Making Sense of History

1. Making Sense of History Using High-Quality Literature and Hands-on Experiences to Build Content Knowledge Myra Zarnowski

2. Reading History Chapter 1 Using Sense-Making Concepts to Join Content and Process “Why Do We Have to Read This Stuff?”

3. Zarnowski states: • “As elementary and middle school teachers, we face the unique challenge of dealing with students whose understanding of the past is immature, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate. {We need to } promote historical understanding rather than the static thinking that makes history so unpopular….”

4. This book takes the approach . . . • that history is a gathering of information. • students are consumers who need to question, think about and investigate.

5. Second-Order Concepts are historical sense-making concepts which . . . • provide a lasting foundation • supply tools for thinking about past and present • combine process and content • offer authentic purpose for reading historical literature

6. Second-Order Concepts include: • Historical Accounts • Historical Context • Evidence • Empathy/ Multiple Perspectives • Validity and Reliability • Significance

7. Historical Account • Historians gather and select evidence and decide what it means – interpretations may vary.

8. Historical Context Historians. . . • know that the past is different than the present • try to understand its unique features, not judging by present standards • still recognize that experiences are similar.

9. Evidence • raw materials used to establish what happened in the past • primary source materials- photo graphs letters, newspapers, art, etc. • important to understand that this information can be questioned and analyzed

10. Empathy/ Multiple Perspectives Historians try to understand all information considering . . . • motivation • values • beliefs • feelings of the people in their historical setting

11. Validity and Reliability Historians need to . . . • determine if the primary source is accurate • establish corroboration for evidence, • take into account empathy and multiple perspectives

12. Significance Historians determine . . . • what is significant enough to remember • how many people were affected by the event • how long lasting are the effects of the event.

13. Students using these tools build a foundation for historical thinking and become true historians.

14. Aligning the Essential Elements of History Teaching Chapter 2 Historical Thinking, Historical Literature, and Hands-On Experience tuning in tuning out

15. What Does Good Teaching Look Like? • Patrick Henry addressing the Virginia Assembly (one act play written by students after reading Give Me Liberty by Russell Freedman • Mummy wrap demonstrations after considerable research • Comparisons of schools then and now using primary resources and One Room School by Raymond Bial

16. All of the above support the fact that good history teaching involves these three essential elements: • historical thinking • historical literature • hands-on experience

17. Historical Thinking • acknowledges that the past is a part of them and their way of thinking • acknowledges that they do not fully understand all the beliefs and influences of the time • is difficult because it is a familiar book, in which the ending is known – but all the characters and settings are fuzzy and unclear • questions events and interpretations that demonstrate there may be more than one side to each event reported

18. Historical Literature Consists . . . • of historical non fiction which provides the straight facts and information the students need to address • of historical fiction which is a great source of information and a portrayal of life as it was through the eyes of several characters, who may or may not be real

19. Hands on Experiences Encourage • active construction of knowledge • disciplined inquiry • values beyond school

20. Historical Context Chapter 3 How Can I Help Students Understand the Differences and Similarities Between the Past and the Present ?

21. Historical Thinking • Use familiar/unfamiliar contrasts as a way to get students thinking about historical context • Students can also learn about historical context by “thought experiments” • Two types: question-answer-question and what if?

22. Historical Literature • Literary techniques that authors use to contribute to students’ thinking about historical context • The extended now and then contrast • The mid-narrative jolt • The sensory description of the unfamiliar • The thought experiment

23. Hands on Experiences • T-chart for examining historical context • Planning sheet and letters • Writing poems of address

24. Historical Significance Chapter 4 How Can I Get Students to Recognize Historical Events That Are Important to Remember?

25. Historical Thinking How many times have you heard: Why do we have to know this? It’s so boring!!

26. The answer to that question would be: • Because knowing history and the people in history will help you know yourself and others better. • Knowing history helps people deal with change. • It will help you to become a more informed and effective citizen However, this does not usually spark students’ interest in history.

27. A better way to get students involved is to turn the tables by asking these questions: • What do you think is important to know about history? • How do you decide what is important to study in history?

28. What do the experts think about historical significance? Tim Lomas says:, “History, to be meaningful, depends on selection and this, in turn depends on establishing criteria of significance to select the more relevant and to dismiss the less relevant.”

29. Educational researchers have come up with two ideas to guide Historical Significance:

30. #1 Historical significance is a variable concept, not a fixed one. Historical themes, times and questions have an impact on learning history • Theme-The theme of the event can determine how important an event is • Time Scale-The length of time for events will most certainly be different, thus affecting how important the event will be • Questions-The questions raised by an event will vary from event to event

31. Official and unofficial history have an impact on student learning. • Official history: History that is taught in school through text books, trade books, educational films, and primary sources • Unofficial history: History that students learn from their friends, families, movies, historical fiction books, and television

32. #2 Criteria that determines historical significance: • Contemporary significance-How important was the event at the time? • Profundity-How much were people affected by the event? • Quantity-What number of people were involved in the event? • Durability-How long did the effects of the event last? • Relevance-How did the event help us understand issues and events of today?

33. Historical Literature How does nonfiction literature help students to understand historical significance?

34. Students can relate to history through Literature. • Students can select nonfiction history literature that they can relate to personally. • The teacher can show examples of how authors relate to the nonfiction history they write.

35. Students can choose from a host of important times in history to read in nonfiction history books: • The Revolutionary War • The Civil War • The Settler Period • The Industrial Revolution • Immigration • WWI • The Great Depression • WWII • The Korean War • The Civil Rights Movement • The Vietnam War …………and more

36. James Cross Giblin wrote Good Brother Bad Brother (a book about the actor James Wilkes Booth who assassinated Abraham Lincoln) because he had personal interests in theatre and the civil war. Andrea Davis Pinkley wrote a book called Let it Shine (a collection of stories about black women who had fought for their freedom) because she and her family were very involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Pam Munoz Ryan wrote the book When Marian Sang (a book about the famous Marian Anderson; the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House) because she sang in an all-city chorus in high school and loves spirituals, opera, gospel music, and musicals. Examples of authors relating to history:

37. We as a group of people can also relate to nonfiction literature This is where the criteria that determines historical significance comes in: • Contemporary significance-How important was the event at the time? • Profundity-How much were people affected by the event? • Quantity-What number of people were involved in the event? • Durability-How long did the effects of the event last? • Relevance-How did the event help us understand issues and events of today?

38. Examples of nonfiction literature that supports historical significance: • Contemporary significance- Bound for the North Star:True Stories of Fugitive Slaves by Dennis Brindell Fradin: This book tells the stories of men and women who escaped from slavery. This topic was highly important to people of the19th-century. • Profundity- A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 by Diane McWhorter: This story shows the awful impact that segregation had on African Americans and how deeply it affected them.

39. Quantity- Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp by Jerry Stanley: This book tells its’ readers about the people who were affected by the dust bowl of the 1930’s. They left the Oklahoma Panhandle and migrated to California. • Durability- Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850: This book tell the long lasting effects of the how the British treated the Irish during the potato famine. The Irish never forgave the British for the way they were treated and they passed this bitterness down through the generations of their families. • Relevance- I Am an American: A True Story of Japanese Interment by Jerry Stanley: This book tells the experiences of a young Japanese-American who was sent to a Japanese interment camp during World War II. This book help its’ readers to learn tolerance and understanding, this in turn can help us to understand current issues of today.

40. Hands on Experiences • Fact Pyramid and Because Box: The fact pyramid is a graphic organizer with a triangle on the left and a rectangle on the right. In the triangle the students decide what events are significant and not significant. They then prioritize the significant events with the most significant being at the top of the triangle. In the rectangle because box they will give reasons the events they put in the pyramid were significant.

41. Fact Pyramid and Because Box

42. Shaping Conclusions About Historical Significance Once the students have completed the Fact Pyramid and Because Box they will be able to make conclusions about the historical significance. Use the criteria that determines historical significance questions to make conclusions. Here is an example of conclusions made after students learned about the Japanese interment. This is the example from the text book on page 97.

43. Contemporary significance-How important was the event at the time? “The attack on Pearl Harbor killed many people and destroyed a historical landmark, the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. This event changed people’s opinion toward the Japanese. • Profundity-How much were people affected by the event? “The government found out the total cost of property and income lost by Japanese Americans was $6.2 billion in today’s dollars. This is very significant because a lot of people were affected deeply, and the effect lasted almost for the rest of their lives.” • Quantity-What number of people were involved in the event? “On December 7, 1941, the Japanese warplanes bombed the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This is important because it affected a lot of Japanese. They destroyed nineteen ships and 2,335 servicemen were killed. The Americans don't trust the Japanese anymore. They think that Japanese are dangerous because they’re part of the Japanese ancestry.” • Durability-How long did the effects of the event last? “After American won the war, white people still treated the Japanese cruelly. The Japanese fought for them and many white folks still refused to accept the Japanese Some white people even refused to cut Japanese hair.” • Relevance-How did the event help us understand issues and events of today? “President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that Pearl Harbor was ‘a date which will live in infamy.’ This is important because it is showing the long-lasting feeling of Pearl Harbor and that it will never be forgotten. It shouldn’t be forgotten because America will not make that mistake again, and it will remind us that everybody that lives in America is an American.”

44. R.A.F.T. assignment R.A.F.T. stands for Role, Audience, Format, Topic. In this kind of assignment the student can choose between several prompts. Each prompt has a “Role” which is a person you’ve learned about, the “Audience” which is the person or persons you are directing the format to, the “Format” which is the type of assignment you are to complete, and the “Topic” which is the specific issue that you are addressing.

45. R.A.F.T. Assignment ExampleIndustrializationR.A.F.T. Assignment