Elem Social Studies 10 (Marlea)

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.

I really enjoyed working with the primary sources in class last night. I really liked the way we were given textbook information followed by primary sources and were repeatedly amending the claims we made about the causes of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I loved this because it really forces students to question everything. When I was in school it was always “well, that’s what the textbook says so it must be right.” In my experience, textbooks leave out many critical pieces of the story and certainly the more interesting aspects! Primary sources are an excellent way to show students that there is not always a drastic and immediate cause and effect. From reading the textbook information, it seemed like the arrest of Rosa Parks was a direct and critical cause of the boycott. Through reading primary sources, students are able to piece together that the boycott was actually a long-time coming rather than a spur of the moment decision. To add to this, I might show them something that implicates that the arrest of Rosa Parks was even a part of this plan and let them debate whether they thought that was reliable information or not based on even more primary sources. Further research might be a good opportunity for a project for a summative assessment.

One thing that really stood out to me in class last night was the “It says… I say… And so…” activity we did in class. While completing the exercise I struggled most with the “It says” column and I liked the “I say” column the most so I was really surprised when the rest of the class said the opposite. I had a hard time pulling straight facts because it is so ingrained in me to read historical articles and texts with the “I say” mindset. I think this is a fantastic exercise as it is for social studies because it’s practice thinking like a historian. I think teaching it as such would make a difference in presentation to classes completing it as well.

This is essentially an outline of the discussions my professors at VCU conducted every class for my MA in History. We’d discuss what the author wrote, what we thought the author meant or was biased toward, and then what we were able to conclude from combining the two with our perspectives. We were taught from the beginning that this is how historians work, so I was really excited to see this sort of activity for elementary students because I never did anything like that in elementary school. It was all worksheets and memorization.

An activity like this is an opportunity to make history come alive for students if you spin it right. Much like getting kids excited about being a scientist or mathematician, this is an excellent way for kids to be excited about being a historian and teach them to love doing history. (A professor once told me you can’t study history. You can read other people’s opinions and research and form your own ideas and that is the doing of history.) I definitely plan to use this with my students. Even though it will be hard for them to learn how to do, I think it does an excellent job of teaching the critical thinking skills needed to do history.

From reading through the Pedagogy and Theoretical Framework, I expect to be actively engaged with the material and activities presented in class. Outside of class, I expect to use Box on a very regular basis, at least several times a week. I expect to put a lot of work into this course to complete the readings and assignments on time, but I do hope to be able to complete some assignments early as time permits.

I am a diligent and hard worker, and this is the class I’ve looked forward to taking the most since starting this program. I expect it to be a lot of fun and, more importantly, than I will learn a lot. I’m really looking forward to the Literature Circle project and the position paper that I will need to complete as a grad student. I expect the latter to be a real challenge and I’m really looking forward to the reflection and thought that will need to go into it.