discussion regarding how students should use their textbook as a resource, not the resource.

Ward also writes a powerful introduction detailing the failings of the history classroom, textbooks and the potential strength of the discipline.  He writes:

After a number of years of researching, studying, and teaching history, I can say with a great deal of confidence that history is an incredibly fascinating and important subject, which should not be studied for civic and societal reasons but also because it can help develop critical thinking and other cognitive skills necessary for people to live a full life.  It should therefore be an easy sell to convince people to learn about the past, since the subject of history is filled with stories of political intrigue, murder, scandal, mysteries, conspiracies, sexual liaisons, war, genocide, torture, romance, corruption, heroism and much, much more. (xvii)

He then goes on to explain how many of the people he meets regard history as boring and useless.

Part of the problem, I believe, is that many young people do not understand how history is researched and written about, nor do they see or understand the impact past decisions have on their lives today.  Sadly, even fewer students have any concept that history is constantly being affected by individual historians as well as our society’s own biases, prejudices, perspectives and interpretations.  All too often, I meet people who believe that history is written in stone and that it never changes – that it is just a series of dates and names one is forced to memorize. (xix)

The selections in his book support this idea of history as being both intriguing and fluid.  This text is an interesting read both for its historiography but also for its potential as a discussion piece around the analyzing sources.

The second text that I wanted to mention was Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation.  Now, if there ever was a book that makes you want to pick a random historical topic (presidential assassinations for instance) read all you can about them and travel to every related historical site, this book is it.

The book is a light read, mixing history and Vowell’s travels as she weaves together the stories of the deaths of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. This book could serve as both a history lesson, and an entertaining tale for those of us who wish we could travel more!

I just started David McCullough’s John Adams.  I loved the mini-series and am enjoying the original book!  It’s getting me in the mindset for the first unit that I’ll teach in the fall.

The Quiet American

Posted on 11 August 2009 | No responses

Whew.  Summer vacation??  I haven’t had a break in weeks.  Finally, I can share ideas about a book I learned of and am excited to see if I can integrate into the classroom.

Last month on the NPR program Here and Now there was an interesting interview with BU professor Andrew Bacevich on the Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American (listen to it here).  The only Greene novel that I have read (back in high school English) was The Heart of the Matter.  It was in a junior year English class (in the dead of a New England winter …) where we read the text along other uplifting books such as The Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart.  I have never sought out another Greene novel, but the relevance of this text intrigued me.

Bacevich makes the argument in this interview, and his article published in World Affairs Journal, that Greene’s novel on American involvement in Vietnam after the departure of the French discusses themes that are parallel our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The American mindset and abstract goals of our past continue to lead us to engage in conflicts that are difficult to “win.”  Americans also continue to believe that we are able to succeed where others have failed.

I have not read Greene’s novel but am anxious to pick it up.  This text seems like an interesting way to study how Americans conceptualize their role and purpose in the world community and how this concept has persisted in our history.  I am going to teach a unit on current issues in my US history course, which will fall after our study of the Cold War.  This text seems like it has possibilities to be used as a venue through which to view our current conflicts through the lens of our past actions and the threads that continue throughout American history.

Have you read this text?  Do you think it has applicability in the classroom?  I’ll continue this discussion after I have had a chance read this book.

And I promise the next post will be on something I’ve actually read!

Concept-Based Instruction

Posted on 25 June 2009 | No responses

I just finished Stirring the Head, Heart, and Soul: Redefining Curriculum, Instruction and Concept-Based Learning (2008) by H. Lynn Erickson.  I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in concept-based instruction.

Erickson’s main idea is that we as educators need to engage students in deep thought in the classroom and not just cover material.  While this is a common statement amongst educational theorists, Erickson outlines a clear (an achievable!) system to meet these goals.

Concept-based curriculums are ones in which the lesson/unit/course is focused around a “mental construct that is timeless, universal, and abstract” (30).  Instruction based around a concept allows students to engage with a larger, relevant idea instead of only examining individual facts.  To explain the goals of this system, Erickson writes:

In a concept-based paradigm, depth of instruction means using the fact base as a tool to teach a deeper understanding of the key concepts and principles of a discipline…. Content serves not as an end product, but as a tool to lead students to deeper thought” (12).

This is so exciting for me as it provides a framework to develop a curriculum that addresses the age-old student question of “why is this important?”  We as teachers should not only be able to answer this question, but we should develop our lessons with this in mind.  If students are asking “why bother?” we have missed a crucial component of our lessons!  Developing lessons around a larger concept highlights the applicability of the material outside of the individual lesson.

The book addresses key issues such as developing a concept-based curriculum and units, aligning them with state and local standards, assessing student learning and instruction in the classroom.  There are also a variety of templates and examples.

Finally, the book is especially great for social studies educators as many of the sample lessons, questions and units are from our curriculum.  I working within this framework as I develop next year’s lessons and I will continue to post as my understanding of this system develops.

Summer Reading

Posted on 16 June 2009 | No responses

After a day at work, I often find it hard to come home and pick up some heavy reading.  Therefore, during the school year I often gravitate towards less academic books.  However, the summer is the perfect opportunity to pick up some of those books that I’ve been wanting to read.

I’m almost finished with Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle.  It’s a fascinating portrait of race relations in Detroit during the 1920s.  The book is based around the trial of Ossian Sweet, an African American doctor, and his friends and family.  Sweet, his wife and young child moved into a white neighborhood in Detroit.  During their second night in their new home, someone fired a shot from their house into the white mob outside their door, killing a man.  Boyle does a great job integrating the suspense of the trial, history of race relations from the Civil War to 1920s and the often untold stories of African Americans after the Civil War but before the Civil Rights Movement into an absorbing read.

Two professional books that I have on my shelf are:

Others history related books that I’m anxious to read are (in no particular order):

Have you read any of these?  Any other suggestions?  I’ll be sure to post as I finish the books.

A.I. and the Indus River Valley

Posted on 4 June 2009 | No responses

If you teach ancient civilizations, one of the subjects that is often lacking in many resources is the Indus River Valley.  There is so much that we don’t know about this society and I’m always on the lookout for resources to use in a class.  This recent article from Wired would be a great addition to a lesson plan (and a great hook for any students interested in computer science!)

The mystery of the Indus language is ongoing, but this is a nice article about how modern technology can help us understand the ancient world.  The article explains how scientists have used artificial intelligence to establish that the symbols above the famous seals from the Harappan civilization do in fact follow the patterns of language.  This is also a great example of how our understanding of history is never stagnant.

Supreme Court Nomination

Posted on 26 May 2009 | No responses

Hopefully today you were able to find a minute to discuss the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.  As a political science major, I never miss an opportunity to talk about government (even if we were studying Greek art and architecture today!).  If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic and third woman to serve our country in this role.  The nomination is a perfect time to discuss or review the confirmation process and the major issues that will be debated over the coming weeks.  I have compiled a few resources for classroom activities that could range from a brief overview to a multi-class examination of this topic.

For a collection of consistently updated news articles check out:

For some lesson plans check out resources from the New York Times and PBS.

The Supreme Court also maintains their own website.

Finally, I love a good crossword puzzle.  Check out the New York Times crossword titled The American Judicial System.

As if there wasn’t enough to talk about in the final weeks of school!

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