Turning History Students into Detectives

How can I turn my history students into detectives?
One of the most valuable skills we can teach our history students is to use evidence from the past to develop their own opinions about historical events.  One popular program that many high schools use is the DBQ Project.  Students use textual and visual primary and secondary scholarly sources to answer a question.  For example, my sophomores recently had a class debate based in the evidence from the DBQ entitled "North or South: Who Killed Reconstruction?" Essentially, students use evidence from experts and first-hand witnesses to solve problems, just like a detective would.  The program has a fabulous reputation and student essays that result are well-thought-out and evidence-based.  Unfortunately, one small pitfall of the program is that it requires a lot of paper and not much technology.

Why not combine technology with historical evidence analysis?
I found a great website that enables student to do the same kind of analysis in a webquest style environment.  Surprisingly, students are more enthusiastic about the same tasks when they can simply use a computer instead of doing the writing out with pencil and paper.  Historical Scene Investigation puts famous dilemmas from history into "case files" and asks students to solve the mysteries.  Students analyze primary sources, similarly to the DBQ Project, but the entire task can be done online.

Recently, my freshmen were finishing up their unit on the causes of the American Revolution.  As a review of some of the events, we spent two class periods in the computer lab where they chose to work on one of two case files:

• The Boston "Massacre": Students read about the event, sifted through both American and British first-hand accounts, and decided whether justice was served at the trial where 6 of the 8 accused British regulars were acquitted.
• Lexington and Concord: After reading both American and British first-hand accounts, students had to decide the historical question: Who fired the first shot?  Was it the Minutemen or the British regulars?

How should I introduce the website and assignment?
To introduce the assignment, I also used technology.  I used the SMART Recorder program, part of the SMART Technologies suite of software that comes with my SMART Board, to create an instructional video.  Students watched it in class, and, if they ever got confused during the process of completing the work in class or at home, they could reference the video anytime since it was posted on our class website.

What kinds of documents did students work with?

Then it was time to get down to work.  Students worked hard in class analyzing great sources like:

• Paul Revere's famous engraving that started the use of the term "massacre" to describe the event, The bloody massacre perpetrated on King Street

• The chromolithograph by John Bufford that dramatized the death of Crispus Attucks: Boston Massacre, Mar. 5, 1770.

• Entry for April 19th 1775, from the diary of British Lieutenant John Barker swearing that the American provincials fired first at Concord: "...a number of people, I believe between 200 and 300, formed in a common in the middle of town; we still continued advancing, keeping prepared against an attack through without intending to attack them; but on our coming near them they fired on us two shots, upon which our men without any orders, rushed upon them, fired and put them to flight; several of them were killed..."
• And of course a conflicting sworn account from 34 minutemen who reported that the British regulars fired first: "...at which time, the company began to disperse, whilst our backs were turned on the troops, we were fired on by them, and a number of our men were instantly killed and wounded, not a gun was fired by any person in our company on the regulars to our knowledge before they fired on us, and continued firing until we had all made our escape..."

So, how did the students do?

Well, when it came to the question over whether justice was served in the trial that followed the Boston Massacre, one student contended:

In Document D, created by John Bufford, it shows colonists are attacking, while others are getting slaughtered by the soldiers' guns.  In Document E by Alonzo Chapel, it shows colonists holding weapons attacking the soldiers.  In Paul Revere's depiction, it shows innocent colonists being brutally killed.  I believe that the colonists were not innocent.  They did somewhat attack the soldiers.  But shooting the colonists was not justified.  I believe that justice was not served.  How can branding someone's thumb be a justified exchange for someone's life?  All of the soldiers should have been put in jail and branded because they killed a group of people over a small conflict that could have been solved a different way.

In the case of Lexington and Concord, one student argued that the American rebels must have fired the first shot because:

The British had well disciplined soldiers who would not fire without an order.  This is clear as one British soldier commented on their intent not to fire and said, "we still continue advancing, keeping prepared against an attack though without attacking them."  This line clearly represents how the British did not want to fire on the Patriots.

It was satisfying for me, as their teacher, to read that these 14 and 15 year old students were combining their own opinions and reasoning skills with evidence from the past. Their number grade was based on a rubric I developed according to the assignment description and class standards we have developed throughout the school year.  Overall, however, I think they did pretty well, don't you?

Creative Writing in the History Classroom

It’s the end of a long March after a winter bombarded with snow-days and the forecast is predicting snow on the first of April. I, firstly, want to offer some encouragement and cheer to my fellow teachers who are on the front line defending Fort Sanity. I have found this true for myself, and hope it will be useful to you as well, that during this long and transitional time of year when we’re itching to say good-bye to Winter and Hello to Spring, it helps to remember to design lessons and activities that revive the excitement, interest, and creativity in teaching and learning. Creative writing strategies may provide the necessary ray of sunshine for your classroom, yes, your history classroom.

The Buzzards Bay Writing Project (BBWP) presented writing strategies for the history classroom at the History Connected December Seminar, War and Protest. They highlighted two forms of creative writing, RAFT and Found Poems. RAFT, an acronym for Role-Audience-Format-Topic, provides students with a unique way to analyze a primary source and make connections with a historical event. After selecting a primary source, teachers assign, or allow students to choose, their role, which can range from a specific person, to a general character, to an inanimate object; an audience, which can vary from personal, public, supportive, oppositional, or undecided; a format, which can be at any level of formality, from a postcard to a speech; and a topic that connects to the purpose of the lesson. Students develop valuable insight through considering the personality and point of view of their role and the word choice, tone, and purpose given their audience, format, and topic. BBWP modeled RAFT with two primary sources, Jackson’s defense of the removal policy (Role, Andrew Jackson; Audience, “aborigines;” Format, address to the tribes as they prepare to leave; and Topic, why this action is necessary) and a Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation (Role, Cherokee Nation; Audience, people attending the “funeral” of the Cherokee Nation; Format, Eulogy; Topic, Our People). RAFT has the potential to deepen students’ understanding of an event and develop their historical thinking skills by prompting them to consider historical perspective and competing historical narratives.

Found Poem is a unique way for students to synthesize concepts from a primary source and organize them into a creative visual. You literally “find” a poem in a source…it’s easier than it sounds. Found Poem is broken down into manageable steps so that no “traditional” poetry writing skills are needed; students don’t necessarily need to know they are writing a poem! I’ve slightly modified/clarified BBWP’s procedure for Found Poem: 1. Teacher should share the idea of a found poem with the class, show a model or model the process. 2. Students read passage independently, highlighting key words or phrases that help to define the meaning of the passage. 3. Students may either work individually or in pairs or small groups to arrange words and phrases into a Found Poem. Encourage students to consider the use poetic devices such as imagery, personification, simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhythm, and rhyme, as well as the use of white space and writing words in a shape, size, and direction that reflects their meaning. 4. Students come together and share their poem. I really like Found Poem because of its effectiveness in exploring and evaluating key concepts within a source and because it requires students to express the meaning, tone, and significance in a format that’s easy for others to understand. Its accessible procedure and creative format encourages participation from different learning styles and learning abilities. BBWP modeled Found Poem with an 1838 letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson protesting the removal of the Cherokee Indians from the state of Georgia. Each group of teachers had a few paragraphs to read and from which to “find” a poem. Together, we collaborated on what phrases and ideas best represented our section as well as how to visually represent them. As each group presented, I learned about the entire document. Found Poem also leaves the teacher with excellent, content-rich wall décor that continues to teach long after the lesson. I used this with my world history class and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. One of my favorites has the poem written in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. It’s on my wall and we refer back to it whenever we need a refresher on the ideas of freedom that have shaped the world.

Two resources I’ve used to help add more writing, creativity, and thinking, without necessarily creating a lot of grading for myself, are

The Story in History: Writing your Way Into the American Experience by Margot Fortunato Galt and Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher’s Guide by Harvey Daniels, Steven Zemelman and Nancy Steineke.

I’m interested to know what documents you’ve used or what documents you think would work well for RAFT or Found Poem. What other forms of creative writing do you use in your history classroom?

Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer

To date, the book that has captivated me the most this year is Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer. This meticulously research account of Revere’s ride is a must read for teacher who teaches the revolutionary period. Full of interesting antidotes, little known facts and compelling action, Fisher has put together a read that I am planning to excerpt for my students next fall. Paul Revere’s Ride will not only engage them with Fischer’s writing, but intrigue them to learn more about this remarkable hero of the early revolution.

One of my favorite poems is “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”. Published on a wide scale in 1861, this lengthy masterpiece of Longfellow’s is in my opinion, a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the poem that I love so much is full of historical flaws and inaccuracies. In fact, I am almost embarrassed to admit that I like it, as I think of myself as a fairly current student of History.

Fischer, among others, has taught me just how wrong Longfellow’s poem is and where the major inaccuracies about Revere’s ride come from. Generally, I believe that most of America has learned about Revere’s ride from Longfellow’s poem and not from scholarly products on the man and his adventures in 1775. The first principle myth that Fischer revels is that Revere rode alone. On the contrary, Revere was one of two major riders out of Boston that night. He and William Dawes road from the British infested town of Boston via two different routes to guard their message against capture. Secondly, Longfellow neglects to highlight in his poem that Revere and Dawes ignited an explosion of other alert riders that evening. These additional riders took messages about the British on the march north and south of Boston; as far as Connecticut and New Hampshire. Thirdly, Longfellow never mentions in his poem that Revere and many others had been ‘alert riding’ for quite some time by the 18th of April. They were experienced and they had made the surrounding towns well aware of their roles and their alert system. Additionally, Longfellow omits that General Gage and the British command was very much aware of all of the ‘alert riding’ going on prior to the 18th. In fact, patrols were deployed to thwart as many alerts as possible that night. It’s hard to conclude with the mentioning the fact that Longfellow depicts Revere completing his mission and terminating his “Midnight Ride” in Concord Towne. Fischer reminds us that Revere was actually captured by one of those British patrols with William Dawes. A young doctor by the name of Prescott completed the Revere/Dawes alert in Concord after meeting them by chance not far from Merriam’s Corner.

The ‘Paul Revere myths’ created by Longfellow were a great necessity to this country when the poem was written in 1861. At the time, the country was at the brink of Civil War and the war seemed inevitable at the time. This country needed a patriotic super hero, and Longfellow worked hard to produce it through his classic poem. The most ironic part of this part of history is that the country always had a super hero in Paul Revere. In 1861, Paul Revere was not as extensively researched as he is today. Longfellow could never be expected to know as much about Revere and everything that was connected with him as Fischer gives us in Paul Revere’s Ride. Longfellow’s understanding of the Ride created a true folk hero through a tremendously enjoyable poem. What Fischer reveals to us are a myriad of reasons why America always had a true hero in Paul Revere.

Teaching Historical Context With Primary Sources & Podcasting

The Philosophy Behind the Lesson
Now that the second half of the school year is well-underway, I am becoming more and more cognizant of the fact that I need to teach my freshman students certain skills to prepare them for the larger-scale research projects that await them in their sophomore classes next year.

One of those skills is historical context.

Professor Claude Bélanger at Marianopolis College describes historical context as:

The context is understood as the events, or the climate of opinion, that surround the issue at hand. They help to understand its urgency, its importance, its shape. What was happening at the time of the event or the decision that sheds some light on it? In what type of society did the event occur? An urban one? A rich one? An educated one?

The Lesson
I wanted to come up with a fun way to teach my freshmen this concept.  So, I opened the class with an explanation of historical context.  We happen to be studying American colonial society prior to the American revolution.  So, the two issues I chose to highlight were the Great Awakening and colonial westward expansion into Native American lands.

Each group received one primary source quote or excerpt to analyze.  They did some pre-reading the night before, and now they had to apply that knowledge and set up the historical context to explain how people of the time might feel and why they might make the statements assigned to them.

Click here to see the handout they received.

They had the first half of class to do their research and writing, and then we recorded their results in a podcast during the second half of class.  Groups sent two representatives up to my desk, and they recorded there using a simple headset with microphone and my AudioExpert.com account. (Audio expert is something covered and demonstrated in an earlier History Connected Seminar this year.)

I published the podcasts before the kids even left the classroom using my PodBean.com account.  PodBean is easy to use.  If you know how to write a blog using Blogger or WordPress, PodBean is relatively intuitive.

Here are the podcasts that resulted:
D Block Podcast

Podcast Powered By Podbean

C Block Podcast

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Finally, to follow up on the lesson and ensure that everyone got the historical context for all of the quotes, students were assigned to go online and listen to the podcast one more time for homework. They were to take notes on the historical context explained by each of the other three groups on their handout from class.

Reflecting on the Results
The students really liked this lesson because... 

• It reinforced and reviewed the reading and outline work they had done the night before.
• They got to work in groups and talk to each other throughout the class (it was a student-centered activity). 
• They love publishing podcasts online.  Fourteen and fifteen-year-olds love to hear their own voices! 
• Also, I often send emails home informing parents when we publish podcasts or videos from class.  Parents love hearing what their children are learning directly from their mouths and in their own words.

I really liked this lesson because...

• It was quick, one 55 minute class period.
• The kids were engaged and motivated the entire time they were in class.
• The work they are doing is applying the knowledge they have already learned.  It isn't about spitting back information they memorized, it is about higher order thinking. 
• Also, I tend to get a lot of feedback, from both parents and students, when our lessons result in something we publish.  Parents email me and comment on the actual podcast.  I can also see how many "hits" each podcast gets right on the PodBean site, so I know that students are going back and listening.

Thoughts of Summer

With a break from the snow and a day of unseasonably warmer weather my thoughts turn to History Connected summer plans.

The History Connected project will offer a Summer Institute titled War and Society from the American Revolution to the War in Vietnam. This exciting course offered by our partner Primary Source will examine the impact of war on American society during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. This institute will explore the ways in which American society was shaped by the United States' involvement in various wars at home and abroad during this period. Themes will include the experiences of men, women, and children on the home front, labor and the war effort, the struggle for racial integration in the Armed services, anti-war movements, and the commemoration of war in American collective memory.

Teachers at a past summer institute work on document analysis.

War and Society from the American Revolution to the War in Vietnam:

Course dates: July 11 - 15, 2011

Location: Reading Memorial High School

Course time: 8:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. (with a longer field trip day TBD)

Follow-up session: October TBA, 2011

PDPs/Graduate credit offered: 67.5 PDPs or 3 professional development graduate credits

Teachers who are interested in furthering their summer professional development might consider one of the many Landmarks in American History and Culture workshops for school teachers offered by the National Endowment for the humanities. Descriptions of their rich course offerings are available at: http://www.neh.gov/projects/landmarks-school.html.

Timely Reading on the Civil War

History book discussion study groups have been part of History Connected programming since the grant’s inception in 2009. Working with Bob Forrant, a professor of history at UMass Lowell, our teachers come together in monthly meetings to discuss a range of books related to our yearly theme of “War, Society, State, and Citizenship.”

Professor Forrant’s work with our teachers in the History Book Discussion Study Group was recently featured in the online “e-news at UMass Lowell.” Read the full article “Professor, Alum Lead History Book Club” online at http://www.uml.edu/Media/eNews/Teaching_American_History.html.

Our most recent book group meeting focused on a discussion of Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. While Faust’s book is ranked as #1 on Pulitzer Prize winning historian James McPherson’s list of the “Five Best Books about the Civil War Away from the Battlefield,” teachers engaged in serious discussion regarding how to utilize this book’s content with students in ways that evoke historical empathy and a greater understanding of the impact of the Civil War on soldiers, their families, and the nation as a whole.

Our online discussion forum featured thoughtful replies that illustrated teachers’ attempts to make meaning of Faust’s important text. Teachers addressed selections and strategies that could be used in teaching this grim, yet humane and important subject in the U.S. history classroom.

"Faust's work on the American Civil War is in all respects depressing, brutal, and a period of our history that most of us would prefer to comprehend with statistical relevance," commented one of our teachers, "but teh deeply painful truth is that death is very real. The struggle to understand death was unavoidable." As was written in the 1864 Daily South Carolinian, "Who has not lost a friend during the war? We are a land of mourning. As another teacher summarized, "The study of these ordinary soldiers is important for our students' learning and understanding of the intense impact of this war on American society, economics, politics, and culture."

With this year marking the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, many history organizations are providing updated websites and increased access to a variety of Civil War resources. The History Connected wiki (www.historyconnected.wikispaces.com) site contains a variety of online resources related to teaching about the Civil War. Highlights include:

Disunion
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/
One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, Americans went to war with themselves. Disunion revisits and reconsiders America's most perilous period -- using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded.

Timeline: The Civil War Interactive, The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/20/opinion/20101029-civil-war.html
An unfolding history of the major events of the Civil War using contemporaneous coverage from the New York Times' article and photo archives.

Pictorial Americana
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/toc.html

See the Table of Contents to access a variety of images from every year of the Civil War. Additional links provide access to images of Women's Activities during the Civil War and African Americans during the Civil War.

...

Virtual Museum Exhibit at Clara Barton National Historic Site
http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/exhibits/clba/index.html

This exhibit showcases the extraordinary life, tenacious personality, remarkable leadership, and humanitarian contributions of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. Visitors can explore Clara Barton's rich professional work and honors, engaging personal life and letters, and take a virtual tour of her Victorian-style Glen Echo, Maryland home and American Red Cross headquarters.

New York Historical Society Podcasts

https://www.nyhistory.org/web/default.php?section=whats_new&page=public_programs_media

Two renowned Civil War historians – Drew Gilpin Faust and David W. Blight – examine the lives that were irrevocably changed by the Civil War and the mental and physical suffering of a nation. Scroll down the site to access.

“New Interpretations of the Civil War.” History Now, American History Online. December 2010. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/12_2010/interactive.php

The “Interactive History” component provides images of selected Civil War letters. Along with transcripts this site provides audio narrations of the letters along with a lens that changes the script writing into type making it easier to read.

...

Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/
Digital archive with letters, newspapers and other documents pertaining to two communities – one in Pennsylvania and one in Virginia – during the Civil War

Toward Racial Equality: Harper’s Weekly Reports on Black America, 1857 - 1874

http://blackhistory.harpweek.com/

In an age before radio, television, and the Internet, print publications ruled the news business and Harper’s Weekly was king, capturing the lion’s share of the nation’s newspaper audience. This site provides access to rich primary sources (though some of which would be deemed very offensive today, teachers should use care in presenting these valuable resources to students). This site is a valuable resource which provides an important perspective on the history of African Americans.

Not Just a Man’s War: Women in the American Civil War 1861-1865
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/manswar/
This site provides a simulation for students in which they take on the role of a young woman in 1862 who has recently left her girlhood home to join the war effort for your side in the Civil War or War Between the States. Through work with primary sources, a cyber scavenger hunt and historical letter writing, students work to present new learnings in a class presentation.

See the History Connected wiki at http://historyconnected.wikispaces.com/RepublicofSufferingReading and http://historyconnected.wikispaces.com/ParticipationintheAmericanCivilWar for other Civil War teaching ideas and resources.

Resources to Share!

The History Connected project has made extensive use of its wiki site http://www.historyconnected.wikispaces.com/ as an archive of resources related to History Connected programming. As the wiki is available on the web, participating teachers and anyone with an Internet connection can access session resources, suggested websites, and other materials related to History Connected programming.

We look forward to expanding the use of the History Connected blog so as to highlight our programming and share information and resources on an ongoing basis. Beginning later this month, our History Connected Teacher Fellows will be featured blog authors, highlighting content, strategies and resources related to the History Connected project and yearly theme of "War, Society, State, and Citizenship.