Current Events - Immigration and Refugee Executive Order

The Choices Program at Brown University continues to provide helpful content for teaching current events. This free curriculum package includes a complete lesson plan with handouts and 14 helpful sources for students to evaluate: 7 in favor of the Executive Order and 7 opposed. If you have not already done so, be sure to get signed up for their free email updates.

Back to School (with Common Core, Historical Thinking, RtI, PARCC...)

Yikes. It looks like I have been on a bit of a hiatus and not keeping up with posts about resources...

Anyway, I recently emailed some newer resources with a former student who graduated in 2010 and is now gainfully employed at a great school (congrats again, JG) and though I would share them here as well. In honor of back to school, below is a summary of some of my previous posts with new resources I have been using in professional development seminars and my methods courses but have failed to blog earlier.

As anyone in PK12 education knows, public education is experiencing what I would call a perfect storm. That is, in the past we have always encountered updated curricula, mandates, and the like; however, now it seems like there are major changes happening all at once: Common Core, PARCC, RtI, and Danielson-inspired teacher observation models, to name a few. Granted, there are important debates related to the merit of these changes; however, I will leave that debate aside and focus on resources that can help teachers with the elements of these curricula I find the most welcoming in the social studies classroom. That is, "cite evidence to support a claim" (basically the first 6th grade Common Core standard for ELA-Social Studies) is more flexible and relevant than requiring students to memorize states and capitals or the first five presidents of the U.S. Alas, I digress, so on to the resources:

1) Thinking Like a Historian Gains Ground
Sam Wineburg's Historical Thinking Matters is often cited as a clear alignment with the new Common Core/Illinois Learning standards. The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) now has over 100 US and World History primary source lessons "ready to use."




Related past posts are here and here.

2)  Seeing it Helps - Classroom Videos
The Teaching Channel has video clips of some of these lessons being used, including teachers discussing how they implement the curriculum. They are very nicely produced and a great free resource. Just search for "Reading Like a Historian," and you will find them.

Related past post is here.



3) Beyond the Bubble--Oh, How True (or False) It Is
There are some major changes happening in assessment. SHEG has another website to support some of these transitions.


4) It's HOW, not WHAT
Of course, it is important to be familiar with the Common Core Standards related to history/social studies, and it is equally helpful to see how these standards are going to be assessed. PARCC (Pearson's Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) is the assessment we are now using in Illinois (and elsewhere), and the released/sample tests are very revealing about how students will be evaluated. Take the 6-8 and/or High School ELA tests to see the Social Studies-ELA relationship and emphasis on non-fiction reading.

Further, above is an example of what I would argue is a subtle but important shift in assessment for middle and high school students. In the 6-8 ELA test, note the question on the second page: "According to 'The Biography of Amelia Earhart,' which events had the most significant impact on Earhart's life?" Students select 4 of the 7 choices. The "catch" is that all 7 events are listed in the source. Students have to identify which 4 are the most significant, according to the source (not their own opinion). That means they are not just reading WHAT the source says but HOW it says it. That is, 3 of the choices are just mentioned in passing; however, 4 of the events are given much more emphasis in the source. (Note that 3 or so of the events are quickly listed in paragraph #3 as opposed to other events that get their own paragraph.) Some students are used to just "hunting and finding" key phrases from the question or multiple choice options to find their answer. Now they have to focus (and likely read, not just skim) on how the author presents information.

Also be sure to see the additional sample PARCC items under "Practice Tests" in the blue banner across the same launch page. I like the science questions that have students corroborate how the same scientific study is presented in a newspaper article, a news video, and excerpts from a professional journal.

5) G.I.D. (Google It, Dammit)
A great way to think of the PARCC assessments is: Students are given the answer; they just have to identify evidence that would support that conclusion. The first Common Core standard in social studies for 6th graders is cite evidence to support a claim. I've given 10th and 8th graders this 1909 cartoon and the claim: "This 1909 political cartoon is AGAINST women getting the right to vote." Then, I have them circle two parts of the image (evidence) that support this claim and explain why. This stumps some students (oddly enough) when they see "Election Day" written across the bottom of the cartoon or "Votes for Women" in the upper right-hand corner, and they want to conclude that the cartoon is in favor of women's suffrage. Even more interesting (and pretty exciting, if you ask me) is that their teachers point out that some of the students who are struggling in their classroom (i.e. have a hard time memorizing information) do better on this exercise than their peers who are "higher-performing students"when it comes to traditional recall tests. Some students can master questions that have them memorize the year women got the right to vote but have been given too few opportunities to actually analyze a source. I would argue that the latter is a more relevant skill for students, and (compared to what we have had in Illinois) it is a stronger focus in the Common Core Standards. The former only requires a Google search and someone who can corroborate, critique, and evaluate the sites where they find the answer(s). These are media literacy skills.



Related posts tagged as Media Literacy are here.


6) One Happy Spiraling (hopefully not too out of control) Curriculum
Finally, to see how this all ties together, I presented this Prezi at a national conference with a high school teacher. In the Prezi, we focus on how the Common Core is a spiraling curriculum (i.e. note how the 5th-grade standards in the first column are reflected--with more sophistication--in the 10th-grade standards). Further, we show how curriculum constructed in this manner (note the matrix/table format) allows teachers to revisit the same skill throughout the semester with different topics. That's an RtI connection that should be explain further at another time.

I hope that you find some helpful resources and here's to a great 2014-2015 school year. Keep up the great work, everyone!

Book Builder Project at ATE

This week, I presented my Book Builder projects at the Association of Teacher Educators annual meeting in sunny Orlando, FL. As promised in my presentation, here are links to the books I have created with a 5th grade teacher to use in her classroom. Here's also a link to my Prezi I used for the presentation.

They Book Builder lessons are:
1. Washington Crossing the Delaware
2. Indian Removal Act (5th Grade Version)
3. Slavery in the U.S. Constitution
4. Indian Removal Act (7th Grade Version)
5. Body Ritual of the Nacirema - Notice that it only has text. The students' task for this reading was to illustrate the Nacirema for the "cover" of this book.

viz. A Blog for Media Literacy Pedagogy

via viz

While doing an image search for an unrelated project, I came across this informative blog, vis. Visual Rhetoric, Visual Culture, Pedagogy, from the University of Texas. As the subtitle explains, this blog has a nicely arranged series of posts related to a curriculum I usually refer to as media literacy on my blog. Namely, this curriculum focuses on the creative techniques advertisers, governments, or any other creators of propaganda use to inform or persuade an intended audience.

Granted, at first glance, some of the content found on the viz website might seem "too philosophical" for elementary and secondary social studies students; however, the concepts presented in several of the its posts provide a helpful structure for any social studies curriculum.

Here's what I mean:

In the secondary social studies classroom, media literacy pedagogy usually makes a brief, yet underdeveloped and unconnected, appearance during a unit on World War II. I've seen what feels like countless lessons on WWII Propaganda Posters. The usual routine is to show students a series of posters and to point out how countries dehumanized the enemy. In other cases, this lesson amounts to little more than an interesting slide show intended to "break up" the usual lecture routine. Such a poster activity is no doubt a great way to introduce students to visual culture, but these activities usually lack a coherent connection to the rest of the curriculum or the students' everyday lives, for that matter. For example, consider the possibility that some of the techniques (e.g., guilt, peer pressure) governments used for WWII propaganda posters are also found in a commercial for a candy bar.

via viz

An example of pedagogy related to WWII posters on the the viz website is under the "assignments" section with a lesson titled "Visual Rhetoric and Violence." There is also a great series of related posts tagged "Propaganda." The central message throughout these posts and assignments is an emphasis on comparing "arguments, strategies/appeals, and effectiveness." Another website/resource that can guide the "strategies" question is "It's No Laughing Matter" from the Library of Congress. (See previous post for more detail.)

Anyway... I just found the viz site, so I have some more exploring to do to see what I can use for my methods course.

Examining Photographs: "Migrant Mother"

Cover Image via NPR.org

Analyzing Photographs
In previous posts, I have identified resources that help students analyze images through the lens of media literacy. A recent NPR Morning Edition interview with the author of the new book Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits reminded me of the powerful role photography has played in the American Psyche. This point is best explained by the author, Linda Gordon, who states:

"Most of Lange's photography was optimistic, even utopian, not despite but precisely through its frequent depictions of sadness and deprivation. By showing her subjects as worthier than their conditions, she called attention to the incompleteness of American democracy. And by showing her subjects as worthier than their conditions, she simultaneously asserted that greater democracy was possible" (excerpt from Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits available online at NPR).

Photographs related to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl provide powerful images from an important period in U.S. history. Two of my elementary social studies methods students are currently developing a unit related to these images, and I thought I would share some resources and strategies I suggested that they consider for one of their lessons.

Using the Reader-Generated Questions Technique
One of Lange's most recognized photographs from the Dust Bowl is titled "Migrant Mother." This image provides a perfect opportunity for a technique often called "Reader-Generated Questions."

1. Pose Questions First, students can view the image and create simple questions (e.g., who, when, where, why).

2. Make Predictions
Next, students can make predictions that answer their questions.

3. Find Answers
Finally, students analyze a source the provides information related to the image. In this case, students could analyze excerpts from an interview with the photographer (Dorothea Lange) or the mother in the photograph (Florence Thompson).

The purpose of this activity is to have students create the questions they answer. Better yet, students may not find the answers to all of their questions in one source and will have to consider the types of sources they could consult to find out more information.

Teaching with Political Cartoons

Political cartoons show up a lot in social studies curricula, including textbooks, worksheets, and now standardized state and national exams. In these cases, students are asked to analyze the cartoon's content or the cartoonist's point of view. In classroom instruction, teachers might try to "diversify" their instruction and have students create their own cartoon related to a historical or current event. The following sources provide some guidance for one way to include political cartoons as an authentic and legitimate part of any social studies teacher's instruction.

No Laughing Matter from the Library of Congress

As a way to teach critical thinking, the Center for Media Literacy has built a curriculum around five key questions. All of these queries apply to analyzing any source--an advertisement, a newspaper article, or a political cartoon--but an important question is #2, "What creative techniques are used to catch my attention?" To further conceptualize this analysis, the Library of Congress has created a web-based activity, "No Laughing Matter," to help students evaluate cartoons with five basic concepts: Labeling, Irony, Analogy, Exaggeration, and Irony. I point out these concepts because they provide a helpful framework students can apply to any cartoon (or written source, for that matter). For example, "How does this cartoonist use irony to illustrate her point of view?"

Created at Toondoo (click image to enlarge it)

Finally, students need not be a professional artist to create stunning political cartoons. A free online tool, Toondoo Maker, on the Toondoo site allows them to select from hundreds of images to construct their own visual commentary on a historical or current event. Teachers can then require their students to describe how they used irony or analogy to make a visual argument. I've uploaded an example I recently created on the topic of immigration.

Kate Brigham on Media Literacy

Here, the learner can manipulate the size, color, and "wash"
(in this case red) for the image used to accompany a news article.

Above is the original photograph that accompanied
the article titled, "Why Do They Hate Us?"

It's interesting how the focus for the same "Hate" article is
altered with the selection of another photograph.

An old colleague, Kate Brigham, created this fantastic interactive website for her thesis project concerning media literacy. A great way to teach how advertisers, photographers, and general media editors use creative techniques to sway opinions or catch your attention is to let students manipulate sources. Several activities on Kate's site allow for this exploration. The learner can see firsthand how zoom, color, font size, and image selection, to name a few, present a point of view. These somewhat subtle techniques often go unnoticed but are key to critically evaluating any type of source, text or image.