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Student Journals: Building Relationships, Content, and Historical Threads

Learn how student journals can enhance writing skills, foster positive relationships, and help students make connections to historical events. Incorporate prompts, famous quotes, and free response entries to engage students in reflection and critical thinking.

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Student Journals: Building Relationships, Content, and Historical Threads

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  1. Student Journals Building Relationships, Content, and Historical Threads North Carolina Social Studies Conference March 1 2013

  2. The purpose of student journals • To increase writing skills, build content in Social Studies (American History), foster positive relationships with students, help the students see connections to historical events – both past and present, and help students individually reflect about history and their individual lives.

  3. “We can learn history because human nature has not changed” J. Rufus Fears Professor of History University of Oklahoma

  4. The Student Journal I require students to buy a composition book at the beginning of the semester. Each week, we attempt to write three journals.

  5. The 3 entries The first two journals are concerned with course content. For each journal, students must date and respond to a prompt. Prompts can be: Music selection, art, poetry, cartoon, quote, a statistic related to historical time, picture, film clip, speech, NPR Radio interview, etc.

  6. The “Four Freedoms”

  7. The Embargo Act

  8. Quotes • “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” A. Lincoln June 1858

  9. “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.” FDR, 1933

  10. The third entry per week, usually on Fridays, consists of a Free Write/free response entry “What did you learn about life this week” (notice I did not say in social studies class)

  11. Purpose of the Free Response Journal • Personally, I found, in a blocked semester, I was just getting to really know the students just before they left my class and I wanted to make a special effort to get to know them. • Most students will work harder for the instructor if they know you really care about them and are invested in their secondary school experience

  12. Taking you through one Brother Can You Spare a Dime by Yip Harburg • 1) What are two lines from the song that stand out to you? Why? • 2) What is this song about? Why is a dime so special in 1932? • 3) Can you think about why this song is one of the most recognized from the Great Depression era? • 4) What are some other artifacts or elements that you could include with the dime as pieces of depression era memorabilia? • 5) How is today's recession similar to that era? Can you think of examples? • 6) Unfortunately, there are many 'depressions' during the Great Depression and recessions? Can you think of some? How were people affected? What were they afraid of?

  13. A related photo to the discussionDorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother”

  14. Other “add-ons” for this journal activity • In the past, I have used the text of Woody Guthrie’s “Talking Dust Bowl” for student journals or Timothy Egan’s NPR interview about “The Worst Hard Time” to get students interested in the Dust Bowl

  15. Taking you through a couple of journal activities with evidence • George Washington and John Adams [1] • Emerson and Thoreau [2] • Civil War Letters [3] • Reconstruction and Obama [3] *vocabulary review lesson on bottom of example • Patriotism and World War One (“Over There”) [8] • Civil Rights [11]

  16. Examples of free write/free responses • A student on Ben Franklin • A student on the untimely death of a teacher • A student talking about his home life

  17. Final Journal Assignment

  18. Assessment Piece • I take up journals every two weeks, read, and respond in writing *When I take these up, I can informally assess if the students are understanding the material and comprehending the context of historical situations • I give a test grade for the final reflection

  19. The Impact • Most students are honest – they’ll appreciate your effort and work hard • Beware of the lumberjacks and ‘nip it in the bud’ when they arise • There are many reasons why students struggle in school – knowing some things about them will help you assess the student and address issues (discipline, poor performance, etc.)

  20. Cont. . . • Colleges and Universities are moving towards more reflective writing and journal entries in their coursework • Journals help to build community • Students have written to me and have ‘thanked me for caring’ • Meets requirements of writing across the curriculum, and matches many learning styles

  21. And. . . • Great way to review material from the day before – quick assessment when students come into class

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