Week 4

I absolutely loved the work of piecing together Fred Stohr’s life based on primary source documents. I think this could be an invaluable lesson for kids of any age with the right adaptations. The first thing that came to mind was using it to introduce an important person in an upcoming unit. George Washington, for instance. We could look at letters, diary entries, portraits, and probably several other things to have the kids try to tell the story of his life in their own words. This way the teacher could assess prior knowledge of the figure, plan for filling in the content area knowledge gaps, and create a personal connection to the figure that the students wouldn’t get from just reading the textbook or even analyzing one or two primary sources as a class. Using someone close to the teacher adds yet another layer of personal connection to the project. This would be easier for more recent events such as World War II, the Vietnam War, and maybe even the Great Depression. This would be easier if the teacher had old family documents. For example, I have a lot of records from both of my maternal grandparents (born in 1920 and 1926) so I have school records from the 20s and 30s, food stamps from WWII, photographs, and receipts. I could piece together a good lesson just using my own resources fairly easily.